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Democracy Bulletin, 26th May

UK Democracy Network
14 min readMay 26, 2021
8 pictures of cities from across the UK
A collage of cityscapes with metro mayors (Centre for Cities)

Welcome to the 26th May issue of the new Democracy Bulletin,

For our flurry of new readers joining us this week, this bulletin is a fortnightly roundup of activities from across the democracy sector, including a summary of updates, job listings (at the bottom!), news and even the odd bit of gossip from our meetups.

We’d just like to say a word or two of apologies for our technical issues at Monday’s meetup, it seems we’re still having some teething troubles with the new AddEvent calendar integration (gremlins in the system!).

Please do share your ideas, feedback and any questions you might have about the Centre for Democracy’s programmes: UK Democracy Handbook, meetup and newsletter via our survey or send us an email.

We’ve set up a new recurring calendar event for the Democracy Meetup, you can add it to your calendar here. You can also sub to a new wider UK Democracy Calendar which adds every event from the democracy sector to your calendar as they are added to our database.

We’re now tracking jobs, events and funding opportunities across the democracy sector. Check out active roles, upcoming events, grants and add any we’ve missed out below:

If someone you know would benefit from receiving this bulletin, here’s a link to the signup form.

Elections

Batley and Spen by-election updates
Jo Cox’s sister, Kim Leadbeater, has been selected as Labour’s candidate in the upcoming election. The Conservative Party has announced it has selected Harewood councillor and Leeds city councillor Ryan Stephenson as its candidate. Corey Robinson has been selected by the Yorkshire Party to contest the election.

Full ward-by-ward breakdown of May’s UK election results from Britain Elects
Ben Walker at Britain Elects has collated a comprehensive dataset of every ward result across the country. If you choose to use this resource, remember to cite Britain Elects.

Metro mayoral election dataviz
Centre for Cities’ latest data tool visualizes the outcomes of mayoral elections across England. Explore the data here. Their latest City Minutes podcast delves into the meaning of the election results for England’s cities, with CfC Chief Executive Andrew Carter.

Tell me what you want, what you really, really want
Democracy Club (DC) report back on the feedback they received throughout the election period. In short, it’s glowing, one user remarked DC are “simply the best”, people also really love polling station maps. But there’s always room for improvement, in this case with the provision of whether or not a polling station has disabled access.

Electoral Commission to investigate ‘blatant electoral deceit’ at the Holyrood election
A new party with no online presence run by ex-BNP far-right activists called Independent Green Voice (IGV) took thousands of votes off the Scottish Greens in several areas, argue the Scottish Greens. The Electoral Commission is due to investigate the claims.

Dark money and electoral rule violations by pro-Unionist campaigns tarnish Scottish election, reports openDemocracy
openDemocracy’s Peter Geoghegan reports concerning online political advertising rule violations by Unionist tactical voting campaigns throughout the recent Holyrood elections, with the Young Unionists reportedly spending as much as £20,000 on Facebook ads, all lacking details of who paid for them, with £5,000 of that amount being spent in the final days of the campaign.

The3million team celebrates election wins
Over the last three months, the Young European Network ran a campaign to promote voter registration amongst resident EU citizens. Together with the3million, they report the successful election of at least 15 EU citizens who ran for their local council and were elected on May 6th, including the first ever Romanian-British County Councillor, Cllr Alex Bulat. After the election they’re now focused on protecting and securing the voting rights of European citizens in the UK.

Centre for Constitutional Change Scottish election highlights
The team at CCC has gathered together a great selection of blogs, media articles and tweets that they authored and contributed to throughout the recent Scottish Parliament election.

New electoral offences and overseas voters
In a pair of new House of Commons Library briefings, Neil Johnston outlines the background of the new offence of intimidation of candidates and voters, and provides some history and detail on the government’s ending of the 15-year overseas voting limit, introducing new ‘votes for life’ for expats.

Rotten Boroughs are back, claim Electoral Reform Society
Reflecting on the recent elections Josiah Mortimer, Head of Communications at the Electoral Reform Society, provides some insight into England’s winner-takes-all voting system.

Democracy Meta

Do you have experience of organisational strategy development processes with participative elements?
Juliet Michaelson, Deputy CEO at Economy, is undertaking research to inform the process of their next 3–5 year long term strategy. They’re interested in hearing from people who’ve developed strategy processes and included participatory elements, or perhaps had a strong diversity, inclusion or anti-oppression focus.

New mySociety climate job and seminar for councillors
Myf at mySociety announces a new vacancy for an Outreach and Networks Coordinator at mySociety, and an upcoming event for local councillors to learn more about how they can take urgent action on the climate emergency.

Bitizen and real-time public sentiment of political activity
Co-Founder at Bitizen, Andrew Marshall is building a new platform designed for political participation, with data aggregation creating new real-time views of public sentiment towards political activity right across the political spectrum. They’re currently testing their new app with their founders community.

Join the upcoming cohort of the Landecker Democracy Fellowship
Humanity in Action’s Landecker Democracy Fellowship is now open to applications until July 11. Running from November 6 2021 to November 7 2022, this year’s cohort will focus on social cohesion, with applicants tasked to develop projects bridging the gulf between those who are increasingly drifting apart in societies across the globe.

Women in Parliament
This new briefing paper by Richard Kelly at the House of Commons Library provides a list of all the women who have ever been elected to the House of Commons.

Women 2 Win announce their Summer Party
Penned for the 21st July, the Conservative Party’s women’s network annual event will feature guests Suella Braverman MP and their months-old daughter Gabriella. Get in touch here to find out more.

Can Democracy Safeguard the Future?
Graham Smith celebrates the launch and publication of his new book. Graham is Professor of Politics at the University of Westminster and Director at the Centre for the Study of Democracy.

Sheffield Festival of Debate
Colin Miller of Deeper Democracy recommends the Festival of Debate currently ongoing virtually in Sheffield throughout the month of May and into June, which is hosting some great discussions such as the Crisis of Democracy session on June 3 between Peter Geoghegan (Democracy for Sale), Klina Jordan, CEO of Make Voters Matter, and Neal Lawson of Compass.

TicTec 2021: That’s a wrap
With the last event on Tuesday covering empowering communities through geospatial tech, the TicTec 2021 programme has come to an end. You can view all previous events at this link, though Tuesday’s session may take a few more days to be uploaded.

Final decision on Commons restoration to be taken in 2023.
Commons leader Jacob Rees-Mogg has said the full costings and plans will be put before Parliament in early 2023 and it will be up to MPs to approve or reject it. Dr Ruth Fox, Director of the Hansard Society, makes their case for decanting Parliament.

PolicyMogul launches free political monitoring
The PolicyMogul free plan allows you to monitor mentions of up to five keywords from anywhere in the political landscape, and is perfect for individual campaigners or small organisations with narrow interests. If you’re into political monitoring, also see Polimonitor.

Funding & Supporting Democracy

VocalEyes announces successful funding raise
Susan Rodaway, Operations Director at VocalEyes Democracy CIC, reports they’re almost at 100% of the extended £350k target on their social bond raise, a huge achievement! They’re now recruiting a Sales Lead Generator and open to collaboration on projects, particularly where they involve supporting marginalised communities in exercising their voice.

Changes at Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust
JRCT release their initial action plan for addressing dynamics of power and privilege within their organisation, they welcome anonymous feedback via this link. JRCT also answer questions on the origins of their endowment and the impact of the Rowntree business. The Trust announces new power for its grantmaking committees, with committees now able to disburse up to £120,000 without board approval. They also announce six new committee members to help guide their work, you can find out more here. View their last grantmaking round of over £2.5million worth of grants.

Democracy Funding Opportunities Database
Molly and James from the Centre for Democracy team report they’ve now finished scouring democracy funding organisation websites and newsletters and have produced this Airtable list of available funding opportunities. If they’ve missed anything, add the funding opportunity, incubation or paid fellowship here.

The latest in participatory grantmaking
Social Change Agency interviews Hannah Paterson, Senior Portfolio Manager — Innovation, Policy and Practice at the National Lottery Community Fund, on the latest developments in participatory grantmaking and democratising funding.

Modern Grantmaking pre-orders available
Gemma Bull & Tom Steinberg’s new book on transforming grantmaking, replete with practical tips for grantmakers and grantees, is now available to pre-order.

Get your free 1password for Democracy account
1password are offering fully complementary accounts of their password manager free to election candidates and those working around elections, from election staff to supporting candidates to run. Shout out to Matthew Shipton at Democracy Club for telling us about this.

Reforming Democracy

Supporting young people into careers in politics and public policy
I Have A Voice just added a new interview to their careers hub on helping young people into public policy careers. Rebecca Deegan, Founder at IHAV, reports that the third stage of their current mentoring scheme for 10 young people from under-represented backgrounds is currently underway, delivered in partnership with the Public Relations and Communications Association.

Amending the Higher Education Bill
Titus Alexander of Democracy Matters is currently in the process of progressing an amendment to the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill on political literacy. You can view and comment on the amendment, here.

Constitution Unit Conference on Constitutional Reform
The Constitution Unit announces their new two day conference. Held across the 17th and 18th of June, the conference will bring together policy makers, academic experts and politicians to discuss what progress has been made and what lies ahead.

Top Conservatives call voter ID plans “illiberal” and “politics as performance”
Britain’s Chief Brexit negotiator David Davis MP and former Scottish Tory leader Ruth Davidson criticised voter ID proposals and mocked the idea that this is a legislative priority.

Safeguarding Democracy

Conservatives launch new pledge site Back the Bill
The Conservative Party launches a new campaign and website, Back the Bill, to muster public support for the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill. The bill is currently in committee stage. If you’re working on the bill or looking for more information, sign up to Liberty’s intermittent email bulletin list on the Police Bill here.

Online Safety Bill (OSB) is finally published
Carnegie Trust have been tracking work around the bill, like Fair Vote UK and so many others. We highly recommend their summary and analysis of the OSB in their recent newsletter. Paul Goodman of ConservativeHome also provides a short brief on the background and content of the bill. DCMS Minister Oliver Dowden MP’s op-ed in the Telegraph on the Bill can also be found here.

Major concerns with the new Online Safety Bill
In a joint op-ed for Grazia with the Antisemitism Policy Trust, Glitch Founder Seyi Akiwowo, writes that the proposals don’t reflect the gendered nature of the problems around online harms.

Bursting the democratic ‘bubble’
Ellen Judson writing for Demos focuses on the impact of the exemption of “content of democratic importance” in the new Online Safety Bill, i.e. cordoning off certain topics and viewpoints in a ‘bubble’ as protected no matter how harmfully expressed, is not a democracy enhancing strategy.

Open Rights Group kickoff campaign against ‘digital police state’
As the Cabinet Office proposes a dramatic expansion of Police data-matching powers via the National Fraud Initiative, as covered in previous issues of Democracy Bulletin, ORG is rallying its supporters to oppose the move.

Participatory Democracy

Taking stock of the deliberation landscape in the UK
This April Involve’s Deliberative Democracy Practitioners Network reflected on the state of play of deliberative democracy in the UK, mapping opportunities for change, forces providing resistance and an exploration of what practitioners can do now to make the most of the changing landscape — thanks to Maddie Gough, Involve’s Project and Inclusive Practice Officer, for providing a thorough breakdown of the work. Find out more about the Practitioners Network here.

Launching the Global Democracy Initiative
This Saturday Barnaby Flynn, Founder of Global People Power, is working to launch the Global Democracy Initiative (GDI). The GDI met for the first time in November 2020 and since then has brought together many of the global democracy organisations to work together synergistically.

Devolved Democracy & Local Government

Coalitions and progressive alliances on the cards at all levels across the country
As Jonathan Bartley tells Keir Starmer “you have my number — give me a call”, Labour and the Liberal Democrats in Milton Keynes announce a Progressive Alliance. Labour and Greens organise to run Sheffield Council as a ‘co-operative administration’ and Labour, Lib Dems and Independents form a coalition on Cambridgeshire county council after not standing candidates against each other and taking seats from the Conservatives as a result.

Fresh report from the LGIU’s new Local Democracy Research centre & new councillor support resources
Centred on the key challenges facing local democracy around the world, the paper argues the time is right for a radical restructuring of power, politics and policy around the needs of local places, and that the UK needs a new “settlement for place”. Join the launch of the new research centre and a discussion on their latest paper on the 16th June. The LGIU also published new councillor support resources for newly elected representatives.

Evaluation of devolved institutions
A new report from BEIS, produced by Warwick Economics and Development, takes stock of the institutional processes of devolved institutions across England. The research will feed into government policy decisions on future devolution.

Why Scotland’s election result is unlikely to hasten a referendum
Michael Keating of the Centre on Constitutional Change argues the 50/50 independence split in Scottish society is now clearer than ever, and that with such a close margin and the requirements of a UK Government sanctioned order to allow a referendum, it is unlikely we’ll see much real movement on this issue for some time, despite the hype.

What do the elections in Wales and Scotland mean for their cities?
Senior Analyst Anthony Breach at the Centre for Cities proposes that politicians in the devolved nations take inspiration from the success of the English metro mayors and embark on a new wave of urban devolution.

Media Democracy

Mary Fitzgerald steps down as Editor-in-Chief of openDemocracy
Mary led the team at OD for 7 years and worked to build OD into the investigative journalism powerhouse it is today, as attested to in their recent annual report.

Preparing for the biggest survey of independent news in the UK… ever!
Joe Mitchell, Prog. Mgr at Public Interest News Foundation, is working on the launch of the PINF Index 2021, the largest survey of indie news outlets in the UK to date. They’re also looking into a new programme of work on local news and democratic engagement, how they’re linked and how they can better support one another.

Elections? There’s an app for that
Tactical Tech’s Data & Politics Project have written up a series of four incisive articles on the ‘appification’ of politics, elections and issue campaigning, and why it’s important to investigate this new domain of political activity.

Hacked Off
The new Online Safety Bill proposes exemptions for news platforms that Hacked Off say would amount to ‘safe havens for those responsible for racism, hate and abuse online’.

“A world leader amongst democracies when it comes to censorship and state control”
Those were the words of Big Brother Watch’s Mark Johnson commenting on proposed changes in the Online Safety Bill, where the bill restores the old gatekeepers of speech whilst creating a new regime of restrictions and censorship for the wider population, argues Mark in the Spectator.

Educating Democracy

New seminar for teachers: House of Lords: Scrutiny… and reform?
The UK Parliament Education Service and the Political Studies Association have teamed up to provide an insightful seminar for educators with keynote speaker Professor Meg Russell, Director of the Constitution Unit. Register here.

Good Watches & Reads

We know what you did during lockdown
A new Financial Times film, funded by Luminate, explores how Covid-19 has exposed the tensions between the need for data to support health interventions, and the right to privacy and justice.

Active Job Listings across the Democracy Sector

View the full database of upcoming job listings here — have we missed any? Add them via Airtable.

Unsalaried job listings

Other paid roles

  • Josh Russell is building a prototype news aggregation platform to be used by people researching the impact of government policies. They’re looking for people with cloud dev skills (Python, Node, etc, on Google Cloud / AWS), scaling db skills (graphQL, noSQL, etc), and can build a web admin interface for searching etc, likely using React — for more information, get in touch with Josh here or on their website here.

That’s all for this time, if you’ve found this useful, please forward it on to your colleagues. They can sign up for these emails here. And you can set up a recurring calendar event for the Democracy Meetup. Add it to your calendar here.

We’ve been experimenting with the format of this email and the accompanying meetup, if you have any feedback we’d be glad to hear it.

These documents are open all week. If you can’t make our fortnightly meetup, you can always drop in to the meetup document of the current period and add to it by going to democracymeetup.org.uk.

See you next time,

James, Molly and the Centre for Democracy team

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UK Democracy Network

Written by UK Democracy Network

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