Assembly Project

An earlier event from Assemble last August, which launched the work to run the House of the People. This month’s event is at a different venue but will look quite similar.

Why rely on the government to start national citizens’ assemblies if you can start your own? This is a huge task. But after over a year of preparation, the Assemble campaign will hold one at a historic hall in London, for three days starting this Sunday.

One hundred people have been randomly selected to take part in this event, called the House of the People. They will meet over three days to hear from a panel of experts and choose five items for a National Charter. While the participants are already selected, you can attend as an observer.

Of them, 50 were selected from nationwide sign-ups, while 50 have been selected from their local people’s assembly projects such as the one I attended in Salisbury. Assemble have been supporting several of these in recent months, partly to drum up support for the House of the People and because they can inform its debates.

How representative will it be? I can’t find full details on how the selection process worked, but it does appear to stratify (adjust) for several demographic factors. If the assembly reaches a wide agreement on its recommendations, it suggests that it doesn’t matter if the representation is a little imperfect. And lastly, it will be far more representative of the people than our current parliaments and councils.

Assemble is one of several groups in the UK that is seeking to revitalise democracy through citizens’ assemblies and people’s assemblies. It differs from others in that it has acted faster and is more openly radical with its aims, while still recognising the need to hold assemblies for all people and not just those of a certain political persuasion.

Assemble’s experiment deserves publicity and support. Citizens’ assemblies are one of the most promising democratic innovations of our time. As Roman Krznaric put it recently, ““The rise of citizens’ assemblies is the most significant innovation in Western democracy since women won the right to vote a century ago.” They lack the tribalism, careerism and short-termism of elected parliaments and are far more representative of the people.

The famous story is that in Ireland, a citizens’ assembly led to the legalisation of abortion after years of deadlock, which was ratified in a referendum with 66% of the vote. Another less well-known case was in Polish city of Gdansk, where a citizens’ assembly helped the city authorities improve their response to floods.

People’s (or popular) assemblies are less-well-known, but also promising. Whereas citizens’ assemblies excel at representing the population of a wider area, people’s assemblies allow the wider public to participate and talk about issues affecting their most local community. In Hull, one of them spawned a soup kitchen. In Cornwall, an assembly persuaded their council to take a more environmentalist stance. By giving a wider number of people the experience of sitting on an assembly, they can strengthen support and demand for citizens’ assemblies.

It’s all for a good cause and has been the product of a lot of time and hard work. We shall see how it goes.