UK Politics Unit 1 - key stats and examples

voter turnout:

party membership:

up to 2% of electorate from 0.4% in 2019
labour party (biggest historically by membership) down from 1 million in the early 1950s to 250,000 at the end of 2025. but the british population has grown by 20 million people

encouraging democratic participation:

prisoners can’t vote according to the 1983 Representation of the People Act. but in 2005 a prisoner took that to ECtHR, who said it was unlawful, and strongly suggested extending the franchise to prisoners. in 2017, the government agreed that prisoners on temporary license can vote, a compromise the ECtHR found suitable
australia enforces compulsory voting, and turnout therefore hovers around 90%. risk of donkey voting? apparently being listed first only worth 1 percentage point. benefits for motivating patricipation outweigh? but also goes against people’s liberty; choice not to vote pillar of liberal democracies too.

pressure groups:

British Medical Association (BMA)

sectional group who want to protect interests of doctors, but also cause focused on public health
core insider groups
provides scientific evidence, uses technology (digital forms) sent to public to lobby the government, uses official westminster channels (e.g. select committees) to be heard
moderate success; initially wanted full ban on smoking in vehicles in 2011, scaled back to ban only when children in the car; else infringing on personal liberties

lobbying:

in 2014, Google spent $16,830,000 on lobbying
8/10 lobbyists in the UK are from FTSE companies; the biggest ones in the world → lobbying not equitable. richer voices hard more
2014 legislation to create a lobbying register to try and improve accountability, but hard to crack down on due to it being a form of free speech
companies exploit the government in times of crisis for economic gain; e.g. Pfizer over vaccines during COVID. UK gov expedited deal in an unsafe manner as Pfizer was saying ‘take it or leave it’ access to doses

think tanks:

Centre for Social Justice; centre-right, focused in poverty, human rights, voluntary sector
made £2,689,735 in 2021. doesn’t name its donors or the amount each gave
think tanks like CSJ open to monetary manipulation that may have a knock on effect on the integrity of government policy. lack of equity in voices being heard

corporations:

corporations have made huge donations to parties; 2006, International Motors Ltd. (who procure and distribute cars + their parts), £1.2 million to Tories
corporations can make donations even the biggest pressure groups can’t fathom, influencing party policy.
also own the media; Rupert Murdoch owns The Sun, the Times, Sunday Times, News of the World which especially pre-2015ish had a huuuge bearing on perceptions of government
corporations tend to hire politicians, civil servants once they leave office, mostly so their contacts in government can be accessed for lobbying. David Cameron → Greensill Capital. conflict of interest

HRA vs Bill of Rights

judging/rank people’s human rights abuses so as to decide if they get to continue with their case as a way to prevent unnecessary cases going forward fundamentally dishonours the 1948 UDHR, the 1953 ECHR which emphasise universality.
right to trial by jury - 90% of criminal convinctions made without it. the need to organise and convene and pay for juries would arugably waste more time and funds than the current system, goes against the spirit of the bill which proposes to cut court waiting times
a bill of rights gives the supreme court unprecedented power. the current HRA, which values the ECHR, keeps them in check; ECtHR rulings need to be considered, and this is better than prioritising UK common law because that law is much more confusing than the set of rulings against the clearly outlined ECHR made by the ECtHR.