Beyond Elections

Field Note: Citizens’ Assemblies Picking up Steam in UK

March 2025

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Proximate

July 2024

March 2025

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Proximate

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Demos, a think tank devoted to democratic renewal, has issued a citizens’ white paper calling on the new Labour government to “embed citizen involvement in national policymaking to tackle the complex and potentially divisive challenges facing the UK and deliver on the prime minister’s promise to restore trust in politics.”
Richard Wilson, CEO of Iswe Foundation, predicts in The Guardian that in its first 100 days, the Labour government will announce a major citizens’ assembly, using it to galvanize the nation around the commitments in its 2024 manifesto.

However, he emphasizes that the assembly must be independent, and permanent. He writes: "The reasons the citizens’ juries and summits of the last Labour government failed to influence policy is because they were effectively low-profile focus groups, and they were too closely associated with the Labour party to build the broad support needed to catalyze change. The genius of the Irish citizens’ assembly is that it transcends party lines.”

- PB

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