Democracy doesnt work very well.

Although it's actually quite a well thought out OP, but implies that universal suffrage should be abandoned in favour of an intelligence test prior to being allowed a vote.
Or perhaps we could go back to land owners and men only being allowed the vote?
Of course not.
However, democracy surely is on the rocks, and that is because of the lack of choices between the LIB-LAB-CONS, who don't have an ounce of common sense between them.

Democracy was hard won and is fragile it is easily lost.

The moment losers get to dictate to the winners, it is over, finito, gone.
And no matter how well intended, the losers intentions, dictatorship is dictatorship.
What next, gassing people who don't go along?

If you do not defend the democratic rights of your opponents and seek to crush them with legislation, you will become as bad, if not worse, than those you denigrate.

I don't like Trump, and the way he behaved after his defeat, was disgraceful.

But who did he learn his anti democratic behaviour from?
That's right, previous bad losers who thought they knew best, who thought that democratic votes could be ignored.

People like the losers in the EU referendum who surrounded Parliament protesting and crying and making out that the decision to leave was fascist and could be ignored.

They were the fucking fascists and look what they've unleashed...

I agree. They all in their own ways seek to serve the wishes of the establishment, including the BBC. With the exception of a variety of sources on the internet promoted by bad actors in other potentially hostile nations. But only a minority of the electorate shows enough thought to attempt to discern whose interests any particular source is serving and trying to figure out the actual truth.

Some even on here lack sufficient insight into their own thinking to discern any difference between what they like the sound of and what the actual truth is. Thus the outlet that tells you what you want to believe is therefore the least biased and most truthful, even if to a discerning mind it clearly isn't. Confirmation bias in action. Which leads some into genuinely believing that the most biased outlets like GB News are in fact paragons of truth because it confirms all their own pre-existing biases. Most of us of course will struggle to maintain a straight face in the face of claims that GB News is a paragon of truth. I doubt they even bother to ask themselves whose interests these outlets are serving. Because if they work that one out, they start to understand the real agenda going on. And it is not to tell us the unvarnished truth. It is to press all the right angry buttons in our heads so we can be manipulated to their advantage. Which has long been a favourite control tactic by the establishmentarian elites but it has been proven to work.

You are conflating very different things. If widespread stupidity and lack of knowledge or intelligence is a problem for the workings of a democracy - as it clearly is all too often - then what does that have to do with property qualifications or disenfranchising women? Because if widespread stupidity is the problem, than barring women from voting only makes sense if all women are stupid and all men are intelligent. Which is clearly a nonsense. Similar with property qualifications, the ownership of said property being no guarantee of intelligence, nor the lack of ownership proof of stupidity.

The problem with democracy as it functions today which I have identified is one of mass stupidity, not one of gender identity or amount of property owned. These latter should not be conflated with the former. Because identifying them with the real issue is actually a straw man argument. Like most people I would be implacably opposed to property qualifications or denying women the vote. Though I can see a degree of desirability in idiots not voting.

However, I am not calling for mandating that. I have identified the primary problem with democracy without having any well thought out solutions to that problem. Better political education in schools would gradually improve the situation over time but it would take a long time to make a difference. And I cannot see the powers that be initiating it. Because a better educated and more politically knowledgeable electorate, taught to question what they are told would be a much harder electorate to control and manipulate and hoodwink.

And of course the danger inherent in intelligence tests as a requirement for voting, as with all imagined voting restrictions of any kind, is the can of worms being opened and where it could lead. Because the powers that be would not be above manipulating the questions so as to ensure the ones they can rely on are more likely to pass. Any such tinkering is the thin end of a dangerous wedge. I cannot think of any better, as well as safer, alternative to democracy. Historically, electorates that have rejected democracy because of its failings have always ended up with something much worse.

If I come up with something I believe to be a better alternative to democracy, I will bring it to the table here. But I have none for now, and am thus filled with despair at the realisation that the least bad option for us is to continue to allow the idiotic masses to decide who runs the country, all of them effectively manipulated by the establishmentarian elites in their own interests and not ours.

So thus my only fall back position for now is  to want better political education in schools so that gradually over time we create a better informed and more politically aware electorate less easy to manipulate and be lied to. And also real electoral reform to free us of the two party establishmentarian stitch up and to allow all voices to be heard in parliament.

Until or unless I can come up with an effective solution to the empowerment of idiots that does not potentially threaten our freedoms, the above is all I have in the face of a serious flaw with the workings of democracy itself. Namely, that the majority of voters are idiots.

And all my experience serving people every day in retail, not to mention my past experience speaking to voters on the doorstep when I was in Labour, has only served to massively enlighten me as to just how many total idiots there are out there. They are everywhere. The sheer stupidity of some people is a wonder to behold.

Theoretically it is the system which best respects the individual wishes of each person equally.
But in practise it has been taken advantage of, convoluted, pulled out of shape, lied about and used for personal advantage.
As for the UK, democracy would best be served if it got rid of the whipping system.
The idea of someone forcing your elected representative to vote in a particular way is anti democratic.

IMO "Direct democracy" leaves democracy vulnerable to the people with the loudest voices and the smallest minds, but with the greatest ability to influence others. A very dangerous road to take.