People-powered democracy is blossoming. We saw that first-hand at the House of the People.

In 2024, the Canary attended the inspiring launch of the House of the People. Its ambitious idea was to bring people from around the country together to discuss problems and shape solutions as a collective. It was about people-powering a democratic evolution – moving away from just electing representatives every five years and actually building towards a system where ordinary people have a real say in the decisions that impact their lives.

After almost a year of hard work, the first sitting of the House of the People took place from 20 July to 22 July 2025. The Canary went along again, and we were very impressed with what we saw.

House of the People: a professional and dynamic model that puts establishment politics to shame

It was a dynamic event which had clearly aspired to be as representative as possible. There was a good age, gender, ethnic, and regional balance. The organisers also made sure the venue allowed disabled and neurodivergent participants the accessibility and support they needed.

The participants discussed tough issues – from poverty and climate destruction to political corruption and genocide – and had mental health support on hand if they needed it. But the mood was vibrant, hopeful, and respectful. Where politicians and the establishment media often pit people against each other, participants showed that it is perfectly possible for us to listen to each other and cooperate to find solutions to our problems. In short, they put our political establishment to shame.

The ethical professionalism of the event’s facilitators, meanwhile, showcased how serious they were about getting things right. It’s not an easy task to get people with different personalities and backgrounds into the same room to work together, but they did that effectively. The mission was straightforward, and participants achieved it. They put together a People’s Charter, drawing from participants’ experience and expert input. The priorities they identified were taxing wealth properly, tackling corruption in our political system, transforming the housing sector, ensuring policies place well-being and sustainability above economics, and imposing full embargoes on countries violating international law (i.e. Israel).

People-powered democracy is well and truly here to stay

There are lots of challenges a project like this can face. And there are many ways in which it could improve. Reaching people from all backgrounds, for example, is hard. Too many people in Britain either have little time to spend on politics or have no faith in the political system. So logically, there are certain groups that are harder to reach. Both organisers and participants are fully aware of this, and hope that further outreach and bigger, more regular events will help. The more and more normal such events become, the more they will form part of our democratic muscle memory, and the more people they will engage.

For now, the process of people-powered democratic debate and cooperation seems very strange for many people. The logistical constraints and time pressures make truly hearing everyone’s voices seem like an uphill struggle. But the first sitting of the House of the People showed it absolutely can happen, and it does produce the goods.

To talk about the next steps, we caught up with a co-founder of Assemble, the main group behind the House of the People project. As the event came to a close, Molly May-Shelton was clear about the magnitude of what it had achieved. She said:

Most citizens’ assemblies like this are organised for over £1,000,000 and we organised this entire sitting for £80,000. And 80% of that was going towards hotels and transport for participants.

Our number one priority was to dismantle the barriers to access that people would have otherwise had to this assembly and give them a dignified experience where they feel comfortable and looked after. Because politicians don’t give ordinary people those experiences; quite the opposite – they have pushed everybody to the cost of living crisis.

She added:

We’re hopeful that seeing is believing, and we’ve pulled off the impossible in the citizens’ assembly world.

To give an idea of the achievement, a citizens’ assembly in one city alone previously cost £129,500.

The House of the People experience proved that it wasn’t a small one-off project by a group of determined campaigners. Instead, the project has transformed into a serious event capable of organising an inspiring project on a national level. And it’s not going away. It looks set to get bigger and better from here.

The establishment won’t spread the message. So we should.

After organisers have put together an in-depth report on the House of the People’s proceedings, May-Shelton insisted, there will be an action to “draw media attention to the Charter” because:

that’s the only way that the media pays attention to things like this because they don’t want to report on the power that this has

But the House of the People will also be preparing for its second sitting in Liverpool in February 2026. And she said that, while organisers managed to cover transport and accommodation for the first sitting, their top priority is to increase in particular the representation of low-income and low-education households even further. So through fundraising, they hope to be able to offer people money to help them with taking time away from their jobs and covering childcare costs.

She asserted, however, that they’re not looking for corporate donors. Instead, she insisted:

we want it to be funded by the grassroots, like a trade union or a local community group, so that people buy into it, so they feel it belongs to them. And it’s a sense of collective pooling together to build this institution because we know that the establishment isn’t going to fund something like this, and if they did, it would come with conditions.

To prepare for the first sitting, organisers spent “hundreds of hours leafletting in community centres, door knocking, phone calling”, and invested in “targeted ad campaigns online” to ensure as broad a participation as possible. There are so many people who are “distrustful of democratic processes”, she stressed, “because so-called democratic processes have never delivered for them before”. Too many simply “don’t believe that democracy is possible”, she added, “and it’s our job to prove that a better democracy is possible”.

The hope is that people will now see the House of the People as something that’s effective, inspiring, and here to stay. And with that in mind, she asked people to:

Donate, come to a welcome call on the events page on our website, and enter the lottery for the next sitting in Liverpool.

Featured image and additional images via the Canary