Collaborators
The Change Makers
The founding organisations are listed below, but everyone is welcome to endorse this project.
Citizens Network
Connecting people together to create a world where everyone matters.
99% Rising
A group of young people rising against poverty and inequality in the UK
We aim to combat apathy by politicising young people aged 18-35.
Our People
The Council
Liz Crosbie
Director and Project Leader
Liz Crosbie is an ex-Co-Chair of the UK Green Party. Her first career was in marketing, followed by management consulting in sustainability and global sourcing. In 2019 she formed Reboot GB. She has worked to develop the AllianceNow collaboration, the ALL Citizens Declaration and the ALL Principles of Good Governance.
Peter Martin
Director and Marketing Lead
Peter Martin has a broad range of experience, including the Armed Forces, the City of London, industry, and local politics. He has been an Independent District & Town councillor and was the Chair of a wildlife Charity/NGO. He also has experience lobbying Parliament. Interests ecology and democratic reform.
Heather Smith
Council Member and Communications Manager
Heather Smith is the Communications lead at the 99% Organisation, which campaigns to end mass impoverishment in the UK. In addition to campaigning for better democracy, she champions economic and social justice and climate activism – with XR, JSO and StopRosebank. She spent her career working in communications and branding for financial technology companies, including IBM.
Dr Phil White
Council Member
Dr. Phil White is a technologist who is passionate about leaving the world a better place for future generations. Since retiring from being a partner in a consulting firm he is now actively supporting the climate and economic justice movements.
Titus Alexander
Council Member
Titus works on learning about democracy, social justice and the wisdom in nature. He is an independent educator, researcher and change agent with over 40 years experience of in facilitating personal and social change across a wide range of fields including community organising and alliance building. His work is informed by a passionate commitment to increasing people’s power in their own lives, democracy, social justice and respect for nature.
Rob Ewers
Council Member and Head of Supporter Engagement
Rob has five years of experience at a world-leading policy institute and various roles in communications, political campaigns, research, projects, events, and programme management. Currently Head of Supporter Engagement. Rob is an Activist, Director and Board Member for four community organisations focused on national renewal, social enterprise, financial inclusion and social justice
Allan Paterson
Council Member and Company Secretary
A manufacturing professional for over 40 years, He ignored politics until the Brexit vote and only then discovered the situation with our Government and Governmental processes was much worse than could be imagined. At which point he decided to try and do something to redress it.
Gavin Barker
Council Member
Gavin Barker is the Constitutional lead at the Campaign for a Citizen Constitution. He campaigns on constitutional issues and locally for constitutional reform and stronger public services and participates in Assemblies for Democracy. He is based in Truro and supports regional devolution.
Joanne Risley
Council Member
Joanne is a working sculptor mainly working in Cor-ten steel, creating work for indoor and outdoor spaces. She is a local activist and campaigner.
Patrons
Steering Commitee
Anthony Grayling
Chair of the Steering Committee
Anthony Grayling CBE, MA, DPhil (Oxon) FRSL, FRSA is Master of the New College of the Humanities, and a Supernumerary Fellow of St Anne’s College, Oxford. Until 2011 he was Professor of Philosophy at Birkbeck College, University of London. He has written and edited over thirty books on philosophy and other subjects
Stephen McGann
Media Expert
Stephen McGann is a British actor best known for portraying Dr Patrick Turner in the popular Call the Midwife medical period drama series. This show has enabled the history of the National Health Service to reach popular audiences. In addition to his acting, McGann is a public speaker and communicator of science. He graduated from Imperial College London with a master’s in Science Communication. He has a long interest in improving British democracy having been an early supporter of Charter ’88.
Tom Brake
Deputy Chair of Steering Committee
After 22 years as a Member of Parliament, where he was active in pushing for democratic reform, including extending Freedom of Information (FOI) laws to private companies like Serco and Capita when they undertake work for the public sector, defending UK elections from foreign interference, and for votes at 16. Today he is the Director of Unlock Democracy.
FAQs
Frequently Asked Questions
Who or what are you?
AllianceNow is an umbrella campaign group open to civil society organisations and individuals who support our aims. We are not a political party and do not wish to become one under the First Past the Post electoral system.
Are you affiliated with any political parties?
No. We will not be advising people to vote for any particular party. AllianceNow (ALL) is campaigning for all political parties to uphold our Guide to Good Government and join a national debate on the future of the nation’s democracy. Still, we firmly recommend tactical voting to achieve a more progressive government.
Are you pro-European?
ALL is committed to an internationalist foreign policy, and many of us would like to be European Union citizens again. However, for the UK to be a good partner and neighbour, we must resolve our political and structural problems first before starting any rejoin application.
Becoming a nation capable of making long-term commitments based on a real national consensus is core to European values. We aspire to Britain reaching that level of political cohesion.
Do you support a united Ireland?
It is not for a campaign group to decide the two countries’ future. It should be the right of citizens to come to their own decisions.
Northern Ireland has a particularly complex history, and the Good Friday agreement and the ongoing evolution of that region’s relationship with the rest of the UK needs much greater understanding. The lack of coverage of Northern Ireland and Irish politics has encouraged a void of understanding that must be addressed.
We urgently need more political education, and public-service broadcasters have a role to play in improving awareness and understanding.
What is your position on House of Lords reform?
We believe the House of Lords needs urgent reform. At the moment, it is trying to fulfil two unrelated functions as a part of the Honours system and as a parliamentary chamber for scrutinising legislation from the lower House. The two functions should be separate.
In its current form, it has far too many members (Peers) and is very expensive to operate. While some members contribute a great deal to the parliamentary functions of the House, a substantial number appear to contribute nothing discernible and instead treat their peerages as a ‘social status’.
However, there are also calls for a second Chamber to represent the nations and regions and that aspiration has merit. ALL, therefore, calls for a national debate on the principles on which both Chambers are based to ensure that legislation is properly scrutinised by people with suitable expertise and experience and that all parts of the nation are fairly represented and valued.
A connected issue is the process by which individuals become Lords and the role of the Executive and monarch in giving out titles and a place in the legislature.
Do you support Citizen’s Assemblies?
ALL supports the participation of citizens in decision-making. However, we currently have a fully representative democracy, which has become corrupted by party politics. So, representatives have more relationship with their party and its goals than citizens’ views. Moving from where we are now needs careful thought and a well-designed consultation process.
Other countries have used citizens’ assemblies in managing national debates. Ireland is an outstanding example. We need to learn from other countries how to work with citizens to develop consensus viewpoints and for political parties and leaders to have confidence in the outcomes that they recommend.
ALL is calling for an immediate technical discussion within the UK democracy community on how we could best approach this challenge and be ready to offer it to a new incoming government.
Are you anti-Tory?
We are firmly against the current government’s actions but realise that those who lead parties are often quite different from their followers. Some decent Tory voters still believe in the one-nation version of conservatism. However, that form of politics appears to have been retired for some time.
We would welcome a future Conservative party that reflects better values and hope that such a party might seriously consider working together with the rest of us to build a better future for all in our country.
We need to reach out to everyone to show them that a democratic reset is in their interests by delivering a stronger, more economically dynamic country which gives power back to communities.
Who funds you?
To date, we have been self-funded and use crowdfunding. We have a funding policy to screen donations when they arrive in any high-value amount.
How are you different to others?
We have many great colleagues in the progressive community working towards a change of government, responding to the day-to-day legislative agenda of this government, or working for single campaign objectives. All of this is valid and essential work. We differ in our commitment to remember what good looks like. We favour an integrated policy approach, covering multiple campaign objectives, and our timeframe focuses on what happens after the 2024 General Election.
Do you support Scottish or Welsh independence?
That needs a national discussion based in every part of Britain. We must ask, ‘What sort of Union do we want to have?’ A question that can only be resolved by holding citizen-led discussions in all four nations of the United Kingdom.
As everyone is aware, the differing attitudes of the Scots and Welsh to returning to the EU means that we must simultaneously resolve our attitudes to any future as a European nation to answer this question. That means England must determine its future vision and what that means for the Union and the EU. None of this will be easy, but it must be done for the nations to move on and prosper.
Are you proposing PR?
ALL clearly stated in its Principles of Good Government document that votes should matter, and the outcome be proportional to the votes cast.
This does not detail the method of calculation to be used. British citizens must discuss alternative options, as there are benefits and trade-offs. That is a key topic for discussion in any national conversation.
We would also like the role of MPs to be better known and added support systems put in place to improve the flow of constituency work.
Are you proposing PR?
ALL clearly stated in its Principles of Good Government document that votes should matter, and the outcome be proportional to the votes cast.
This does not detail the method of calculation to be used. British citizens must discuss alternative options, as there are benefits and trade-offs. That is a key topic for discussion in any national conversation.
We would also like the role of MPs to be better known and added support systems put in place to improve the flow of constituency work.
How are you planning to reach the wider public?
Reaching the general public on politics is difficult, especially when people worry about how to survive day to day. For ALL to reach beyond the activist community will be a mixture of available resources and messaging. We believe we must start with people’s concerns first and move them towards our commitment to a democratic reset.
Are you coordinating within the ‘democracy space’?
The groups that form AllianceNow participate in all the major democracy spaces, such as the Democracy Forum. The founding principle of this grouping is to collaborate. Coordination, however, requires a level of engagement that is difficult due to the recent Elections Bill and its intent to reduce opportunities for collaboration by linking finances in the pre-election period. We have therefore structured our campaign request for supporters only to avoid that threat to others’ work.