One in five Britons aged 18-45 prefer unelected leaders to democracy, poll finds | Exclusive: Voters overall are downbeat about politics and almost two-thirds think ‘the UK’s best years are behind us’
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/jan/12/one-in-five-britons-aged-18-45-prefer-unelected-leaders-to-democracy-poll-finds
by 1DarkStarryNight
34 comments
The only thing that surprises me is that its as low as 1 in 5 in favour of unelected leaders.
“4 in 5 brits prefer democratically elected leaders”
British politicians are incompetent, and government structures are not very effective, but they are operating in an environment which is incoherent. The British population and the media from where they get their opinions believe in things which are mutually exclusive.
For example a surprisingly large number of people are agnostic about economic growth, but we need economic growth to fund services. The whole reason why we can pay in a few thousand pounds in national insurance a year, which is supposed to pay for the NHS, and on top of that fund pensions of £12k a year, is because between the point of ‘contribution’ and payout there is a huge expected economic growth. If growth is flat the pension calculations just do not work.
Similarly at the current level of migration we would need to triple the current rate of housebuilding, but people simultaneously are nervous about big reductions in migration (even if we’re just going to back to where we were before Boris Johnson) and they also want restrictions on development. Even a 50% cut on the peak of migration would mean housebuilding higher than than the highest level in British history just to stand still on affordability. In effect, you can have very high migration or you can have the green belt, you can’t have both.
So what we tell politicians is to do the impossible of making things which are incompatible compatible, and if they tell the truth they will get kicked out. That is not a recipe for a well functioning democracy.
Plenty of nice destinations for them to move to if they want the strongman experience – Russia, North Korea, China, various Gulf states or even North Korea if they’re really daring.
Are all journalists sociopaths who are happy to sow division and fear among the population because they care more about the amount of clicks they can get by inappropriately and irresponsibly framing their articles, or…?
The UKs best years are definitely behind it lol not even up for debate.
No system is perfect and a good leader under a bad system is often better than a bad leader under a good system.
That said, when you’re dealing with unelected systems it’s very hard to get good leaders in the first place. They generally result in the most ruthless person in or near the ruling clique gaining power. Once they reach power they have even less incentive to listen to the common folk and more incentive to listen to the other powers (church, big business, military, etc).
The whole political history of the UK is slowly moving away from unelected power because it is a worse system than democracy in most regards.
1 in 5 Britons clinically stupid. This was already known.
That number is suspiciously close to the number of reform voters
Okay, you can have unelected leaders, but you don’t get to have one you like.
I imagine that we’ve been yo-yoing anywhere in the 10-50% region for most of the last few centuries depending on how popular the elected government of the day is.
I wouldn’t lump myself in with the pro-authoritarians, but i’ve thought plenty of times in the last decade or so “i bet we wouldn’t be in this particular mess if the queen was calling the shots”
The oligarchs are working hard to boost that 1 in 5 number too, that’s what they want – political disengagement – as it worked in russia.
Never forget that nearly 50% of folks are below average intelligence
About 20% of the population are consistently socialist and about 20% are consistently nutjob far right and unpopular Tory extremists. Having 20% of the total being against democracy split into those two groups is eminently plausible, plus backhanded temporary blackpill reactions among Remainers and people disgusted with Trump.
Maybe they are rejoiners talking about the European Commission?
Voters: *votes for useless arseholes
Also voters: “Why would democracy do this?”
I don’t think it helps that it seems that many of those who go into politics are only one step removed from royalty. They share the same dorms at the same private schools etc.
The system itself seems set up to facilitate this sort of ‘representation’ and I doubt there are very many who can now say they feel genuinely represented by their local MP. An MP who was likely parachuted into their constituency because it was of strategic benefit to a party, not because they have any interest in local issues.
And then there’s the House of Lords…
So in other words 4 in 5 Britons aged 18-45 prefer democratically elected leaders… why is the guardian reciprocating this figure?
In a way , who can blame them? However, this is serious and should be taken seriously. When a political system fails them, apathy sets in then anger. This survey shows a screw you to the system.
They love the idea of it. I suspect they would hate the reality of it though. Lots of ideas seem great in theory but turn out to be awful in reality.
Musk is working to grow the number of the disaffected. His goal is to truly undermine the British government & destroy the Constitution.
Is it any wonder since consecutive governments have failed working people
Great now ask the same question with the caveat that the unelected leader will be from a political party that they’re opposed to, and see if the answer is still the same
Given some of the other comments on here, I fully expect to be downvoted to oblivion, but the older I get, the more I think democracy doesn’t work, or at the least, our current version doesn’t work.
Governments avoid big decisions (trying to make Brexit ‘work’, state pension, social care reform, climate change) because they fear/know that they’ll be voted out at the next election, so they tend to just tinker around the edges. Also, it leads to a lack of consistency as the next government will likely undo most of their big changes, which I understand because parliament cannot be bound by past parliaments.
I’m definitely not calling for a dictatorship as there’s no such thing as a benign dictator and every citizen has the right to a vote and to hold government to account. Maybe a change such as proportional representation would lead to stronger decision making – I don’t really know how it’s worked in other countries.
1 in 5 people want someone else to think for them. They’d probably assume that unelected leaders will do exactly as they would do when it’s rarely the case.
Democracy is a bit shit tbh, it pains me that certain people’s votes count as much as mine. A technocratic or meritocratic government may be better for society, but more than likely worse for the individual. Ultimately I see democracy as the least worst form of government and it’s the best we can do considering the other options sadly
No surprise, MPs were elected for their stance on Gaza, not on their approach to UK politics and their constituency.
In the current political landscape, an unelected leader is more likely to be a King John than a Caesar.
Well, the EU has an unelected leader. Plenty of folk in here who complain and mock the people in this article are fine with unelected EU bureaucrats and leaders.
Is this New Labour’s fault and the changes instituted under Blair & ‘Cool Britannia ‘ period? 🤔
If you’re something like 25 years old and under in this country and probably the entire western world to be fair, what has democracy given you in your lifetime? I’m struggling to think of anything positive. What has it taken away from these people? You can no longer freely move through Europe. You’ve had austerity for basically all of your life. The rich got richer and the poor got poorer. The climate is collapsing around you. How often are you willing to get kicked in the teeth, or point to the giant elephant in the room that’s being ignored, before you decide that the system is useless?
I’m a millennial and it has been exhausting. The candidates I’ve voted for and the sides of referendums I’ve taken have never won. Not once. Meanwhile I see people voting for things that they don’t understand and those are the votes that are winning. Far too many things come down to opinion rather than evidence.
Logically it’s hard to argue that a benevolent dictatorship wouldn’t achieve more and do so faster than any democratic process. Additionally it would resolve issues that democracy has, like how many people vote on issues that they don’t sufficiently understand. The problem is how do you ensure that it remains benevolent, functional and fair? There may come a day when the concept can work. It’s important that we don’t just automatically characterise anything as intrinsically good or bad. They’re all tools and how you use them is what determines whether they’re good or bad. At the moment I would classify dictatorship as a tool that we don’t yet know how to use safely. It may be the case that we never find a way to wield it safely. However it is important that we’re able to discuss things freely and logically.
If we want democracy to succeed then we need education reform. An education system designed to produce economically viable people as its primary concern is antithetical to a truly democratic system. You can’t have democracy if people have under developed epistemologies. Everything should be secondary to the ability for people to participate in logical and rational discourse if the goal is to be democratic.
Democracy is a facade for an unelected elite anyway. It would be less trouble to do it without the facade.
Didn’t we fight a civil war to be rid of this shit
1 in 5 poll-takers just click random answers because they get paid to complete polls, no matter the accuracy…
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