Today, Unlock Democracy has launched its campaign for a Citizens’ Convention Bill. The Bill, sponsored by a cross party group of MPs including Labour’s David Chaytor, will be presented to the House of Commons today by Julia Goldsworthy MP, and it is set for its second reading debate this Friday.

The idea behind this Bill is simple: there is now broad, cross-party support for the principle that Britain’s democracy needs to be renewed, and that the people themselves must be at the centre of any new reform.

The Citizens’ Convention Bill calls on the Government to establish a Convention within 12 months. It isn’t at all prescriptive about how this Convention should be constituted, other than that it must seek views from across the UK and among all sections of society. There are a range of options available, from the Scottish Constitutional Convention in the mid-90s to more radical solutions such as the Citizens’ Assembly model which has been used to review the electoral system in British Columbia, Ontario and the Netherlands, in which randomly selected members of the public deliberate on an issue.

Labour can proudly claim to have delivered more on constitutional reform than practically all of its post-war predecessors put together. However the experience of constitutional reform since 1997 has demonstrated that individual reforms, no matter how important, are not enough.  There has to be strong democratic narrative and crucially citizens need beat the heart of the reform process. The Citizens’ Convention Bill points the way.

So, please set aside five minutes today and write to your MP, asking them to sign EDM 1763: Citizens’ Convention Bill. For more information, to sign up for updates and to make a donation, check out the Unlock Democracy website: www.unlockdemocracy.org.uk.