Questions and answers from the Director’s Q&A event

What response are you receiving from members of the Labour Party on Proportional Representation?

The Labour party membership is overwhelmingly in support of proportional representation. Unfortunately, they did not get enough trade unions over the line to pass the motion on proportional representation at the Labour Conference.

In Parliament, there are a limited number of Labour MPs who are outspoken in their support for proportional representation.

When Labour MPs who are ambivalent about PR are put on the spot, they often express concern that proportional representation would let extreme parties into Parliament. Clearly, there are measures that can be taken to stop extreme parties getting into Parliament.  For instance, having a percentage threshold for votes below which a party would not secure any seats would limit the number of very small parties in any parliament. Equally some might point out that under First Past the Post, it is possible to get extreme elements in government.

Democracy organisations are continuing to build momentum for proportional representation within the Labour Party. We are very aware that getting proportional representation into Labour’s manifesto is not the end of the battle. Momentum needs to be built behind the issue, so that if a non-Conservative government came into power, they would feel obliged to actually implement proportional representation.

How can we get more supporters from Unlock Democracy from within the Conservative Party and what messages will appeal to them?

We want to build a cross party consensus because a strong stable democracy, that works for the people, is in the interest of all political parties.  It is currently difficult to find Conservative MPs who are willing to be advocates for democratic reform.

Conservative peers do not feel bound by party strictures in the way that Conservative MPs do, so we are establishing a dialogue with Conservative peers around the Elections Bill. 

There are a number of issues in the Elections Bill that peers may not be impressed with. For example, the Elections Bill was published a couple days before the Committee on Standards in Public Life published their recommendations, so the bill did not take onboard most of the 47 recommendations made in the report. In addition to this, during the committee stage of the Elections Bill, the Government introduced proposals to introduce First Past the Post for mayoral and Police Crime Commissioner elections. These were not in the original Elections Bill so they did not receive proper scrutiny and consultation.

We have also found common ground with some Conservative councillors. We conducted a survey about the views of councillors regarding the Government’s attitude towards local authorities. We got a reasonable return from Conservative councillors who felt that the Government had belittled local authorities and starved them of funding. So, there is common ground with some Conservatives around devolution.

What are you doing to create a more inclusive, popular movement and what are you doing to talk to people who are completely politically disengaged?

It is tough to talk to people who are completely politically disengaged. We are trying to grow our organisation by reaching a wider group of people, who are not currently members or supporters, but have similar values and principles to us.

To widen support for Unlock Democracy and our campaigns, I attended an event organised by Voice4Change, a national advocate for the Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic third sector. We spoke about the Government’s plans to introduce photographic voter ID, which may hurt ethnic minority groups disproportionately. Voter ID may also be a challenge for people with disabilities, who are less likely to have access to photographic voter ID and may have difficulty securing the so-called free photographic voter ID from their local authority.

We are supporting Political Literacy day, working with organisations like Shout Out UK to build political literacy.

We are acting on proposals identified in More In Common research which could help increase the level of trust and engagement in politics.

Has consideration been given to a campaign to abolish the House of Lords and if we do manage to do that, how do we make sure that some of the things that the Lords does well, in scrutinising some of the things that come from the Commons, are not lost?

In our Powering Up campaign with Compass, we are going to identify a package of democratic reforms that the democracy organisations as a whole are willing to support and the public back, and then sell that to political parties. I would expect House of Lords reform to be in there and for us to be running a campaign on it next year.

We have to be careful how we address House of Lords reform. As a Liberal Democrat in the coalition, I still bear the scars of our attempts to reform the House of Lords. The attempts were blocked by the other parties, and a huge amount of time and effort was wasted. So, we should not underestimate how difficult House of Lords reform is to achieve.

How do we make sure that what the Lords do effectively continues to be done? 

A Citizens’ Assembly could consider Lords reform and might recommend retaining an element of expertise in the House of Lords, perhaps by having 20% experts and 80% elected members and restricting membership of a reformed chamber to one or two terms.

Is there any way we can get the media onside for the Elections Bill perhaps by campaigning and drawing attention to some of the more extreme parts of the bill to the public?

Getting the media’s attention is difficult but we can maximise the chances of the media being interested by highlighting the impact of the Bill such as an expected drop in turnout. 

There are certain aspects of the Elections Bill that the press has been interested in. For example, they reported on a Conservative majority being appointed to the Speaker's Committee on the Electoral Commission, which is a retrograde step as the Electoral Commission is supposed to independently monitor the spending of political parties.

But the Elections Bill is taking place alongside numerous other news stories that are unfortunately of more interest to the media’s audience, including supply chain issues and the policy implications of COVID-19.

Have you thought about getting together with, sharing resources with, and having a common purpose with the many other organisations similar to yours that exist at present?

We work well with other organisations. Our Powering Up campaign is a joint project with Compass, and we are hoping that the 30 democracy organisations that responded to our recent survey will participate in developing a package of democratic reforms. As part of Powering Up, Unlock Democracy is doing some polling work alongside the Electoral Reform Society and the Institute for Public Policy Research.

We helped establish the Democracy Defence Coalition to campaign against the Elections Bill.  Its membership is ERS, Open Britain, Fair Vote, Best for Britain, Hands Off Our Vote and Unlock Democracy.

We are also part of the Democratise to decarbonise coalition which comprises Sortition, MVM, ERS, Compass and Unlock Democracy.

We secured some funding with Shout Out UK, which will be used to make sure that young people know that not only do they need to register to vote, but if the Elections Bill goes through, they will have to take photographic voter ID to the polling station.

Make Votes Matter, who campaign for proportional representation, now use some of our office space. This gives us a good opportunity to catch up with them informally and share knowledge and expertise.

It is possible that some democracy organisations may merge in the future, as there are lots of quite small organisations with very specific expertise. A large organisation taking in some of the smaller organisations could be more effective, than the myriad of small organisations that we have at present.

The proposal for a proper codified constitution is perhaps the most difficult project to sell to the population because it is viewed as abstract and clunky compared to bread-and-butter issues such as jobs, family, and money. How do we make this proposal more relevant to the public?

This is a big challenge that we are still working on as an organisation. Some of our campaigns, for example around transparency, resonate well with the public. A written constitution is a harder sell.

We are using polling to understand in more detail the public's thoughts on democracy and the changes they would like to see.  Then we will explain how we can help deliver these changes and the positive impact this would have on people’s lives (and incidentally the role a written constitution would play in that).

We avoid pushing a written constitution as the first element of our campaigns because people are more interested in knowing that their concerns have been addressed, and the difference it will make to them, than they are in the process that helped them to get there.

Will Unlock Democracy draw up a democracy charter before the next General Election and ask all political parties to sign up to it in their manifesto?

This is what the Powering Up project is about. We will identify a package of reforms that parties will be asked to sign up to. We are going to try to create a lot of positive noise around that, for example by building up a network of influencers who have expressed interest in democratic reform. This should demonstrate that there is an appetite for democratic reforms outside of the democracy organisations.

Celebrities seem to hold the most sway over public opinion these days, what are the chances of engaging the support of high-profile celebrities for PR?

We are working with influencers to try to get them to support our initiatives. With Charter 88, there was a very wide cross-section of people supporting democratic reform, and I think we can recreate that momentum. I have been speaking to people involved in the early stages of Charter 88, and there are some similarities to now. At that point (in the 1980s), there was disillusionment because a Conservative government had been in power for nine years and the opposition were not seen as effective.

There has been success in engaging celebrities on other campaigns in the democracy sector. We are opposing the Police & Crime Bill, and celebrities have been involved in campaigning against the clamp down on protest. So, there are high-profile people out there whom we can try to involve, and they can help us get coverage in the media and appeal to a wider section of the public.

How are the efforts going to establish more Unlock Democracy local groups?

Reestablishing an extensive network of local groups is a difficult nut to crack.

We will be present at the COP 26 London demonstration, and we are hoping that will kickstart our London group. But building up these groups is a challenge, and we are very dependent on finding individuals who are willing to initiate groups.

We have been working on ways to help us engage with our supporters better. We now have the ability to get our supporters to write to local newspapers on issues like the Police Bill and Elections Bill. We are hoping that the individuals who are engaging in these activities will provide the base for a local group in their area.

Dominic Raab’s proposal to enable Ministers to overturn decisions of the judiciary seems the latest dangerous attack on democracy by this Government, comparable to Poland and Hungary. What will it take to wake up the media and the public and what can we do?

Dominic Raab wants to introduce a fast-track process for the UK government to ‘correct’ decisions taken by the European court of Human Rights. The media are not as worried as they should be. The issue is tangential to us as an organisation, but we will support Liberty in the actions that they are taking to raise the profile of this issue.

How do you feel that Unlock Democracy has done this year?

We've made a strong start, with a new staff team, new campaigns software, more robust (and less time consuming) financial processes, a website revamp, 6 new campaigns launched, biggest rise in membership for years, biggest rise in supporters for years, fundraising exceeding targets and stretch goals. 

But there is much, much more to do.  It’s a strong start and we're going to keep setting ambitious goals moving forward.

In regards to legislation, we are in dialogue with key parliamentarians. For the Elections Bill, we have been working with Labour and the SNP to get amendments tabled, and these should be debated soon in the Commons or Lords.

We have had success around the issue of lobbying. Nigel Boardman, who was asked by Boris Johnson to look at the Greensill lobbying affair, echoed some of our recommendations on tightening the lobbying rules in his report on Greensill. Having him repeat what we advocated in his recommendations to the Government means that we are having our voice heard in other places.

What can I do to help the organisation as a volunteer?

We are based in London so opportunities may arise to come into the office and help. We also have people helping us remotely, for example by writing the occasional blog.

Tom Brake

Director, Unlock Democracy

19/10/21