Just putting this out there... into the ether... its utopian idealism but that doesnt mean it cant happen :-) :-) IDEA FOR NEW POLITICAL PARTY - to give a voice to the under-represented - and to formulate policy democratically rather than dictated by leaders - and to be completely independent from corporate finance. • Recruit (as a member) everyone in the country with an income under like 22k. (This is absolutely key - its all about the membership). • Sign up every single person. (Or like 95%). They don’t have to vote for us, they just join the organisation and take part in discussions. • People earning more are allowed to join but are not specifically targeted in the recruitment process. • Internal democratic process for proposing policies. • Consensus process for synthesising policies. • Local policies for local elections. • National policies for national policies – this involves a nationwide consensus process. • People feel empowered by this participatory internal democracy and so naturally want to vote for the candidate in the elections. • If other parties steal our policies, that counts as a win. • Membership: sliding scale. Something like: 20 pounds a year for highest earners, 8 pounds a year for minimum wage earners, suggested 3 pounds for a year if join when unwaged (can be waived). (Additional small charges might be necessary for hiring meeting venues). • First 6 months’ membership is free. • Very little money is needed because we don’t do expensive election campaigns. Because we expect our voters to be our members and we expect to have *everyone* earning under 22k joining. (Members can vote for anyone but most will hopefully vote for us because they feel empowered by the internal participatory democracy. • No dirty tricks. • No slagging off other parties. Critique them to an extent but don’t demonise them. Above all, focus on proposing new ideas, rather than emphasising an attack on old ideas. • Facilitate empowering people in local communities. Not just contesting elections. • Promote economic regeneration based on small businesses and co-operatives, and access to skills training – e.g. teach everyone CODING (as in computer programming) in a deprived area o Could develop software that teaches coding to people who might not have a high level of maths (they can learn this as they go along). • Interacts and engages ASSERTIVELY (not aggressively) with corporations and other parties. • Internal democratic process directs what elected representatives say and do in parliament. • Representatives are RECALLABLE. That is, we can call for a by-election if, at the end of, say 1 year, people do not vote to keep them on. If this is not compatible with parliamentary practices then we can find a way around that. For example, we could issue a statement in the media saying that we expect this person to resign. Then they resign and we have a by-election. • All of this rests on being able to recruit everyone in the country on an income of less than 22k. How on earth can this happen? • We can do this in 5 years. Something like: o Year 1: Recruit 3% of those earning under 22k. o Year 2: Recruit a further 7% o Year 3: Recruit a further 15% o Year 4: Recruit a further 27% o Year 5: Recruit a further 48% That’s it. Bingo! • How can the numbers grow so quickly? o People’s experience of participating in the internal democratic process of the party will be so positive that the message spreads by word of mouth that this is something really positive to be part of. • Absolutely key: NO TOP DOWN HIERARCHICAL PROCESS. • But there needs to be some structure in place. But it’s there to ENABLE and FACILITATE proposals of ideas, building syntheses of ideas and reaching consensus decisions on ideas… all coming from the people, rather than from leaders. • Ok, so there’s presumably going to be a group of people who set this up before serious recruitment begins. • And they’re going to set up the structure. • And then what happens? How is the structure kept in place? • Well, let’s imagine this party is designed to last for 50 years and then after that, people will decide if they want to continue with it.. but by that time, the founders have completely let go of it and it can do whatever it wants. • Now say we want to keep the structure firmly in place for 10 years, then the members can vote on minor changes to the structure. Then after another 10 years, the members can vote on bigger changes to the structure. By this point, the founders give away all power and allow the thing to sustain itself democratically however it wants. So it’s about sowing the seeds and then standing back and not interfering. • So what kind of structure is to be set up? • Local groups have meetings. Much discussion and deliberation is done through online forums designed to facilitate democratic decision making. Founders of the group work as facilitators. They don’t interfere with what people want to talk about or decide.. they just chair meetings and mediate disputes.. and after a while they delegate these tasks (on a revolving basis, in which people take turns every week) but retain ultimate responsibility for them. There is a bottom line where they will revert to interfering and that is if things start getting racist, misogynist, homophobic or hateful towards the disabled (and so on – perhaps an explicit list can be drawn up). In this case, the discussion is steered away from the negative direction it had taken, referring the participants to the relevant section of the constitution in which these things are written down. • Donations above the membership subscription may be made but a) only by members and b) limited to, say, under a thousand pounds, and c) completely anonymously. • The structure set up by the founders may have some very basic hierarchy to it, if this is not considered to be avoidable, but there is to be no political interference from the founders apart from to prevent racism, etc.. as described above. • The structure is designed to WITHER AWAY. We need to consider why the Marxist revolutionary parties did not, as supposedly they were meant to, wither away. The structure should be like a trellis which new shoots can climb up, but which fades away as they become strong. Scaffolding, to be gradually taken down, as the house takes root (so to speak). (As Kurt Cobain sang, “We can plant a house, we can build a tree, I don’t even care, we could have three!”. Um, excuse me). There should be a schedule for the dismantling of the structure. The founders delegate more and more of the facilitation to members as time goes by. More and more aspects of the structure (starting with surface aspects and moving gradually towards core aspects) are opened up to the democratic process to change them, as time goes by. • Media strategy. The mainstream media will not (certainly not automatically) be (at least initially) supportive of this project. They may attack it, or they may simply ignore it. We need a media strategy informed by a serious critique of what the media is and how it works, including the valuable insights of Noam Chomsky’s propaganda model as laid out in books such as Manufacturing Consent. So for example, we may need to develop media-savvy ways of communicating with the media and we will certainly need to focus on having our own way of getting the message out. • The main we of getting the message out is internally. All our key voters will be members. The whole thing is based on mass membership. And the message to be got out is formulated by the members democratically. • This seems like pretty much the right point in history to start something like this. We’ve got the internet. People are getting fed up with corporate-dominated politics. Time for something like this. • This is totally just a rough sketch. All of these details are up for discussion.
Posted on: Fri, 14 Mar 2014 16:15:32 +0000