Take Back Parliament

TBP Steering Committee Meeting Minutes 25.07.11

Take Back Parliament Steering Committee Meeting

25th July 2011

Present: James Graham, Elliot Folan, Ben Lile, Alice Delemere, Clive Bishop, Peter Brooks, Emily Randall and Mevan Babakar

Apologies: Andy May, Clare Coatman and George Gabriel

Agenda

●     B Sky B Bid Protest Debrief

●     Organising TBP

●     House of Lords Action Plan

●     Bite the Ballot/Votes@16

B Sky B Bid Protest Debrief

Questions raised on the media coverage. Additionally it was asked should we have collaborate further with Avaaz and 38 Degrees. Issues regarding logistics, problems outside of our control i.e. Harry Potter film launch but making last minute changes did not help. However was effective for getting members/supporters out.

Andy and UD have been working on a joint letter action to the police regarding phone hacking by other newspapers. Noted that the media focus has moved on. No immediate future action planned but we will keep a watching brief for developments.

Organising TBP

Keys areas: Governance structure, policies (survey), communication, local groups, priorities, website and resources.

Governance structure: Elected steering group. Individuals register to vote.  Who are our electorate? Establishing who our memberships are.  Target to have this resolved by September 1st (end of Summer). Quorum. 

Priorities (survey): Agreed to ratified the survey results as a basis for the TBP priorities.  Specifically, all the issues except for Written Constitution and Votes at 16 would be regarded as a priority area for TBP to campaign on. 

Local Groups: How are we going to enable them to feed democratically in to how we organise?  Strongly linked in with governance structure. Are the groups organised effectively. We (TBP, UD and ERS) to help support groups and make sure they are organised effectively.  Providing discussion papers. 

House of Lords Action Plan

Proposal for action agreed.  Increase online action in the two weeks running up. Need to target local groups.

Public consultation (deadline 12th October): We are encourage to submit evidence in bulk rather than individually (see James). Plan to get groups/individuals to submit via UD/TBP/ERS

Recommended: Flashmob at Queen’s speech however there have been difficulties at previous events and media coverage was low.

Structure for tug of war: 1st Peers win against 1 prole then after a ‘sprinkle of democracy’ more people come in and beat the peers.  Narrator needed and Peter as the interviewee.

Bite the Ballot

See Mevan and Ben for further notes. Bite the Ballot are aiming to encourage to get young people (not solely) involved in politics. It started of in a school in the south east by teacher. Have grown in both support and funding. Lords are supporting this. Liaising with US Rock the Vote.

Question: How can we support them (and similar organisations)?

●     Promotion via social media and emailing our activists and local groups.

●     Joint Events

●     Shared resources: research papers

AOB - None

Next Meeting:  8th August 2011

Action Points

●     For future events to do a recon both online and offline for holding stunts. (all)

●     Elliot: Send link round of video footage of the B Sky B protest

●     Update the website with the policies/survey results

●     Peter and Elliot: To draft a proposal election process including registering and delegate events for 1st August and everyone to provide feedback before 5th August [google docs]

●     Agreed fortnightly meetings on Monday at 6.30pm. Next meeting on 8th August. Emily to set up meetings on google calendar.

●     Emily to forward HoL campaign action email to Alice and the steering groups. 

●     Ben and Mevan to research doing a video for HoL action

●     Mevan (and Elliot) to lead on liaising with Bite the Ballot (james to raise about VoteMatch and linking in with Bite The Ballot)

●     Minutes to be publicised with a note stating email to set up attendance.

●     Next meeting theme: Governance Structure and Campaigns Strategy.

●     All to write down questions and proposals – ideally to circulate around before next

Sign our letter for a fuller police investigation into hacking and illegal data gathering

Here is the text of an email sent to the Take Back Parliament list today (20th July)

Please support this action and help make sure the ALL the newspapers and journalists in this country who were involved in phone hacking are helped to account.

Dear Friend

A murder victim whose phone was hacked. The UK’s top selling newspaper – closed. The UK’s two most senior policemen – resigned. People being arrested left, right and centre. I don’t know about you but it’s getting hard to follow what might happen next.

With so much going on, there’s a risk that the wider issues get lost in all the detail. This isn’t just about News International. In 2006 for example, it was found that the three newspapers which most used convicted “blagger” Steve Whittamore were the Daily Mail, the Sunday People and the Daily Mirror[1].

We can’t afford to let the Murdoch Empire take the blame for what is a wider problem with a feral, out of control press. Co-sign our letter to the Metropolitan Police today demanding that all the victims of newspapers’ illegal activities see justice.

http://action.unlockdemocracy.org.uk/investigate-the-press

 Only yesterday, the Daily Mail was attempting to move on from this story, asking “has all sense of proportion been lost in this furore?”

The Daily Mail also complains that the UK has “some of the strictest privacy laws in the world”. Yet despite the prosecution of professional “blagger” Steve Whittamore in 2006, no charges have ever been brought against his biggest client – the Daily Mail.

Watching the potential fall of Rupert Murdoch’s domination of the world media may be enjoyable, but if he is used as a scapegoat we will have missed a real opportunity to reform the UK media once and for all.

In fairness to the Metropolitan Police, they have a small team looking into this called Operation Tuleta. Currently however, this is just a “scoping exercise”. With the Met in turmoil and the spotlight on the Murdoch’s, there is a risk this operation may get forgotten about.

That’s why I’m asking you to join us in writing to Assistant Commissioner Cressida Dick to demand a proper investigation into the entire newspaper industry. Add your name here:

http://action.unlockdemocracy.org.uk/investigate-the-press

 A free press is crucial in any modern democracy, but what we have right now frequently threatens freedom of expression, ordinary people’s privacy and has been allowed to bully Parliament for far too long. Don’t let it continue once the dust has settled.

All the best,

Andy May

Chair, Take Back Parliament

Notes:

[1] “What price privacy now?”, Information Commissioner: http://www.ico.gov.uk/upload/documents/library/corporate/research_and_reports/what_price_privacy_now.pdf

Priorities survey: the results

Thanks to everyone who took part in our priorities survey last week.  We've now closed the poll and this is how you voted:

See the full results here.

All the ideas we asked you about received more support than opposition, with the exception of Votes at 16.  Some ideas, such as what we can do as an organisation to improve voter education, clearly need some thrashing out.  Others are already being campaigned on by other organisations.

We're interested to know what campaigning ideas you have - let us know in the comments below.

Let’s Clean Up Politics By Writing A Constitution

A blog from supporter Nicola Prigg who argues for making a written constitution one of the next priorities for constitutional reform.

A referendum on electoral reform has been lost, House of Lords reform has just recently been unveiled, a commission to look into the West Lothian Question (i.e. What should be done about the celtic regions of the UK being able to vote on English only issues at Westminster?), a Scottish Independence referendum is coming up within the next 4 years yet campaigners for political and constitutional reform are asking what is next.

I would argue for a written constitution.

Our constitution is a mess right now. We have no idea what it includes or what it should include. We do know that over the centuries, it has evolved and in some cases have rendered old parts of the constitution useless yet they have not been repealed.

A written constitution would entail debates about everything that is currently being debated. It would also encourage debates about the role and powers of the Prime Minister, whether or not there should be a separation of powers?

A proper debate would be held not just on the West Lothian question or Scottish independence and they would be treated rightly as parts of the same debate, the debate of how we govern the UK as a whole and more importantly we willdebate it as a country not as individual nations fighting for what they believe is rightfully theirs to decide. If people north and south of the border want te union to survive that is a debate we have to have.

Debates over local government powers and responsibilities would also ensue as well as how to elect each and every layer of government and parliament.

The UK constitution should be a constitution by the people and for the people. With the internet it may just be possible to write a constitution that has millions of authors rather than a select few founding fathers like other countries such as the USA and South Africa.

Every party has vowed to clean up politics, what better way is there than to actually write the rules of the governance of the UK down on a piece of paper for all to see.

Free membership on offer for supporters of Take Back Parliament

Andy May: Over the past 10 days hundreds of people have contacted us about what they'd like to see a campaign on next. We've also posted a number of blogs from supporters on issues that matter to them, including Lords Reform, Local Government electoral reform, party funding and the right to recall your MP.  Our latest one from Nicola Prigg on a written constitution is below this blog post.

Thanks for your thoughts, it's heartening to hear that people are not giving up on much needed political reform.

Take Back Parliament was always an informal, rapidly assembled coalition of organisations and ordinary people.

After the injustice of the 2010 election result we banded together under one banner and through the purple rallies captured a moment on the political agenda.

There are still big problems within our democracy benefiting the political elite ranging from political party funding to the unelected Lords. We need to keep up the pressure on these and other issues.

You can make that commitment right now. I'm pleased to report that our two main partner organisations the Electoral Reform Society and Unlock Democracy.are now offering free membership to all supporters of Take Back Parliament.

Join Unlock Democracy for 12 months free membership today:

http://action.unlockdemocracy.org.uk/tbp-join-for-free

Join the Electoral Reform Society for 12 months free membership today:

https://secure.membra.co.uk/ERSApplicationForm/

Both organisations have a commitment to campaign for

proportional representation (the Electoral Reform Society specifically for the Single Transferable Vote) and campaign on a range of electoral and democratic issues.

Joining for free allows you to help set the campaigning priorities of the future and to vote in their internal elections.

Take Back Parliament is changing with the times but we hope the spirit in which that was formed is continued. That it brings people together to campaign for democratic reforms that are a common cause and aims to bring together – not duplicate - campaigning effort.

We will support grassroots activism, local groups and encourage people to make democratic reform a wider felt issue wherever they live.

Thats why I urge you to join these groups, get involved in your local area and carry on the fight for fair votes and true democracy.