Lesson video

Hello, my name's Mrs. Tamasi and I'm gonna be working through review on your citizenship lesson today.

So if you've got everything you need, you are all settled and you're good to go, then we can make a start.

So the title of today's lesson is "How can we tell if the UK is democratic" and that forms part of the unit on "Should the UK be called a democracy?" Hopefully by the end of the lesson today, you'll be able to explain what is meant by a democracy and give examples of democratic features seen in the UK.

So there were three key words today.

Now you'll see them in bold throughout the lessons.

So if you ever need to, you can refer back to them here.

The first one is democracy.

Now democracy is a system of government in which citizens vote in regular, fair elections for representatives who then make laws and decisions on their behalf.

The next is representative democracy.

This is a type of democracy where citizens choose others to represent them making important decisions on their behalf.

And the third key word is First Past the Post that is the voting system used in the UK to elect members of some local councils and Members of Parliament whereby the candidate with the most votes in a constituency wins.

As I said, if you didn't get all that or you forget and you need to, you can refer back to them here.

So we have two learning cycles today and we'll make a start on the first one, which is what democratic features does the UK have? Now when we are starting here, we're talking about democracy.

So democracy derives from the Greek words, we've got demos, which is common people, and kratos, which is rule.

Therefore democracy means rule by the people.

This concept has developed a lot over time and how democracy began back in ancient Greece isn't as it looks today, and it also looks different across the world as well.

So that's something to bear in mind.

Obviously we are focusing on whether the UK should be called a democracy.

There are two main types of democracy.

Now these are direct and representative.

The difference between them is that direct would be when the citizens join in directly with it.

So for example, they vote and take part in things like referendums, whereas representative is when you have somebody that represents on your behalf.

So for example in the UK, who's voted for in the general election? Do you know? Thinking about the MPs.

So the Members of Parliament are the ones that represent on behalf in the UK.

So some countries may share the same type of democracy.

So they might be a representative democracy such as the UK and the USA, but they still have varying perspectives on the extent of how they run and how they function.

So all that is not as simple as we've got direct democracies and we've got representative democracies.

And that's how one country runs if they're a direct democracy and another country runs like this, if we're representative.

There are lots of crossovers, lots of countries are doing things differently.

So that's an important thing to remember here.

However, all types of democracy do share some key features that ensure citizens have a say in how the country is run.

So we're gonna have a look at some of them now.

Can you think of any or what you would expect to see in a democracy? So we'll make a start.

Do you know any of these? Free and fair elections.

Anymore you know? Multi-party system.

Do you know what that is? So this is when we have the lots of different political parties that are in a country.

We've got protection of human rights, active citizenship so that the citizens can take part in the process, rule of law that nobody is above the law, and then we've got separation of powers to ensure no branch has too much power, so we separate between the legislative, executive and judiciary.

Hopefully these should sound familiar to you 'cause we are gonna be touching upon these ideas in the lesson.

Now according to the 2024 democracy index, the UK is seen as a full democracy and that's because it has all six of these features of democracy.

And what we're gonna look at in this lesson is how well we think the UK does at this.

So check for understanding now.

Which of the following would you expect to observe in a democracy? A, only one political party? B, free and fair elections? C, protection of human rights? Did you work it out? It is free and fair elections and its protection of human rights.

Great job if you manage to get that.

So we're gonna look at some of these a bit further now.

So we'll start with free and fair elections.

Now they do need to reflect the free expression and the will of the people.

This means that elections need to be held regularly.

There's no point in having them done once or twice.

They happen on a regular occasion and they happen in secret and it allows the majority rule.

That way it works means it's free and fair and it forms part of a democracy.

So in the UK, can you think of the different types of elections that exist? So we've got lots of different ones.

You can vote from local counsellors all the way up to Members of Parliament.

And that national election is called the general election.

That key word First Past the Post, most elections in the UK take part using the First Past the Post system.

So if the idea that everyone votes and the first candidate kind of passed that post, that gets the most votes wins.

There are some other voting systems used.

So there are things like additional member systems and single transferable votes as well in some of the other elections.

But most of the time you will hear about First Past the Post.

What we are focusing on is how does the UK use these democratic features.

So how do we think elections are free and fair in the UK? Have you got some ideas? Can you think of things like universal suffrage? Now you might not have heard that word before but you probably know what this means.

So it's this idea that all the British citizens aged 18 or over who are registered and meet the eligibility requirements have the right to vote.

People aren't just being excluded or saying, "Actually, do you know what? No you can't vote because of your background," or this or that.

It's making sure that all of those people that meet that minimum requirement are eligible to vote.

Then there's secret ballots.

'Cause could you imagine if you think, have you ever been influenced by other people or what they say or maybe you don't wanna upset somebody? By having a secret ballot, it means nobody knows who you're voting for.

You're not gonna feel pressured to say, "Oh actually yeah.

Okay, I'll do that," because you know it's secret and you can vote what you truly would like and that helps in a democracy as well.

You then have the Independent Electoral Commission.

Now what they are is if you think what the word independent is, they're separate to the election process.

And what they're there to do is specifically make sure those elections are fair.

They set the clear rules, they monitor the process and the investigate any complaints.

By having this embedded, it's ensuring that the elections are fair and nobody's cheating or that to prevent the elections from being rigged.

So true or false now? The UK helps to make elections fair by following the principle of universal suffrage.

That is true.

And as we said earlier, it is that idea of allowing the most people that are eligible to vote.

So we said that it's a representative democracy.

Can you remember what that is? Who's representing in here? The picture might give you a bit of a clue.

So this is the Members of Parliament.

Brilliant if you've managed to remember that.

So this is the House of Commons and the people in it that are representing are the Members of Parliament.

Brilliant job if you manage to get that.

Now the general election happens every five years at least.

The elected officials are chosen by voters to represent their views and make decisions on complex issues.

Once elected, the MPs take their seat and they carry out their duties in the House of Commons, which is like in that image there.

Now what a multi-party system means, we mentioned it briefly earlier if you can remember, it's the more than one political party exists for the people to vote for.

This means that it's offering choice and it helps to limit power.

Can you think of some political parties? Who can you think of that exist in the UK? If you manage to get some, did you know that there's actually over 400 political parties in the UK and these are registered with the electoral commission.

So there are many that are small, maybe they focus on specific regions.

So they might be little local to certain areas or maybe on specific issues.

But over 400, that's actually offering a lot of different choice and a lot of varied viewpoints in the UK.

Now some people might say actually, "Well, I've only heard of a few bigger political parties." But these smaller parties can influence national elections.

To give you a bit of an example, in 2010, a coalition government was formed between the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats.

Now a coalition government is when there wasn't one political party that got enough votes to form a government.

So instead what they did was they came together and they put their votes together to form the government.

But by doing that there has to be some agreement there.

They're gonna have more ideas together and a wider variety of views of how things are run.

So now we'll look at in a strong democracy, we've also said that we need protection of human rights.

Now the reason for this is it enables freedom of speech, freedom of association, and protection of individual and minority rights.

So to give you an example, the UK uses the Human Rights Act 1998, which incorporates the European Convention of Human Rights.

And it means that citizens have the right to express their concern, voice their opinions and they're also protected.

So you might see that protests do exist in the UK and people can gather without fear of punishment.

And this is because the Human Rights Act 1998.

So which key feature of democracy allows citizens to protest without fear of punishment? Is it A, free and fair elections? B, multi-party system? C, protection of human rights? It is protection of human rights.

Well done if you've got that.

So we are now gonna look at our last two democratic features.

So we've got the rule of law and this is where we are saying that no one is above the law.

The law treats everyone equally.

Yeah, it means the laws have to be clear, publicised, stable and evenly applied.

This means that the citizens are protected from the abuse of power.

In the UK, it applies to everyone.

That's even the monarch.

So everybody has to follow and obey the laws like everyone else.

The reason it's a key feature of democracy is because everyone has to act within the law.

This includes government officials, everyone has to follow it.

It also means that no one's above the law.

So those in positions of power, think people like the government officials are subject to the law and that ensures it as accountability.

They can't go doing what they like.

And equality before the law as well.

So it makes sure that the law's applied equally to everyone.

So regardless of their status or position, there is equality there.

Final democratic feature we're gonna have a look at is separation of powers.

Now what this does is it ensures power and responsibility is divided amongst the different branches.

What it does is it prevent in any one group or individual having too much power.

By doing this it means that we're able to scrutinise and hold people accountable and ensure there's a check and balance.

So in the UK do you know how power is separated between the different branches? Do you know who what they are? You've got the legislative, so that's the House of Commons, House of Lords and the monarchy, that's the UK parliament.

Then you've got the executive.

Do you know that one? That's the government and you've got the judiciary.

So that is to do with the enforcing of the law, the judges that side, the judges in the court system.

So check for understanding.

Which key feature of democracy ensures that nobody is above the law? A, multi-party system? B, rule of law? C, separation of powers? It is B, it's rule of law.

So that moves us onto our first task for today.

Can you explain two democratic features that the UK has with an example for each? Now you can use the pictures below to help you come up with your ideas.

Take some time and pause.

Once you've got your response, if you unpause, and we can go through the feedback together.

How did you get on with that? Hopefully the pictures managed to help you give some ideas.

Now your answer could have looked like this.

So one democratic feature that the UK has is free and fair elections.

This is where citizens get to vote to choose their representatives.

An example of this is the general election where citizens vote for their MP to represent them in UK parliament.

Another democratic feature in the UK is its multi-party system.

In the UK more than one political party exists and this offers choice and scrutiny to the citizens.

For example, there are over 400 political parties registered with the electoral commission allowing the UK citizens a wide variety of choice.

Now of course you might have picked some of the other four democratic features as well.

So if you had separation of powers or rule of law, maybe protection of human rights, any of those would've been great as well and as long as hopefully you managed to give an example.

So great work on that.

We're now gonna move on to the second learning cycle, which is what democratic features could be improved.

In the UK democracy allows citizens to have a say in how the country is run.

However, there are ongoing debates about whether the democratic system is fair and inclusive for everyone.

So hopefully by the end of this learning cycle you will be able to make an informed decision or judgement of where you stand with this.

So the debates include issues around who can vote, voter turnout and the voting system.

Now we are gonna look at these in more detail.

So who can vote? And with this we are specifically talking a moment about the general election.

So think about the general election, who can vote? Any ideas? Remember the UK has universal suffrage so it allows all eligible citizens to vote.

However, there are still some people that aren't able to vote and there are some people that are advocating to extend voting rights.

Do you know what groups can't? So to give you an example, 16 to 17 year olds who are affected by government decisions but are currently not eligible to vote in the general elections.

Now this is something to watch because it's there are talks in government of lowering the voting age.

So this might change in the future.

The other group is certain prisoners, so for example, those serving non-violent sentences.

Some people say the vote should be extended to them as well.

Now Lucas says here, "I'd like to vote at 16.

The General Election only happens at least every five years.

These decisions will impact my future." Laura says, "I wouldn't like to vote at 16.

I want to wait until have more experience.

Some of the issues are quite complex." And this is it, isn't it? People are gonna have different sides to the debate and different opinions of whether voting rights should be extended.

So lowering the voting age could improve democratic features in the UK by engaging young people, ensuring better representation of age groups in elections.

Check for understanding.

Which of these citizens can vote in the general election in the UK? A.

Those aged 16 and above? B, those aged 17 and above? C, those aged 18 and above? It is C.

There are talks of lowering it, but as of yet this hasn't happened.

So Laura says, "Not every adult can vote though.

There are some exceptions such as prisoners, members of the House of Lords and the monarch." That's a good point.

So even though it is 18 or above, there are still some exceptions and there are still some people that aren't able to vote.

Now we're gonna have a look at voter turnout.

So in the UK, voter turnout can sometimes be low.

Now what voter turnout means, like Sofia says there is the voter turnout is the percentage of eligible voters who actually vote in an election.

To give you an example, in 2024, general election voter turnout was only 59.

7%.

So this was the lowest turnout since 2001.

And what that means is that of the people eligible to vote, so about six in 10 people turned up to vote and what that means is a significant number of eligible voters chose not to participate.

Now there could be so many different reasons for this.

Sometimes it includes things like voter apathy and safe seats.

So we'll go through these now and find out what they mean.

Maybe you've even heard of them before.

Have you got ideas what they might be? So Sofia says, "Voter apathy occurs when eligible voters choose not to vote often because they're either uninterested, disengaged, or disillusioned with politics, they might feel that their vote won't make a difference." If members of the electorate do not vote, then it can mean that the government does not truly reflect the views and needs of the citizens.

So if you think if actually four outta 10 people are choosing not to vote, then the government actually might not be reflective of their actual views.

Now this can lead to an unfair representation and lower trust in the government.

So can you think of any ways to improve this? So one way would be engaging younger people because if they understand the importance of voting or voting is made easier, then hopefully you can get more people talking about it, more people turn out to vote and then it becomes more representative.

Check for understanding 'cause we've gone through some tricky terms there that are quite similar.

Fill in the blanks.

Voter is a percentage of eligible voters that actually vote in an election.

And then you've got voter is when eligible voters choose not to vote in an election because they are uninterested in politics.

Can you work out what the blanks are? So the first one is turnout.

Voter turnout.

And the second one is voter apathy is when an eligible voters choose not to vote 'cause they're uninterested.

And it might be that you need to go over these terms so that you don't confuse 'em 'cause they do sound quite similar.

So constantly if you make sure you've got a note of the difference between the two.

Now we mentioned earlier the voting system in the UK.

So hopefully you've remembered, it's First Past the Post.

Now how does it work? Have you got ideas? Do you know what happens? So there are 650 constituencies and they each get to elect one MP.

So think about in the House of Commons then you have 650 Members of Parliament.

Now when the voters go to the polling station, they choose one candidate and they mark a cross next to their name, the ballot paper will tell them which party they belong to or if they're independent.

The candidate with the most votes in the constituency wins.

It's called a plurality system because it doesn't mean that there's gonna be a majority one that wins.

The winner might only have 35-40% of the votes and they could still win because the rest of the candidates got a lot less than that.

Now with this system comes something where some constituencies are sometimes known as safe seats.

What that means is that you have one political party that consistently wins in that area by a large margin.

So to give an example, the Liverpool Walton seat in Liverpool has been held by the Labour party since 1964.

You've then got the Wokingham seat in Berkshire has been held by the Conservative party since 1997.

And can you think how this might impact on voters or voter turnout? Any ideas? So did you manage to remember that voter apathy, it could lead to this because others might feel that their vote won't count.

If they're not interested in those parties that hold them seats, they might think it's not worth them voting because they might not be able to change it.

Check for understanding.

Which of these are examples of a safe seat? A safe seat is guaranteed because no one's allowed to vote? A safe seat is consistently won by the same party with a large margin? Or a safe seat is one where voters have no choice but to vote for a single candidate? Did you get it? It is B so that it's consistently won by the same party with a large margin.

Now some argue that the First Past the Post system also isn't fair because only the winning votes count.

To give you an example here, so you've got the 2024 general election results, you've got the parties there and then you've got their vote share and the amount of seats that they've got.

So just take some time, just have a little look at that and think if you think that that is fair.

Now Lucas says, "But Reform UK had more votes than seats.

That doesn't seem too fair." And this is why some argue that it's not a fair system because what can happen is that smaller parties with significant support might get votes spread across many different areas, but they don't win a majority in an area.

So they have lots of votes overall, but they're not gonna get a seat because they haven't won individual constituencies.

And what that can lead to is smaller parties being underrepresented in parliament.

So the government might not truly reflect the views of citizens.

To overcome this, some suggest that proportional representation is fairer.

Now proportional representation is where the seats match the percentage of votes.

So where we saw there having like 33.

7% of the votes would mean that you had 33.

7% of the seats in parliament as well.

And that's why they say that that's a fairer system because it's representative of everyone's vote.

True or false now? Smaller political parties have an advantage in the First Past the Post system.

That's false.

Smaller parties can be at a disadvantage and this is because they might not be able to win a majority, therefore not receiving any representation in parliament.

There are some other things to do with the voting system.

So now we're gonna have a look at tactical voting.

So this can happen when people vote for a party or candidate they do not fully support, often to stop a different party from winning.

So some see that as a good way to influence the outcome.

Others think it limits people's ability to vote for the party they truly want.

So again, it is another one where there are pros and cons to both.

It can make voters feel like they have to compromise, which may not fully reflect their real choices.

So the reason people choose to tactically vote can be for so many different reasons again.

We're gonna have a look at a couple.

So here, "I voted for the party who had the best chance of beating the one I really did not want in power.

That helps to stop the worst option from winning." Then we've got, "I voted for a larger party that I did not fully support because I did not want my vote to go to waste on the small party I liked that would not get enough votes to win." So you've got two different reasons there of why people might tactically vote.

Check for understanding.

A tactical vote can occur when, A, voters choose a smaller party because they believe they'll gain more seats? B, voters choose a larger party that they do not like to stop the worst option winning? C, voters choose a larger party even if they prefer a smaller party to prevent the party they dislike from winning? How did you get on? That is B and C.

So there are different reasons why tactical votes can occur.

And that moves us onto the final task for today.

So we've got Lucas and Sofia here and they've suggested what feature they believe should be prioritised to help improve the UK's democracy.

Lucas has said, "I believe that prisoners should be able to vote," and Sofia says, "I believe that the First Past the Post system needs to be changed." Decide who you agree with more and explain how this feature could be improved to create a fairer democracy in the UK.

Now take some time here.

Maybe you might wanna discuss this with a partner or somebody else if you want first.

And then you could see which person that you agree with more and then come up with some ideas of how to improve that feature that they've suggested.

When you're ready, unpause and we can go through some feedback together.

How did you find that? Now if you chose to agree with Lucas, you could have had something like this.

I agree that the feature of democracy, which needs to be improved most is allowing prisoners to vote 'cause it's important that everyone's voice is heard no matter their situation.

They're still affected by the law and government decisions like policies on healthcare and criminal justice.

If prisoners have to follow laws, they should be able to have a say in who makes those laws.

The system can be improved by allowing voting for nonviolent offenders and offering the opportunity to vote by post so they do not miss out.

Did you have something similar to that? If you didn't, you might have chose to agree with Sofia.

Now your answer could have looked like this.

I agree with Sofia that the feature we need to improve to create a fairer democracy in the UK is First Past the Post system as it does not represent everyone's views fairly.

This is because a party can win majority seats without having the majority votes.

So some voters feel their vote does not matter or is not counted.

This could lead to voter apathy.

The system can be improved by introducing proportional representation.

This would ensure that the number of seats each party wins reflects the percentage of votes they receive.

Hopefully that's shown you and you've been able to argue one of those sides.

And this leads us on to the summary for today's session.

So to summarise, the UK is considered a full representative democracy.

It follows six key features to a democracy, including free and fair elections, multi-party system, protection of human rights, active citizenship, rule of law, and separation of powers.

The UK has examples of how it upholds each of these features, such as having an Independent Electoral Commission.

However, democracy in the UK can be improved to make it fairer and more inclusive.

This can be achieved by addressing issues like who can vote, voter turnout, voter apathy, and First Past the Post electoral system.

Now one thing to remember is to try and remember the differences between some of those similar words like voter turnout and voter apathy, remembering which which is which.

And also hope you've managed now to decide where you stand on how can we tell if the UK is democratic and whether it needs a fairer system or whether it is fine as it is.

Thanks for working with me today and enjoy the rest of your day.