Reforms on Elections

Politics essay:   Joshua Couzens
To what extent have constitutional reforms since 1997 made the UK democratic?
Firstly, Labour have made a large amount of changes to the constitution in order to reform it, they decided to reform the constitution because they believed that an electoral reform would be popular with the electorate and help to win votes especially in Scotland and wales. Also they wanted they knew the conservatives opposed reform (anti conservatism). Also new labour was influenced by liberalism and so they wished to make the constitution more democratic and liberal in nature.
The first of the labour reforms was, the reform to the judiciary. The judiciary is the highest court of appeal, effectively the constitutional court and was transferred away from the senior judges sitting in the House of Lords, to a new supreme court. This was to make the senior judiciary more independent. The legal system was removed from control by the Lord Chancellor and a new judicial appointments commission was set up to ensure judicial independence. The reform to the judiciary has come under criticism because it causes conflict between the senior judges and government.
Another labour reform was devolution, devolution is a process of transferring power from the UK parliament to regional Scottish governments, governments in Northern Ireland and welsh government. Although this does not represent any transfer of sovereignty. Considerable powers were transferred to a Scottish parliament, welsh assembly and Northern Ireland assembly. In 2014 there was a Scottish independence referendum and if voted yes they would have lost their devolution powers. It has been argued that the UK has been weakened by the powers given away during devolution. Also government has been de centralised through devolution and the introduction of elected mayors.
New labour also introduced reforms to the electoral system, proposals to hold a referendum on electoral reform for general elections were dropped....