Referendums get a bad press – but to fix Britain, we need more of them | George Monbiot

Voting once every five years alienates us from politics. Participatory rather than representative democracy would allow us more say in how we run the country

You lost, suck it up: this is how our politics works. If the party you voted for lost the election, you have no meaningful democratic voice for the next five years. You can go through life, in this “representative democracy”, unrepresented in government, while not being permitted to represent yourself.

Even if your party is elected, it washes its hands of you when you leave the polling booth. Governments assert a mandate for any policy they can push through parliament. While elections tend to hinge on one or two issues, parties will use their win to claim support for all the positions in their manifestos, and for anything else they decide to do during their term in office.

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from The Guardian http://ift.tt/2yw9sUf