The new Prime Minister who has not run an election as leader of the party and was only chosen to lead the party by a handful of senior MP’s who nominated him - because he stood unopposed the party membership were not given any opportunity to vote on him.
He was voted MP by a Manchester constituency who knew him as the mayor, and then he was voted PM by a handful of MP’s - not by the general electorate nor even the party members.
I think the “feasibility” of our representative democracy has lost the point. Why do we need representatives to travel to DC, or whatever central place of government, to have their say on our behalf - especially when they all too often don’t represent their voters? Why can’t we exploit modern communication technology to have our say directly on anything they vote on?
Or if we are to have representatives, to make voting easier, why can’t we align our votes to a party or other group, ad hoc, for them to vote on our behalf? Where we could re-assign our representative based on big issues (with an advanced deadline) or choose to make our own vote directly on matters we find important? Why do we have to lock in a “representative” for 4+ years?
Sack the lot of them and implement a direct democracy. We don’t need “representatives” - at least not ones that we’re periodically stuck with even when they repeatedly vote on our behalf against our interests.
So it’s not exactly democratic, now, is it? And yet he frequently harps on about his “mandate”.
Don’t get me wrong I like the guy and don’t know of anyone better, but democracy is paramount to me.
It’s shady as fuck that Starmer stepped down for seemingly no reason in particular, and then Burnham takes over with no democratic vote - especially when two leaders ago Labour had Corbyn, who had overwhelming support from the party base but almost no support at all from wealthy elites. With Burnham, the party base has explicitly been denied their say. It doesn’t pass the sniff test and reeks of backroom deals.