Two decades after the creation of its devolved parliament, Scotland is to test a new way of tackling the country’s thorniest political problems: a citizens’ assembly.
The government-organised body of 100 people, selected to represent the Scottish population, will meet over six weekends from October. They are charged with deciding what kind of country they want and how to respond to the UK’s exit from the EU.
Interest in such bodies has been fuelled by concerns over widening political divisions following the narrow 2016 Brexit referendum vote.
New prime minister Boris Johnson’s willingness to leave the EU without a deal has increased strains with the devolved governments of Scotland and Wales, with Nicola Sturgeon, Scottish first minister, and Welsh counterpart Mark Drakeford jointly demanding Mr Johnson change course.
Supporters of the Scottish citizens’ assembly say it will offer an important test case of whether ordinary people can find a way forward where politicians hit an impasse.
“Democracies all over the world are being challenged . . . on legitimacy grounds and on capacity grounds,” said Oliver Escobar, lecturer in public policy at Edinburgh university.
“This is an opportunity to show in Scotland that politics can be more than party politics and democracies more than representative democracy,” Mr Escobar told a public meeting in Edinburgh last month.
The Scottish government is not alone in exploring the possibilities offered by citizens’ assemblies, which are intended to create a “mini public” that can intensively study difficult or divisive issues before discussing them in a structured way and deciding how they might be addressed.
In July, an assembly of 60 citizens organised by the Welsh devolved legislature held its first meeting to address the question: “How can people in Wales shape their future?”
Members of the UK parliament including Labour’s Stella Creasy, former Conservative leadership candidate Rory Stewart, and Caroline Lucas of the Greens have suggested a citizens’ assembly could help break the Brexit deadlock.
Last year, two UK parliamentary committees commissioned an assembly to offer guidance on how adult social care in England should be funded in the long term. It made a series of recommendations, including proposing a tax to make social care free at the point of delivery.
And a group of current and former members of the UK parliament have announced plans for a Citizens’ Convention on UK Democracy to find ways to improve British politics.
The Scottish approach is inspired largely by the success of an Irish citizens’ assembly in charting the way to last year’s reform of Ireland’s abortion laws — an issue seen as at least as divisive as Brexit.
The 100 members will be chosen to be “broadly representative” of Scotland’s adult population by age, ethnicity, socio-economic background, geography and political attitudes. Expenses for attending the six meetings, the last of which will be held by the end of April 2020, will be paid by the Scottish government and members will receive a “thank you gift” of £200 for each weekend.
Yet it is unclear whether the assembly will be able to overcome the divide between supporters and opponents of independence, an issue that has continued to dominate Scottish politics since 55 per cent of voters in 2014 backed staying in the UK.
The opposition Scottish Conservatives and Liberal Democrats plan to boycott the assembly, accusing the Scottish National party government of planning to use it as a “talking shop for independence”.
These suspicions reflected the “toxic” nature of current political debate, said David Martin, a former member of the European Parliament for the pro-union Scottish Labour party, who has been appointed co-convener of the citizens’ assembly. The second co-convener, is Kate Wimpress, director of culture charity North Edinburgh Arts.
Mr Martin said that Ms Sturgeon had made a mistake in announcing the assembly alongside legislative plans for a second independence referendum and a call for cross-party talks on the devolution of more powers from Westminster. He insisted the assembly would not address the independence issue and he had “unequivocal assurances” the SNP government would not intervene in its work.
A more fundamental question is how much weight the conclusions of the citizens’ assembly will have. Some analysts are concerned that the broad, and relatively vague, remit given to the assembly could weaken its impact.
Mr Martin said the assembly would have authority to focus on particular policy areas, such as climate change, economic policy or the possible need for Scotland-specific immigration rules after Brexit.
“We are working . . . to get a narrower set of questions and therefore a more usable set of answers,” he said.
While it might be difficult for the government to adopt policy recommendations if they do not fit its agenda, ignoring them would damage the credibility of future assemblies and risk deepening voter disillusionment.
David Farrell, a professor of politics at University College Dublin, who was the “research leader” for the Irish citizens’ assembly, said public anger after the 2008 financial crisis had shown that representative democracies needed to innovate.
“We, as citizens, should have more to do than just vote every five years to keep the rascals out,” Prof Farrell said. “We need to have a voice in democracy and that’s where citizens’ assemblies can play a role.”
