 I'm going to ask you to fill in a gap here. Don't think too hard about it. Democracy is, pick the word. This is what I assume most of you would say. I was going to get to that point later. Of course, I think if you're like a refugee from an autocratic regime, you probably come here and thinking, freedom, liberty, equality, all these beautiful ideals, then I was going to say, I assume you guys probably think it's fucked. And of course, maybe there's a few technocrats who are like, democracy means elections or democracy is the system of governance or something. I don't know. I'm glad you got there. I'm not actually going to do my usual spiel about what the social pandas is, what citizens' assemblies are. I'm going to throw quotes at you. Because I'm a person who collects quotes that are what that means that I am. The first one is from about 2,500 years ago. It is thought to be democratic for the officers of constitutional government to be assigned by lot, for them to be elected oligarchic. In the birthplace of democracy, democracy meant lottery. It meant random selection. Election meant oligarchy. 2,000 years later, Montesquieu. Selection by lot is in the nature of democracy. Selection by choices in the nature of aristocracy or Rousseau. The drawing of lots is more in the nature of democracy. In an aristocracy, voting is appropriate. For 2,000 years, democracy meant random selection. Election meant aristocracy. What happened? Well, there's a couple of wars, a couple of big wars. One of those ones, there's one over here as well. They cut lots of heads off. They got rid of the aristocracy, all that kind of stuff. And the thinkers, the men who won these revolutions, the rich men who won these revolutions, they said, how should we organize ourselves? How should we make decisions? And they'd read their Rousseau. They'd read their Montesquieu. So they chose elections. After the American Revolution, about 6% of the population could vote. They were all rich men. There were actually tax, you had to pay a certain minimum amount of taxes to be able to vote across most of the states. In the French Revolution, afterwards, I mean, it was very complex, but they had a different constitution every couple of years. But they had this concept active citizenship, which meant that you actually had an active financial stake in the state. You had to pay a certain number of taxes to vote. It was very exclusionary. Jean-Paul Marat, famous French radical, said, he recognized, what the hell are we doing? We're cutting their heads off the rich by hereditary, by birth. And we're gonna destroy that aristocracy of birth and replace it with an aristocracy of the rich. He got stabbed in his bathtub for that. Well, okay, it wasn't only for that. You may think that Jean-Paul Marat, he's just some radical French Democrat. So let's go to this radical, John Adams, he looks pretty radical, doesn't he? Second US president, is not representation an essential and fundamental departure from democracy? Is not every representative government in the universe an aristocracy? He would say that because at that time, only the rich could vote and the rich men could vote. Some people didn't like that, the fact that only rich men could vote. Women? Ah, my font's all broken. That's all right, should've picked that up. We're here not because we are law breakers, we're here in our efforts to become lawmakers. Emily and Pankhurst, Suffragette, and the other one, I'd just like the quote actually, the argument of the broken window pane is the most valuable argument in modern politics. I think extinction ribbon is building on that idea, not that they're gonna break windows, of course. Number of direct action. Men and women of color in the US didn't like the fact that only white people could vote down south. The most decisive steps in that little walk to the, is that little walk to the voting booth? That is an important step. We've got to gain the ballot and through that gain political power, everyone assumed that if we all can get the vote, it'll all be fine. Well, not everyone, some people disagreed. Emma Goldman, if voting changed anything, they'd make it illegal, she thought. At the era where women were winning the vote, 1918, here in the UK, some women won the vote. 1928, they got equality. Women were even allowed in the House of Lords in the 40s. Are we to assume that the poison already inherent in politics would be decreased if women were to enter the political arena? Is woman in places where she can vote no longer considered a mere-sex commodity? I'll let you answer that. Because luckily, here in the UK, you've surpassed Afghanistan in 215. Well done, well done. Great. I mean, there's a very clear reason why Afghanistan had 28% of the women in parliament. I'll let you research that. This graph is from the US Congress a few years ago. It's got slightly better. If you look at the UK graph, it's roughly the same for the House of Commons. If you had the House of Lords, whoa. You're talking lots of old men. Not all of them, of course. Just most of them. Elections were never meant to be a democratic device. They were an aristocratic device. So what to do? Direct democracy, everyone should vote in everything or deliberation and sortition in citizens' assemblies. So director Amoxi, more referendums. They seem to be working pretty well. What about Clement Attlee? I could not consent the introduction into our political life of a device so alien to all our traditions as the referendum, which has only too often been the instrument of Nazism and fascism. Hitler liked referendums. I'll let you think about that. So what's the other option? Sortition plus deliberation. What is this word, sortition? It's just a technical name for random selection. I just don't like using the word random. It has lots of negative connotations. Man, that was random. No. Sortition just means random selection. You randomly select a representative bunch of people and bring them together in a citizen's assembly. I'm not actually gonna talk much about citizen's assembly. After the break, I'm doing a mock citizen's assembly. If you participate in that, or you can look at our website, et cetera, you can find that out. But it's essentially that you randomly select a broadly represented bunch of people, bring them together in an informed and deliberative environment. It's very artificial. It's not public opinion. It's not what people do think but what they would think is what I say. The UK is about to have a citizen's assembly on climate change. I understand completely. It doesn't satisfy XR's demands, but we're about to find out what a randomly selected representative bunch of UK citizens thinks about the climate crisis. It's kicking off in January. What I will do is let you listen to someone who was randomly selected and participated in one of these events. It was actually a citizen's jury, which is just a small scale version of a citizen's assembly. Instead of 50, 100, more people, it's like 20 people. Here's what she had to say. Well, I hope that enough of what's taken place has been recorded, so we can actually take that to MPs, MSPs and show them what can happen if you get ordinary people in, sharing expertise, different mindsets. And I think the biggest thing is that there's been a huge amount of cooperation happening between human beings this morning. And I think parliaments can learn a lot from that, but it is possible to sit down and discuss issues that people have got very conflicting thoughts about and come to agreements and do it all in a really civilized human way with a lot of respect for each other. And dare I say it, love. Love for the subject, for making the world a better place. For making the world a better place. This is what you get when you use citizen's assemblies. But how do we get there? We've got an electoral system. How could we get to a system that relies or institutionalizes citizen's assemblies? Now I'm not gonna talk about theories of change and political strategy. I'm just gonna throw more quotes at you. Milton Freeman, I love Milton Freeman, that's a joke. Only a crisis, actual or perceived produces real change. When that crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around. This is our basic function. So here's the Godfather of neoliberalism for those who don't know. To develop alternatives, to keep them alive and available until the politically impossible becomes the politically inevitable. And then Thatcher and Reagan came along. Keep the ideas alive. It is actually a theory of change. Get ready for the crisis. Have them ready. Okay, I'm kind of cheating. This is a traditional poem, but I first heard it on a poem, sorry, a traditional prayer, but I first heard it on a Sinead O'Connor album. God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change. Courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference. Unless of course you're a Black Panther and active in Black Lives Matter. I'm no longer accepting the things I cannot change. I'm changing the things I cannot accept. Angela Davis. Or of course the classic Margaret Mead. Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has. Alexandria Ocasio Cortes. Hope is not something that you have. Hope is something that you create with your actions. I like it. Unless of course you're Greta. I don't want your hope. I don't want you to be hopeful. I want you to panic. I want you to feel the fear I feel every day and then I want you to act. You might think that citizens assemblies are too utopian. That how do we, you know, it's impossible. Well, I'm jumping back. Victor Hugo. Today's utopia is the flesh and blood of tomorrow. We have hope. Some guy, Brett Enig. The tantalizing possibility that we can govern ourselves has presented itself. We no longer need politicians to do it for us. It is time for the end of politicians and for us to become the next wave in the ongoing struggle to demand real democracy now. Thanks.