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You really are nuts, you people claiming that we live in a democracy, where the govt discovers and implements as far as possible the will of the people - and you're lawyers!
The reality is “We have not got democratic government in this country to-day; we never had it, and I venture to suggest that we shall never have it. What we have done, in all the progress of reform and evolution of politics, is to broaden the basis of our oligarchy.” Anthony Eden: Equal Franchise Bill, HoC 29 March 1928. And “the British system is government of the people, for the people, with but NOT by, the people” – Leo Amery, Thoughts on the Constitution, 1947. Ted Short, highly regarded Labour Leader of the House of Commons (supposedly = the people), stated, very relevantly, in the Referendum Act debate 1975, “Although one would not expect Hon Members to go against the wishes of the people, they will remain free to do so”.
The most noted writers on political theory from the 1960s to the 1980s, Almond & Verba (The Civic Culture/Revisited, 1963/80) say “Although it is desirable that members of the public feel influential, the ordinary citizen cannot be permitted to have much actual influence. .... Democracy exists more as a myth than as a reality. Democracy may be better served by a public that is skeptical, rather than deferential, towards political leaders.” Well, we’ve gone beyond sceptical, to cynical or contemptuous. Chomsky writes that we have, not democracy but ‘polyarchy’, where government’s responsibility is “to safeguard a system of elite decision-making and public ratification”. Even in the most democratically developed countries, World Values Surveys have found that democrats who are critical, rather than approving, of their governments constitute a plurality of their electorates.