So, youve watched the Russel Brand video, and youre despairing about the state of our politics. Or youre just doing the latter without having done the former. But you want to do something that will actually make a difference, which Brands call to arms of Hey, dont bother voting! will utterly fail to do. How can you get active, change things? As someone who works in the area of democratic reform, I thought Id try and put together a list of things you can get involved in to make a difference. (Ill note that this is just me personally doing this, due to Ive seen a few friends asking what they can do - its not anything official from any organisation). I do honestly believe that if more people got involved in these sorts of areas, it would help improve the system. Will it be an instant change? No, theses sorts of things are a case of pushing over the long term, changing how people look at things. But the more people pushing, the more change will be achieved. Ill start off with organisations you can get involved in, that are trying to fix politics: — Unlock Democracy. unlockdemocracy.org.uk / https://facebook/unlockdemocracy Im biased, because this is the organisation I work for. UD campaigns for democracy, rights and freedoms. At the moment the concentration is on the (awful) lobbying bill thats going through parliament, but theres also stuff on local democracy, plus lords, electoral and constitutional reform. Local Works ( localworks.org ) is one of UDs projects, which works on giving people more power in their communities, and theres legislation theyre part of that allows local communities to make changes that help their local area — one of the proposals there is to let local people call for their councils to be elected by a proportional system. What can you do to get involved? There are regular speak out campaigns where you can write to your MP through the website, and express your views on legislation. Whilst MPs are increasingly ignoring the petitions that take people two seconds to sign, they do notice personally written letters from their constituents, as theyre the people that care enough to vote them in and out. There are also local groups across the country ( unlockdemocracy.org.uk/pages/local-groups ) where people can get involved in the local area, campaigning on local issues, but also having public meetings and other events to draw attention to national issues. — The Electoral Reform Society. electoral-reform.org.uk / https://facebook/electoralreformsociety ERS concentrates on electoral reform, but covers stuff from votes at 16, the problems of things like Safe Seats (where its near impossible to unseat the incumbent MP or councillor), and other matters around the problems with our votes. — Bite the Ballot. https://facebook/bitetheballot Theyre the people who made the video I shared responding to Brand. They concentrate on educating & engaging young people in politics — making them votes worth winning. — Republic. republic.org.uk Theyre somewhat concentrated on getting rid of the monarchy, but they also call for a constiitution for the country. They do well at making their points when stuff on the monarchy comes up, and theyre after activists around the country to be visible in doing just that. — Reform Groups Network. reformgroups.net/site-list A site for local groups that are pushing for reform to say what theyre doing, how to get involved, and to share good ideas. ----------------------------- What about the political parties? I think theres two ways to go; there are alternative political parties, or theres getting involved in the major parties and trying to fix them from within. On the former, I know people say that those parties make no difference, but Id argue thats not true — in 1989, the Greens got 15% overall of the European Parliament vote, and whilst that didnt get them any seats, it made the major parties suddenly had to treat environmentalism a lot more seriously; that was when they all started including greener policies. I think that can happen again. I was going to include a list of alternative political parties here, but having thought about it, Ill be honest — theyre not my area, and I dont want to advocate causes at people when I cant back up their worth. I invite people to make suggestions on parties that are worth supporting in the comments here, though. The other option is to get involved in the existing parties, and make a change there. People are likely to laugh at that, arent the parties the problem? But one of the issues is the way that people have disengaged from the parties, making it easier for the heads there to do what they want. The way the membership of the parties has dropped, if people started joining them again en masse, and calling for specific changes, then the parties would have to sit up and take notice. ----------------------------- So, there you go. Thats my thoughts, my suggestions for how to make a difference. I think there are real issues with things how they are, we need change, but I think the way to make that change is to get engaged, to actually *do* something to make that change happen. And if all the people who arent happy with things did get involved in making those changes, we would see the difference itd make. If anyone else has any suggestions for groups or points to add, Im very willing to edit them in.
Posted on: Sat, 26 Oct 2013 13:42:11 +0000
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