A Mockery of Democracy?
TALKING POLITICS
Catherine Carr
4.7 • 2.5K Ratings
🗓️ 2 May 2019
⏱️ 48 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Are the UK's looming European elections making a mockery of democracy, or is this how democracy is meant to work? Would cancelling them at the last minute make the situation worse? We talk about trust in politics, the threat to the two main parties, and the knock-on effects for the rest of Europe. Plus we discuss what can meaningfully happen before the end of October, and whether the events of the last few weeks have done permanent damage to the Tory brand. With Helen Thompson, Catherine Barnard and Chris Bickerton.
Talking Points:
Local elections and the European parliamentary elections are the closest that UK voters have been to getting a say on what’s going on—even if they may not actually have any consequences.
- Are they good or bad for democracy?
- People’s faith in democracy overall is declining.
Because of Brexit, and the upcoming elections, the fracturing in British party politics is greater than ever before—what does this mean for British politics?
- We overestimate how often we’ve had a two-party system. It’s actually rare (1832-1870 and 1945-1970)
- You need a stable UK to have two party dynamics.
- Brexit has shaken up the parties in fundamental ways.
- Whether or not Britain leaves the EU, the next Conservative leader will likely be a leaver.
With this Parliament, if it does come down to no deal or revoke article 50, what will it do?
- This partially depends on the EU’s position.
- There is still the problem of sequencing when it comes to leaving the EU.
- The UK has become a geopolitical issue for the EU in a way that it wasn’t before. This is why Merkel and Macron are fighting.
Mentioned in this Episode:
- Sir John Holmes’ statement on uncertainty around European elections
- The Pew polling on people’s faith in democracy
Further Learning:
And as ever, recommended reading curated by our friends at the LRB can be found here: lrb.co.uk/talking
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Hello my name is David Runseman and this is Talking Politics. We're not really any closer |
| 0:12.8 | to knowing how Brexit is going to be resolved but we are quite a lot closer to the voters |
| 0:17.1 | getting us say and we're going to try and work out what that might mean. |
| 0:26.0 | Talking Politics is brought to you in partnership with the London Review of Books. As politics |
| 0:30.7 | speeds up, slow down with a subscription to the LRB where Brexit and Trump are only part |
| 0:37.4 | of a picture that includes, well, everything else. Read relevant pieces and subscribe |
| 0:43.3 | at a special rate at lrb.co.uk forward slash talking. |
| 0:53.6 | We need to date our castron Bernard, lawyer, Chris Bickerton, I don't know lawyers laugh when |
| 1:00.1 | you say lawyer. Chris Bickerton. |
| 1:01.6 | This is how you're the majority of where you say lawyer, that's what it is. |
| 1:06.6 | With me today our castron Bernard, lawyer, Chris Bickerton, political scientist, Helen |
| 1:10.7 | Thompson, political economist, they were quite well covered. So there are local elections |
| 1:14.8 | tomorrow. We're recording this as always on Wednesday. I don't think we can speculate |
| 1:18.3 | about those and it's almost too complicated to extrapolate from local election results |
| 1:23.2 | a verdict on Brexit. But there are potentially European elections coming up and there are |
| 1:28.8 | some really big questions both about what those elections mean for Brexit but also what |
| 1:35.2 | they might mean for people's sense of how democracy works in this country. So the head |
| 1:39.8 | of the Electoral Commission issued a pretty stinging rebuke to the government effectively |
| 1:45.3 | and more broadly I think you might say we don't like this phrase to the political class |
| 1:49.8 | which is you're playing dangerous games with people's faith or confidence in democracy |
| 1:55.3 | by essentially telling them to vote in elections that you are also telling them you don't |
| 2:00.5 | want to hold and don't really mean anything. So if we start with the really big question, |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Catherine Carr, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Catherine Carr and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.