My view on politics

What are my political views?

I have been politically motivated for quite some years, in both local and national politics. Originally a Labour supporter but I think that was more to do with the fact that my father was staunch Labour but I became disillusioned with them when Tony Blair turned them into champagne socialists that didn’t act or sound any different to the elitists of the Tory. I have said on numerous occasions that Tony Blair turned Labour into the Old Tory Party. Listening to Nigel Farage in 2011 saying you couldn’t fit a fag paper between them made me warm to UKIP and soon became an active campaigner, from 2011 to 2014 UKIP were a breath of fresh air in British politics mainly down to people like Nigel Farage and Godfrey Bloom simply saying out loud what most of us were actually thinking. After they won the EU elections in 2014 I saw the same thing happening within the party, that had happened to Labour, UKIP suddenly wanted to be more like the parties they were supposed to be against and they began rapidly promoting obvious career politicians, so I quit and became an independent.

At that time I had come to realise that the problem with politics was actually the political parties, if you put a problem to four parties the only possible end result would be a compromise of some sort and then thought the best solution was to eradicate the party idea and push the independent agenda. Then we had the EU Referendum on June 23rd 2016 and this changed people’s attitude to politics completely. Not sure if it was the shock of Leave winning or what but it certainly woke many people up from the political comas that they had been in for far too long, they were suddenly hungry for politics but didn’t like what was on the menu.  For someone who had been actively involved in politics this change was quite surreal, no longer were people saying never talk politics or religion in a pub and people were actually going out of their way to talk politics with me, it was really quite surreal seeing the change in people from the EU Referendum. This is when I decided it was time for something new in politics, a new kind of party that believes in Direct Democracy and empowers its members to shape party polices, structure and direction, through reasoned debate. I had come to realise that as an independent I would achieve nothing and to ever succeed in changing British politics it would mean changing how political parties work. In a standard political party the power pyramid has the leader at the top and power filters downwards through the ranks to the membership who are at the bottom and are often treated as cash cows and canvassers. So I decided to turn that power pyramid upside down, putting the membership at the top of the power pyramid and then the higher the rank within the party the more subservient to the membership that person becomes.  This was the founding idea behind Demos Direct Initiative Party, a party were members opinions are values more than the member’s financial contributions and one were the best solutions are found through reasoned debate of the many. We originally thought we had two or three years to build this party but Theresa May has quite dramatically changed that timeframe.

One thing that being an Independent taught me was that really there was very little difference between the actual members of different parties and it was possible to debate reasonable with many of them, regardless if they were Left or Right leaning, It also became apparent that many people today can actually like different aspects of all parties and then led me to realise that the Left V Right political ideologies had become outdated in modern day society. However the Labour and Conservative parities were more than happy for the Left and Right to keep shouting at each other rather than shouting at government. So when we started DDIP we asked those joining to leave their Left and Right flags at the door when they entered and instead debate with each other to find the best solutions. If someone has an idea that everyone agrees with you cannot progress on that idea, it is only by debating with those of opposing opinions can any idea be improved upon. This is why DDIP is built around its member’s forum, which is the heart of the party and where all issues are debated. Branches within the party are treated as independent groups who are only responsible to the people they represent in their given areas but the whole party membership work together on creating the best national policies. Using an internal voting system on our forum we can vote on absolutely anything at zero cost to the party or the membership and because the forum is available 24/7 365, members can have their say at any time that suits them. It is a party system that is working well already and we hope that it will quickly grow into a great new party of the people.