“No individual can win a game by himself” – Pele

Since the creation of the Network, we have been committed to helping the democracy sector become more successful at achieving and winning democratic change. By bringing people and organisations together, we are more likely to win together. 

Last year, during our development days, members wanted to see us do more of this type of work, alongside the essential information sharing and capacity building work we already do. It’s exciting therefore to see our action and influence work getting moving.

So, we were delighted therefore to get funding to focus on this work – which helped employ me since last November to lead our campaigns and advocacy work!

In December last year, the Brown Commission was launched by Keir Starmer and Gordon Brown. This followed a consultation period, in which the Democracy Network took part in via a roundtable and then followed up to ensure the sector was heard as part of the effort. Lots has been written about the Commission’s report, a neat summary can be found here.

To build on this, in January, a working group of Democracy Network members decided to collaborate and provide a democracy sector perspective on proposals that should be considered by all political parties.The plan is to engage with all political parties, and relevant policymakers, on the work that’s needed to improve democracy, and democratic institutions in the UK. Recently the Labour National Policy Forum opened a policy consultation, so this was a good opportunity to engage and influence. 

As part of this, we coordinated a submission, signed by twenty-one organisations and individuals from across the democracy sector, to the Labour Party’s National Policy Forum consultation earlier this month.

The member response outlined thoughts on:

• Devolution of power to communities
• Proportional representation (PR) for general elections
• House of Lords reform
• Reducing barriers to voting
• Improved transparency and accountability in our politics
• Ensuring a thriving, free media sector
• Civic education

The full submission, and its signatories, is available here. 

We’ll be looking for similar opportunities to influence other political parties throughout the UK; we respect people’s political and ideological differences and create space for various views to be held safely.

And don’t worry if you’re not a campaigning organisation, only the signatories of this NPF are part of this submission, not the wider membership. This is true for all our campaign work – it is opt-in only. Get in touch here if you’d like to know more.

Many sector organisations came together and worked on this, helping to create a final version. A big thank you to everyone that contributed!