The Unit today publishes the third report of its ‘Democracy in the UK after Brexit’ project, setting out the findings of a survey of UK public attitudes to democracy carried out last summer. In this post, project lead Alan Renwick sets out the key findings.

Public trust in politicians is low, and most people think that the system for protecting standards needs to be strengthened. Most people want those in power to be held accountable through a system of strong checks and balances, provided through parliament, the courts, and other institutions. While the cost of living and the NHS are most people’s top priorities, people care about the health of democracy in the UK as well. Above all, they want the discourse of politics to be more honest.

These are the overarching findings of the Constitution Unit’s second survey of public attitudes to the UK’s democratic system, carried out as part of our Democracy in the UK after Brexit research project. The findings are set out in a report published today and freely available on the Unit’s website. This is the project’s third report: the first, published in January 2022, presented the results of an earlier survey, while the second, published last April, gave the conclusions of our Citizens’ Assembly on Democracy in the UK. This blogpost highlights a small sample of the findings.

Trust and integrity

For interpreting the findings on trust, context matters. The survey was conducted in late August and early September 2022, after Boris Johnson had announced his resignation, but before Liz Truss came to power. Trust in the Prime Minister and in parliament was already low in our first survey, conducted in summer 2021. By summer 2022, it had fallen still further.

Question: To what extent do you trust or distrust each of the following to act in the best interests of people in the UK?

Note: Here and elsewhere, results reported for the 2021 survey include only those respondents who also completed the 2022 survey. Results may therefore sometimes differ slightly from those set out in Report 1.

Regarding the system for upholding integrity, we asked respondents to choose between two statements: ‘Reform is needed so that politicians who do not act with integrity are punished’; and ‘The system for dealing with politicians who do not act with integrity should stay as it is’. In response, 79% chose the former and just 6% the latter. We then asked about investigations into alleged ministerial misconduct. A clear majority thought that, whatever the nature of the alleged wrongdoing, an independent regulator should be able to launch an investigation themselves – something that the Committee on Standards in Public Life and others have recommended, but that successive Prime Ministers have rejected.

Question: Please imagine there are allegations that a minister in government has [FAILURE]. Which, if any, of the following do you think should happen?

In place of ‘[FAILURE]’, each respondent saw one of the statements below.

Checks and balances

The 2022 survey repeated a question from 2021 that asked respondents to choose whether politicians should always act within the rules or be willing to break them to get things done. On both occasions, the majority for the former was overwhelming. Most respondents also said it would be unacceptable for the UK to have a strong leader who was above the law or who did not have to bother with parliament and elections.

Question: Which comes closer to your view?

When asked whether government or parliament should be strengthened, only 13% said the former, but 47% said the latter; a further 27% said both or neither. Support for strengthening parliament was, understandably, particularly strong among those who voted for one of the opposition parties in 2019; but this option was backed by many Conservative voters too.

Question: Which comes closer to your view?

A follow-up question found strong support for the proposition that ‘Parliament should always need to consider and approve changes in the law’ – even on urgent or minor matters. Clearly, few people know in detail how laws are in fact made; but these findings suggest that many would be concerned if they understood how widely delegated legislation is used today.

One important factor that shapes the relationship between government and parliament is the electoral system. Our first survey did not ask directly about electoral system preferences. But a broader question found that the feature of democracy that respondents viewed as most important was ‘if those in power do a poor job, they can be voted out’ – which more proportional systems tend to make harder. Nevertheless, a direct question about electoral reform suggested substantial support for reform.

Question: Which comes closer to your view?

Turning to the House of Lords, large majorities thought that an independent body rather than the Prime Minister should make appointments and that the size of the chamber should be capped. Views were more mixed on whether the chamber should include elected or appointed members – or both or neither. Differences across the supporters of the main parties on this question were strikingly small.

Question: Which comes closer to your view?

Some of the project’s most notable findings concern attitudes to the role of judges: whereas the public discourse might suggest hostility to that role, our first survey and the Citizens’ Assembly on Democracy in the UK both found otherwise. These results were replicated in the second survey too.

One issue that we wanted to dig deeper into this time concerned whether those positive attitudes were particular to UK-based rights and the UK courts: we guessed that attitudes to the European Convention on Human Rights and the European Court of Human Rights might be more hostile. We therefore varied the stated origin of the rights that we asked about and the court that we specified as potentially making a decision. It turned out that, whether we specified the ‘UK Human Rights Act’ or the ‘European Convention on Human Rights’, support was somewhat lower than if we left the legal origin unspecified. And support for a role for the European Court of Human Rights was markedly lower than was that for ‘the courts in the UK’ or simply ‘the courts’. Nevertheless, in every case, a majority still backed a substantial role for the courts.

Question: Please imagine the government has proposed a new law and parliament has approved it. [ORIGIN] Some people believe that this law violates [RIGHT]. Should the courts be able to decide whether people’s legal rights have been violated as claimed?

Each respondent saw one specific proposed right in place of ‘[RIGHT]’. The chart shows average responses across all of these. In place of ‘[ORIGIN]’, respondents saw either no text – the ‘unspecified’ option below – or one of the phrases on the left of the chart.

Question: Please imagine the government has proposed a new law and parliament has approved it. Some people believe that this law violates [RIGHT]. Should [THE COURTS] be able to decide whether people’s legal rights have been violated as claimed?

Each respondent saw one specific proposed right in place of ‘[RIGHT]’. The chart shows average responses across all of these. In place of ‘[THE COURTS]’ in the question and the response options, respondents saw either no text – the ‘unspecified’ option below – or one of the phrases on the left of the chart.

Do people care about political process?

A vital question for interpreting the report’s findings concerns how much people really care about the issues covered. A sceptical view would hold that most people are interested only in the outputs of politics, not in internal political processes , making their responses to our questions relatively meaningless.

We therefore asked respondents directly how important different issues were to them. The cost of living and the NHS understandably came top. But ‘the health of democracy in the UK’ mattered too: it was on a par with issues such as the war in Ukraine, housing, crime, and immigration. The same was true of the protection of human rights.

Another question taking a different approach to the same question yielded somewhat different results. Nevertheless, it appears clear that, while issues relating to the constitution and democratic process are not most people’s top priority, they do still matter.

Question: When thinking about politics today, would you say that issues around [A] or around [B] are more important to you?

In place of ‘[A]’ and ‘[B]’, each respondent saw two of the options below. The graph shows point estimates and the range of uncertainty around these. The numbers correspond to the differences in the percentage of respondents selecting different options. For example, when cost of living (27) is compared to immigration (16), we estimate that about 11% more of the population (27 – 16) would select the former than the latter.

Conclusion

There is always some uncertainty in how the responses to survey questions such as those above should be interpreted. The topics are ones that most people rarely think about, so it is easy for the exact question wording to nudge respondents in one direction or another. We have sought to address that by asking many questions – often questions with multiple variants with nudges going different ways. Across this body of material, we can begin to build up a clear picture. This blogpost offers only a snapshot: there is much more detail in the report. Overall, it is clear that people do care about democracy, are concerned about low standards of integrity and honesty, and want those in power to be held accountable through a strong system of checks and balances.

Public Preferences for Integrity and Accountability in Politics, the third report of the Unit’s Democracy in the UK After Brexit project, is now available from the Unit’s website.

About the author

Alan Renwick is Professor of Democratic Politics at UCL and Deputy Director of the Constitution Unit.