Democracy 2015 group asks for public’s opinion on drugs issue

Democracy 2015, the pressure group that aims to open up Parliament to representatives who are not career politicians, is to hold a series of public meetings to hear what people say about the UK’s drug problems.

Meetings being held in Manchester today and London tomorrow are part of a series of public consultations that will build up the new party’s manifesto.

After drugs, the next topic will be immigration, then care for the elderly. Democracy 2015’s founder, Andreas Whittam Smith, a former editor of The Independent, said: “By the end of the consultation period the party will have a manifesto that will have been created, for the first time, by the very people Parliament exists to serve.”

Democracy 2015 is proposing to run candidates chosen in primaries in which all the voters in the constituency can participate, and who will serve only one term, if elected. Their first candidate, Adam Lotun, ran in November’s Corby by-election, which was won by Labour’s Andy Sawford.