Tuesday 22 July marked the conclusion of the first sitting for the House of the People – a groundbreaking grassroots, high-tech body to represent the UK public. It is the first of its kind, as a national democratic body with participants selected by sortition (an open lottery with demographic weighting) that deliberates and develops proposals written by free and open People’s Assemblies held across the UK.

House of the People: a groundbreaking democratic body to deliver a ‘People’s Charter’

The outcome is a People’s Charter, which has five top priorities for political action. The full report will be released in due course, but its headline takeaways are that the UK must:

1. Tax wealth by removing tax loopholes and closing tax havens. As part of this, it calls for an end to pension tax subsidies. It also demands that the government charge the equivalent of NI on investment as income over £5,000 a year, and apply VAT to banking services.
2. Strengthen and enforce anti-corruption laws. This means prohibiting lobbying, gifting, and second jobs in politics.
3. A Future Generation Act. Implement a first principle act that ensures all government policy prioritises well-being, sustainability, and nature over GDP for all current and future generations.
4.  An immediate total embargo on arms, trade, and support for all countries that are in violation of international law, with immediate priority to be given to Israel.
5. Long term decommodification of housing, ensuring renters rights. Councils should repurchase disused housing/empty homes/holiday homes to repurpose and build green council housing. It calls for the government to enshrine structural laws without loopholes and implement rent increase caps.

Groups and campaigners have been proposing that a national Citizens Assembly, like the House of the People, with power of legislation should replace the House of Lords. It would serve as a key antidote to failing democracy in the UK. The House of the People will convene a second sitting in 2026.

Proposals for a fairer future

Grassroots democracy organisation Assemble – who organised the event – plans to release a full report with the five priorities and all other agreed proposals.

Some of these key proposals include:

• A legal constitution which provides the people of Britian & Northern Ireland the power to decide when to start or join a war.
• Arrest, trial, and sentence for those complicit in genocide abroad and in the UK.
• Guaranteed basic income for all.
• Remove the principle of free movement of capital through introducing capital controls.
• End fuel poverty through a universal free quota of green energy after which the cost of energy progressively increases.
• Urgently enact strict AI regulation.
• Democratize the honours system.

From Sunday 20 to Monday 22 July, House of the People participants reviewed and discussed the outcomes of 75 Local Assemblies held over the past year. These have engaged 3,000 people in 35 neighbourhoods. It made extensive use of Dembrane’s Echo, a cutting-edge LLM listening technology that records conversations before processing and summarising them into actionable insights.

As well as Dembrane’s AI software, it utilised voting software Menti to action the final rounds of voting and deliver the five key issues of the People’s Charter.

A scalable model for a fairer, more participatory, and representative democracy

Rayal, a musician from East London was one of the participants. He said:

For me, the House of the People is a beginning. It’s the start of something much greater. Tt’s almost like an answer to a dream for me if I’m honest.

Bertie Coyle, 30, is a spokesperson for the the House of the People. On the closing day of the event, he said:

Using AI software to easily sort out participation and agreement among a big number of people proves this model can be scaled and implemented everywhere. This is faster, fairer, un-fecked democracy. The UK public clearly know better than Lords, lobbyists, and career politicians.

A large coalition of groups is already coming together to take action in support of the National Charter, including dissenting Lords, major trade unions, Just Stop Oil, Youth Demand, Greenpeace, and Extinction Rebellion.

Featured image and additional images supplied

By The Canary

This post was originally published on Canary.