The price we’ll pay for citizens’ assemblies

Citizens’ assemblies will transform Britain. That’s the promise made by activists from groups like Extinction Rebellion. Labour has also mooted introducing the assemblies if it wins power, even if it did later backtrack on the plans. In Waltham Forest, north-east London, the revolution has already begun: a citizens’ assembly is underway there that will determine ‘the future of neighbourhood policing.’ 

I entered a large gym where about 50 delegates and volunteers, seated around six tables, were listening to presentations from criminologists and youth workers. The procedures of the assembly are multi-layered and distracting, as if designed to keep everyone engaged by giving them small chores at regular intervals. 

First, there’s a plenary session in which a speech is delivered by an expert. Then the assembly separates into six committees of eight persons each, overseen by a commissar in a lime-green tee-shirt. The commissars lead a group discussion which settles on two ‘priority questions’, written out by hand, and pinned to a whiteboard.