Local people getting organised to avoid despair over electoral politics

JVL Introduction

Perspectives on the 2024 General Election (19)

Electoral politics are important but are not the only way to do politics and this is especially true when the majority of people feel disillusioned and alienated from political parties and at least one third of people have not yet decided how to vote in the 2024 election.

In Hastings, some local people decided that despair was not an option and that relying on the political parties to address people’s needs was, to put it mildly, pointless.  What was needed was for politicians to listen to people.  Here Kay Green writes about the first meeting of a Hastings & District People’s Assembly, which produced a plethora of ideas; examples included – elected representatives should hold regular meetings with their communities to account for themselves and to listen to people who should then be able to grade them (cf OFSTED) and too many low grades should lead to a right to recall.  Key to the Assembly was the (seemingly bizarre) idea that we can all learn to be respectful and listen to each other with a view to understanding the root of people’s concerns rather than dismiss those with whom we disagree as, eg racist, misogynist and so on.

LL

This article was originally published by Her Blog on Thu 20 Jun 2024. Read the original here.