Recent years have witnessed a drastic decline in political participation in the United Kingdom. This does not only address the public but also the political parties. General participation of political parties have declined since the early 1960's. This is often due to the uncertainty of having a firm place in the job along with how time consuming it is to be personally involved in political decisions, for example, an MP would have to regularly go to London for meetings in the House of Commons and on top of that, they would also have to be always kept up to date with political issues happening around them and be prepared for any discussions between their party. Many MPs may feel that their actions are restricted as an MP's decision is controlled by the party whip.
This means that the Westminister system is not as democratic as it appears to be as the MPs cannot always do what they strongly believe in and due to this, individuals may not be interested in being under such high survaillance by their own party. Not to mention, the only significant difference that can be made by an MP would be as long as they are in the Government. The rest of the MPs who are not in the Government are categorised under the Opposition whereby they are most likely unable to successfully reject a referendum/bill proposed by the Government as the Government has the working majority. This could lead to apathy as an MP may not be able to influence policies or legitimation.
Civic engangement in political participation is becoming an issue in the United Kingdom. The figures of those who did not vote in general elections has increased by 18% since 1964. The main age group that was not active in forms of political participation was 18-24 year olds. This shows that political participation of respondents below the age of 25 is of a negative correlation which determines that the younger population in Britain have a very low interest in political issues. The ambigious concept of civil engangement can be refered to attitudinal or behavioural orientations to politics. These are important in understanding the likely prospects of political participation as the relationship between the individual and their power of influence is vital in this case. More fundamentally, the social relationship and trust between MPs and members of the public is becoming slim as it has been said that the society we live in now has become more cynical due to the influence and the reliability of the media. The ethnic population is also wary of the trust situation between individuals and their MPs due to the difference in moral values.
Parliament does not have many ethnic MPs whereby the ethnic population feel that they cannot relate politically with their MPs over behaviour and understanding of certain cultural expectations, or needs, along with difference in religion. On top of that, many individuals do not feel that they can personally influence political decisions by voting as direct democracy hardly takes place in the United Kingdom (e.g. referendums), and the inconvenience to communicate with their MP is of no intention to many as it is also in their state of mind that an MP is a busy person and would probably have no time to address a matter brought up by a single member of the public. Party dealignment has become a big issue in politics as well. Both the right wing and the left wing are trying to become more centralised as the living conditions today have changed dramatically in comparison to the 19th century. By being more centralised, parties will be able to deal with more issues that concern majority of the society thereby hopefully gaining publicity and supporters.
This therefore does not differentiate parties by drastic measures as they used to before, and on the surface, parties appear to be focusing on the same issues and coming up with more or less similar policies. Due to this, members of the public may be turned off to vote as parties are no longer clearly distinguished. It is also a point that individuals have become more independent and are less likely to participate in collective activities as they are more concern with local issues that will directly affect them. Last but not least, within the social structure, the consequence that certain groups are unlikely to benefit from the types of social connections, or to participate in the types of organised civil associations will interfere with facilitating political participation.
In conclusion, citizen engangement and party participation in politics has become a minority pursuit in Britain and this matter has become politically aware by Parliament. Parliament is now trying to overcome this issue by promoting political participation through the media, internet, referendums and many other sources.
