 Several historians credit the Reform Act 1832 with launching modern democracy in Britain . G. M. Trevelyan hails 1832 as the watershed moment at which " ' the sovereignty of the people ' had been established in fact , if not in law " . Sir Erskine May notes that " [ the ] reformed Parliament was , unquestionably , more liberal and progressive in its policy than the Parliaments of old ; more vigorous and active ; more susceptible to the influence of public opinion ; and more secure in the confidence of the people " , but admitted that " grave defects still remained to be considered " . Other historians have taken a far less laudatory view , arguing that genuine democracy began to arise only with the Second Reform Act in 1867 , or perhaps even later . Norman Gash states that " it would be wrong to assume that the political scene in the succeeding generation differed essentially from that of the preceding one " . E. A. Smith proposes , in a similar vein , that " when the dust had settled , the political landscape looked much as it had done before . 
