How can people participate in politics?

People transfer power to elected officials through general elections, referendums, local council elections and more.
General Election turnout in the UK has been known to be quite low, however, since the incredibly low turnout of 59% in 2001, it has begun to steadily increase, for example, in 2019 turnout was 67.3% of registered voters.
These lower turnouts have also led to the question of whether elected officials are legitimate, for example, in 2001 Labour won a landslide majority with only 26% of registered voters voting for them, showing the lack of involvement of the public in the political process and therefore making them less legitimate.

A second form of political participation is joining a party, in order to help with their campaign and take part in activities.
Previously, this had been quite a popular option, with 3.8% of the UK population being a member of a party in 1983, however, currently these figures are significantly lower with less than 1% being a member. This means that many parties lack funds and that a small group of the population are influencing the direction of party policy.

A third form of political participation is social campaigning through the internet and social media.
An updated online petition service was launched in 2011, which allowed for petitions with more than 100,000 signatures to be discussed by the Backbench Business Committee.
An example of this is a petition signed by 547,000 people to prevent Donald Trump from entering the UK, which was consequently debated in Westminster Hall.
These petitions have been known to put pressure on the government, however, often have little impact as the government have no obligation to act on them.