International
Public Policy
Review
Not everything is rotten in the
state of Westminster: Three points
to consider for UK’s constitutional reformers
Johannes Uhl
IPPR 2012/2013
In the past two decades, the United Kingdom has experienced an unprecedented move
towards institutional change and constitutional reform. The traditional setup of
government in Britain – known to scholars of comparative politics as the Westminster
Model – seems to be outdated. And it seems obvious what levers the reformers must
pull: write a constitution that empowers the people as sovereign, abolish the
aristocratic traditions embodied by the House of Lords, make the head of state elected
by the people, devolve authority to the regions, and make the electoral system more
proportional. But is the change to come this clear-cut? Will we really face a new end
of history with the consensus model of democracy triumphing over its British
counterpart? Will federalism, presidentialism, proportional representation and an
extensively large party system be the new standard for democracy?
International Public Policy Review • Vol.7, No 2 (June 2013)
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International Public Policy Review 1
We should doubt this. Firstly, the consensus model does not fully deliver on the
promise of being “kinder and gentler”1 towards the people. Although policy outcomes
may be more responsive to people’s needs, consensus democracy performs less well in
terms of accountability and participation. With the larger number of actors involved in
decision-making, bargaining procedures and informal communication between
political elites are brought about. Sometimes disparagingly characterised as horsetrading, these processes tend to be rather non transparent and do allow for a relatively
low extent of public involvement. Furthermore, empirical evidence suggests that
participation in politics is less popular in consensus democracies; and that active
participation is less equally distributed along the ideological spectrum2.
Secondly, one should not diminish the qualities of Parliament. In modern polities, due
to the complexity of social life, democracy cannot be enacted through direct
participation of every citizen. So it is Parliament as the representative body that
ensures popular sovereignty. The aim of constitutional reform should thus be to keep
Parliament as strong an actor as possible. Strengthening the second chamber by
making it elected and thereby effectively splitting up Parliament does not achieve this
goal. With two different kinds of MPs connected to each citizen, responsibilities and
accountability are blurred. Furthermore, if the two chambers are elected at different
points in time, their compositions will be different. This may then lead to a need for
bargaining and compromise; or even to gridlocks within Parliament. Its strength
against external actors will decrease. Thereby people’s power will indirectly be
harmed, too.
Finally, reformers should not forget the virtues of the British electoral system,
colloquially referred to as first past the post (FPTP). It is true that it produces very
disproportional results, discriminates against minor parties and marginal opinions. But
it also leads to a high level of accountability of politicians as it ensures a strong link
between members of parliament and their constituencies as they are directly
accountable to them and the role of parties is weaker than in proportional systems.
Secondly, FPTP has the crucial advantage of being a very simple and comprehensible
system. Introducing a new system or even several different systems might lead to
1
2
Arend Lijphart, Patterns of Democracy (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999), 275.
Tom W.G. van der Meer et al., “The Politicized Participant: Ideology and Political Action in 20 Democracies”,
Comparative Political Studies 42, no. 11 (2009): 1426–1457.
2
Not Everything is Rotten in Westminster
confusion, which eventually decreases people’s inclination to vote and engage in
politics. And finally, experience shows that proportional representation will almost
always lead to the need to form governmental coalitions. This however involves the
aforementioned informal elite practices typical for consensus systems.
Keeping the constitution up to date is important to ensuring the quality of democracy.
However, this does not imply that one has to jettison every unique characteristic of the
own constitutional tradition. British constitutional reformers are now in the privileged
position to create a new model that reconciles both the consensus and the majoritarian,
Westminster, model of democracy.
 M.Sc. Democracy and Comparative Politics (2012/2013), School of Public Policy,
University College London. Contact: johannes.uhl.12@ucl.ac.uk