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Well, that's how the Westminster parliamentary system tends to work in practice. As Wikipedia puts it (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westminster_system#Critici
by hga 11y ago
Well, that's how the Westminster parliamentary system tends to work in practice. As Wikipedia puts it (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westminster_system#Criticisms https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westminster_system#Criticisms):
The threat posed by non-confidence votes is often used to justify extremely well-disciplined legislative parties in Westminster systems. In order to ensure the government always has the confidence of the majority of the house, the political culture of Westminster nations often makes it highly unusual for a legislator to vote against their party. Critics argue this in turn undermines the freedom and importance of Members of Parliament (MPs) in day-to-day legislating, making the cabinet the only organ of government where individual legislators can aspire to influence the decisions of the government.
- collyw 11y agoSo no "representative" part in representative democracy. Might as well just call it an elected doctatorship, as thats what its closer to.
- hga 11y agoYes it is. For the duration of the party or collation's control, said ruling majority has complete legislative and executive power, unless it screws up so much that it loses a vote of confidence. If the system doesn't have a strong constitution, like the U.K. ... well, in US terms, imagine the current majority completely changing the way Senators are selected, and replacing the Supreme Court with a different institution. Tony Blair's New Labour did the former with the House of Lords, don't remember who changed them from being the U.K.'s highest court. It is indeed an elected dictatorship, and something we in the US very explicitly rejected. And for some inexplicable reason, in both the U.K. and Australia, the governments (this is generally any of them as far as I know) have all but completely disarmed the people, eliminating as much as they can that ultimate form of feedback; strange, that. (It's not true of Canada, and to a lessor extent New Zealand.)
- collyw 11y agoSo no "representative" part in representative democracy. Might as well just call it an elected doctatorship, as thats what its closer to.