Nick Clegg addresses the Convention on Brexit and the Political Crash.
It’s a delight to be here on a Saturday morning in the middle of possibly the most listless, soulless, and dreary general election campaigns I can ever remember. So the title of our session “what do we do about our democracy?” is very, very timely. I will, in the short time available try and explain to you the three principal crises in our democratic system as I see them and then three possible suggestions about how we can remedy those problems.
So first and foremost I think it is important to be very unblinking, and very candid, in quite how stuck and paralysed British democracy has now become. Let me put it this way, any democratic system relies above and beyond anything else on those in power constantly looking over their shoulder worried that someone else is going to take power away from them. Without competition, democracy is nothing. Without the pendulum swing of electoral contests in which one lot win one election and another lot win another election, democracy is not worthy of the name.
