Legendary left-wing film director Ken Loach has joined a group of “community and trade union activists” in stressing that a focus on members’ democratic participation is essential for Your Party to become “a massive success”. The group have named themselves ‘Platform for a Democratic Party’ and set out a vision of transparency and democracy.

Loach joined fellow initial signatories Ian Hodson, Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi, Audrey White, Mike Forster, Ben Sellers, and Eric Barnes in pledging “to do all we can to make the Your Party initiative… a massive success which will change the British political landscape forever”. At the same time, the platform they have launched aims to:

underline the vital importance of ensuring that their huge enthusiasm and energy is translated into genuine ownership over party structures and policies.

They believe such democracy is essential:

if our party is to resist establishment attacks and build the transformative movement that this moment demands.

Three key requests

The group recommends that, firstly, a “broad committee of local and national representatives” be the ones to convene the new left party’s founding conference. And “those intending to join the new party as grassroots members must have a clear majority of the voting power at the founding conference on the basis of One Member One Vote (OMOV) and must be fully represented in its planning and organisation”. The signatories add that:

Your Party must not appear to favour MPs or other big names above grassroots activists! Key decisions on
responsibilities and processes for convening the conference have to be taken by a committee that is transparent and accountable, otherwise it will not have the confidence of people at the grassroots. They are impatient for the party building process to forge ahead as quickly as possible, but they will lose heart if it is not conducted openly and with their full participation.

Secondly, they stress that the party must be “grounded in democratic participation” where “every
single member has a vote”. They add that:

Members’ voices must not be drowned out by MPs or affiliated organisations.

And that:

All local groups must have access to the data of members within their locality (taking into account GDPR rules).

Finally, they assert that:

Our parliamentary representatives must ultimately be servants of the party as a whole and we must ensure that all representatives, at every level, are always subject to democratic accountability, including right of recall and mandatory reselection. At its heart, Your Party must be accountable, transparent and democratic.

Featured image via YouTube screenshot/Double Down News

By Ed Sykes

This post was originally published on Canary.