There have been angry protests against the UK Parliamentary Election result and I commented that the result was democracy in action.
In response, another person said that the protests are a result of the fact that "the principle of Losers' Consent" has gone.
This has got me researching the best I can about this principle.
As far as I have seen it, there are 2 systems of rule. Democracy (the people choose their government through rule of majority), and Dictatorship (authoritarian form of Government characterized by the absolute rule of one person or one small group of people).
My main question is Is there such a thing as "Losers' Consent" in a democratic society where the "losers" of an election/referendum are to give consent to the result of the election/referendum?
It seems that Losers' Consent is described as follows:
Federalism has been seen as a panacea to several ills in modern democracies: among them conflict resolution, accommodation of ethnic minorities, and the more efficient distribution of government resources
[...]
by splitting powers between different levels of government the ills of majority rule could be constrained, and the consent of the people, especially parties in the minority, can be obtained. There is, then, a trade-off: losers consent to the outcome, and winners lament some loss of power.
— Source: Loewen & Blais (2006)
I see Losers' Consent as some sort of melding of democracy and dictatorship. Am I correct to see it this way?
The thing is, where the UK is
composed of four countries (England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland), each of which has its own cabinet, legislature and First Minister, has traditionally been a unitary state, governed by the central Parliament of the United Kingdom at Westminster. Instead of adopting a federal model, such as that of the United States, for example, United Kingdom continues to employ a system of devolution, in which political power is gradually decentralized.
— Source: Wikipedia)
Does the principle of Losers' Consent and the quote from Loewen & Blais (2006) apply within the UK?
References
Loewen, & Blais, (2006). Testing Publius’ Federalism: Losers Consent, Winners Lament? Comparative Study of Electoral Systems. Free PDF retrieved from https://cses.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/LoewenBlais2006.pdf