‘Pressure group activity in the UK presents a major threat to democracy.’ Evaluate the arguments in favour of this view.

A pressure group is an organised group of people with similar views on a certain issue, who want to gain influence and put pressure on policy-makers. In recent years, due to more access points, development of mass media and globalization, the number of members of pressure groups in the UK has risen and the importance of these organisation has significantly increased. The RSPB, with over 1 million members is bigger than three main UK parties together. Unfortunately, the pressure group activity can threaten the democracy in Great Britain.

The main role of every pressure group is representing views of a part of the society. Their activity is often self-interested, focused only on a single issue. They want to gain influence in their area of interest only without taking other views into consideration. Pressure groups, such as FOREST, represent minorities and their actions could lead to a ‘tyranny of minority’.

Moreover, the structure of many pressure groups is undemocratic itself. Unelected leaders can be very influential but regular members have a little impact on pressure group’s actions. This passive membership makes pressure groups less representative and, consequently, less democratic. Additionally, pressure groups are unaccountable for the public and they exercise power without any responsibility. They also tend to empower those who are already powerful and have access to financial and organizational resources, e.g. Trade Unions Congress.

Pressure groups’ actions can be either direct or indirect. Meeting politicians, writing letters to MPs or peers, funding political parties and lobbing are examples of indirect actions, which can be described as influencing policy-makers in order to get their support and achieve pressure group’s goals. These negotiations and deals are often being made ‘behind the scenes’, especially by insider groups, such as National Farmers’ Union.

Direct actions taken by the pressure groups are often single-issue and short-term. This could cause problems for the government in implementing their ‘bigger picture’ policies. Moreover, direct actions, such as strikes and protests can affect many other citizens, who would not, normally, take part in them. For example, the Tube workers’ strike or road protest of lorries’ drivers had an impact on many ‘not involved’ people and, therefore, caused harm to regular citizens, which undermines the system of representative democracy.

Additionally, during direct actions, illegal methods are being used and the law is being broken . This undemocratic activities, such as the use of violence or property destruction are said to be more influential than non-violent actions because they often cause immediate reactions of politicians.

In my opinion, the pressure group activity in the UK threatens the British democracy. The role, structure and methods of acting of different kinds of pressure groups are dangerous for equality of people and human rights. Public interest should be represented in a more democratic way to ensure fairness and accountability of pressure groups’ actions.

MAKE POVERTY HISTORY

Make Poverty History is the name of a campaign that exists in a number of countries, including Australia, Canada, Denmark , Finland, New Zealand, Nigeria, Norway, Romania, the United Arab Emirates, Great Britain and Ireland.

The Make Poverty History campaign is a Great Britain and Ireland coalition of charities, religion groups, trade unions, campaigning groups and celebrities who mobilise around the Britain's prominence in world politics, as of 2005, to increase awareness and pressure governments into taking actions towards relieving absolute poverty. The symbol of the campaign is a white "awareness bracelet" made of cotton or silicone.

The biggest ever anti-poverty movement came together under the banner of MAKEPOVERTYHISTORY in 2005 calling for urgent action for more and better aid, debt cancellation and trade justice.

Millions of people wore white bands, 444,000 people emailed the Prime Minister about poverty and 225,000 took to the streets of Edinburgh for the Make Poverty History march and rally.

The campaign ensured that global poverty was placed higher on the national and global agenda than ever before.

Television advertisements ran for many months, urging people to speak to their representatives about stopping poverty. However, the Office of Communications (Ofcom) banned the ads, deciding that the ads were "wholly or mainly political" in nature, since they aimed to "achieve important changes".

Make Poverty History won great steps forward, however there remains work to do and to hold governments to account for their promises.

On January 31, 2006, the majority of the members of the campaign passed a resolution to disband the organisation, arguing that the British coalition had only agreed to come together formally for a limited lifespan, to correspond with Britain holding the presidency of the EU and G8. Approximately forty groups argued against the dissolution.

Although Make Poverty History came to an end in 2006, the events of 2005 helped inspire various members to work together on further campaigns. These took place as the UK platform of the Global Call to Action Against Poverty.

The 2010 election campaign saw tens of thousands of people across the country contacting their candidates about global poverty.

That’s what I think,

MANU