Maybe it is inevitable that our democracy is going through such a crisis. After all we are the...

[muriel_volestrangler]

6. I'd dispute that we counted as a democracy before 1832

In early-19th-century Britain very few people had the right to vote. A survey conducted in 1780 revealed that the electorate in England and Wales consisted of just 214,000 people - less than 3% of the total population of approximately 8 million. In Scotland the electorate was even smaller: in 1831 a mere 4,500 men, out of a population of more than 2.6 million people, were entitled to vote in parliamentary elections. Large industrial cities like Leeds, Birmingham and Manchester did not have a single MP between them, whereas 'rotten boroughs' such as Dunwich in Suffolk (which had a population of 32 in 1831) were still sending two MPs to Westminster. The British electoral system was unrepresentative and outdated.

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/pathways/citizenship/struggle_democracy/getting_vote.htm

We weren't an absolute monarchy, but voting was a restricted privilege, depending on sex, wealth and the history of your city or town.