Why we need a People’s Politics Inquiry

In a speech to the Hansard Society on Wednesday evening I launched an Inquiry in to the crisis at the heart of our politics.

The ‘People’s Politics Inquiry’ is not a normal kind of Inquiry. It won’t be made up of the usual collection of the great and the good. We will reach out to disillusioned voters from across the UK for a conversation about how we can build a better politics.

We cannot deny the very real challenge faced by our democracy today. Political engagement is in decline. Voter turnout is in decline. Fewer and fewer people are members of political parties. Increasingly our political culture is alien to the public and people are switching off in droves. Unless we are careful, it could be on our watch that people stopped believing in the power of politics to transform lives.

We’ve not just got a flatlining economy, we’ve got a flatlining democracy too.

The debate about political reform is a charged one, but I am clear about one thing: we need to approach it from the perspective of people who are actually disengaged. To understand what has gone wrong, we need to ask the people who have tuned out and turned off.

The Inquiry will explore three key areas: our political culture, democratic participation and how we can reconnect people with parliament. Over the coming months, we will develop a national panel, a series of local conversation events and an online debate through our participatory website ‘Your Britain‘.

This Inquiry is another step in Labour’s journey to open up and reach out. Our policy process is at the heart of this, and it is blazing a trail amongst all other political parties. We launched Your Britain in November 2012, and in doing so opened up our policy discussion to all who wish to participate – directly through the online policy hub and through the Your Britain meetings taking place in villages, towns and cities across the country. Thousands have taken up the offer, and we’ve heard from people who have never before interacted with a political institution beyond the ballot box.

We’ve spent a lot of time recently discussing Mrs Thatcher’s legacy. I think that part of that legacy is a consumerist politics where people see politics as a service to buy and sell. We need to shake that consensus and work towards a more contributory politics, where everyone has a stake and everyone is encouraged to play their part. This Inquiry is another step on that road to transformation.

Angela Eagle MP is Shadow Leader of the House of Commons and Chair of Labour’s Policy Forum. You can read the full text of Angela’s speech here.