.@lisanandy starts off discussion by taking us back to the EU referendum.
‘How could it be that in a representative democracy we’d become so detached and unmoored that we couldn’t feel that political earthquake coming? This detachment has been felt for a very long time.’ #Lab19
.@lisanandy: ‘The settlement we have in this country isn’t working for most people – investment concentrated in some areas, leaving others behind.
This system has failed to protect what matters most for people.’ #Lab19
.@lisanandy: ‘Our job is to protect politics and reform the system. We don’t have the institutions at the moment that can take us out of this crisis.’
She goes on to say, ‘we must move power closer to home....we must give power back the people’ #Lab19
.@electoralreform’s Jess Garland highlights the key problems with our current Westminster system
‘We can’t hope that our system is a beast that we can tame – because our system is fundamental to the outcomes we get. It’s not inclusive, and it preserves hierarchy & elite power’
Jess Garland: ‘We need to stop seeing democratic reform as a nice add-on, relegating it to the bottom of the to-do list.
It’s fundamental to economic and social change. If the system is unequal, then the outcome will be as well.’ #Lab19
.@rokhsanafiaz, Mayor of Newham, is taking discussion to the local level.
She’s discussing how when she became mayor, she felt a diminished role of the council in its interaction with people. The council was seen as distant and remote, ossified in its thinking. #Lab19
However, her focus was “putting people at the heart of everything we do”, anchored by a powerful political tradition and philosophy about involving people meaningfully in the process of decision-making and politics. @rokhsanafiaz
.@rokhsanafiaz says that in Newham, their interventions and rebuilding trust between people and council.
She states that the the resident population is feeling very hopeful, there is an enthusiasm - excited about Newham becoming a beacon of participatory democracy.
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As always, the parliament we ended up with looked nothing like the way we voted - this is because Westminster's voting system warps the results.
With First Past the Post, minuscule changes in the vote can have major impacts. The Conservatives gained a 7% increase in seats from 2017 – on a 1% increase in vote share - delivering their largest majority since 1987. The Lib Dems increased their vote share, but lost a seat.
As results are announced today for councils across the country, we are already starting to see some wildly disproportionate results.
It doesn't have to be like this, when Scottish council results are announced later, the seats each party get will be in proportion to how many people voted for them - as they don't use first past the post. ers.tools/local-democracy
The #ElectionsBill, which passed last night, will make it harder to vote for millions, while making it easier for the government to control the Electoral Commission. It’s a travesty that parliamentarians passed a Bill that erodes our precious democracy. mirror.co.uk/news/politics/…
The law will only make it harder for some people - older people can use bus passes and 60+ Oyster cards as valid forms of ID - but young people’s railcards, and student Oyster cards will not be permitted. bigissue.com/news/politics/…
The government overrode a compromise amendment, suggested by a Conservative Peer, that would have expanded the list of acceptable IDs - instead they adopted their own arbitrary and restrictive list.
The #ElectionsBill is having its second reading in the House of Lords today - there is a lot wrong with this bill, from spending millions to make it harder to vote, to reducing the independence of our Electoral Commission.
Around 2.1 million people lack the necessary identification for their voter ID scheme, according to the government’s own research. Checking millions of documents and supplying ID will cost up to £180 million a decade electoral-reform.org.uk/expensive-vote…
Poll workers will have the power to turn voters away if they think an old photo doesn't look enough like them. Unlike border police, poll workers are not specially trained to do this sort of work. Growing a beard or getting a bold haircut shouldn't disenfranchise you.
Following the retirement of Viscount Ridley there is going to be a Conservative hereditary peer by-election. The 45 Conservative hereditary peers in the Lords will be voting to select who will get a seat in the Lords for life as his replacement. parliament.uk/globalassets/d…
Candidates, drawn from a list of Conservative hereditary peers outside the Lords, submit short, often bizarre, statements such as the below to garner support.
This time though, one candidate has gone a bit further than usual, submitting a peculiar YouTube search link as his statement... youtube.com/results?search…