Labour floated and are now backing away from using citizens' assemblies to tackle difficult policy areas, but they are at heart fraudulent and founded on myth
As I’ve come to expect, this is a very full and well argued piece. But it seems to fail on a fairly basic point of argument: even the advocates of citizen assemblies don’t suggest that they are the solution to all political questions. Rather, they are useful for finding ways to offer options to resolve particular problems that parliamentary democracy finds difficult to solve. Importantly, they are assemblies and not legislatures. In that sense, describing parliament as the ultimate citizens’ assembly is misleading.
Unless you think that all of society’s problems are adequately addressed by the current constitutional framework, it seems odd to rule out a means of gleaning useful inputs from the public which are not captured by the current system. It’s unrealistic to expect politicians to tackle certain long term issues such as funding social care without significant changes to other elements of our political process (which I’m not aware that you’re advocating). Simply saying “we need better politicians” isn’t a solution.
On a related point, the logic of your argument would suggest you don’t believe in jury trials. I’d be surprised if that were the case.
Eliot, for once I agree with you! The example of the Citizens' Assembly on Abortion in Ireland is one you should be very wary of. This was managed in such a way that it produced proposals far more extreme than had been considered likely beforehand. The fact that these proposals had been recommended by the Citizens' Assembly was then used to push people into supporting them in the subsequent referendum. The passage of the proposals was further assisted by pledges from the then government as to safeguards which would be included in the legislation to be passed, pledges which are now being abandoned having served their purpose.
As I’ve come to expect, this is a very full and well argued piece. But it seems to fail on a fairly basic point of argument: even the advocates of citizen assemblies don’t suggest that they are the solution to all political questions. Rather, they are useful for finding ways to offer options to resolve particular problems that parliamentary democracy finds difficult to solve. Importantly, they are assemblies and not legislatures. In that sense, describing parliament as the ultimate citizens’ assembly is misleading.
Unless you think that all of society’s problems are adequately addressed by the current constitutional framework, it seems odd to rule out a means of gleaning useful inputs from the public which are not captured by the current system. It’s unrealistic to expect politicians to tackle certain long term issues such as funding social care without significant changes to other elements of our political process (which I’m not aware that you’re advocating). Simply saying “we need better politicians” isn’t a solution.
On a related point, the logic of your argument would suggest you don’t believe in jury trials. I’d be surprised if that were the case.
Eliot, for once I agree with you! The example of the Citizens' Assembly on Abortion in Ireland is one you should be very wary of. This was managed in such a way that it produced proposals far more extreme than had been considered likely beforehand. The fact that these proposals had been recommended by the Citizens' Assembly was then used to push people into supporting them in the subsequent referendum. The passage of the proposals was further assisted by pledges from the then government as to safeguards which would be included in the legislation to be passed, pledges which are now being abandoned having served their purpose.