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NATIONAL LIBERALS have long been worried about the failings of representative democracy.  Instead we favour participatory democracy.

In the former, MPs are supposedly elected to represent their constituents.  However, they don’t always do that.  Brexit is a case in point – and as Matthew Goodwin (Professor of Politics in the School of Politics and International Relations at the University of Kent) recently noted:

‘Brexit was the first moment when a majority of people outside of parliament formally asked for something that a majority of people inside parliament didn’t want to give’.

What use is Parliament if it doesn’t carry out – or even sabotages – the will of the people?

Participatory democracy has been described as ‘individual participation by citizens in political decisions and policies that affect their lives, especially directly rather than through elected representatives’.   https://www.dictionary.com/browse/participatory-democracy

The National Liberal Party has constantly promoted truly democratic initiatives and highlighted different elements of participatory democracy.  These include Proportional Representation, a ‘None Of The Above’ (NOTA) option on ballot papers, Referendums, Preferendums and Voter Recall.  As can be seen by our above poster we’re concentrating on Referendums and readers are invited to debate the issue on our Facebook page here:  https://www.facebook.com/groups/52739504313/

• ALSO check out our first Referendum poster Trust The People – Not The Politicians! http://nationalliberal.org/trust-the-people-not-the-politicians