Democracy Tour in the UK

For a week the campaign bus of Mehr Demokratie was on the road in England. The Democracy Movement (DM) invited us. Click here to watch the photo diary about the tour on the DM website.

We had two young film students with us. Marvie and Alfonso made a film about the tour. The film is available on DVD. Additionally, the famous German TV show Monitor reported about the tour. This report is available online.

The philosophy of the tour was simple: to bring our issue on to the agenda in local constituencies where the Member of Parliament (MP) is against a referendum but was elected with a tiny majority of only a few thousand votes. In such places, political action like ours was likely to have the greatest impact, as with elections coming next year a comparatively low number of votes may have a big influence. The tour included Sedgefield (Tony Blair), Hartlepool (Peter Mandelson), Rushcliffe (Ken Clarke), Hull (John Prescott) and many more including constituencies in Sheffield, Rotherham, Newcastle, Sunderland, Gateshead, Darlington and Durham.

Activists from Germany and the United Kingdom showed the important international dimension of the campaign. They demonstrated that to demand a referendum is more than a narrow-minded "little England" perspective as Tony Blair has often suggested. In fact, it is a European perspective to involve the people in the important decisions. It is an answer to the fact that people are only little interested in political developments as their decisions at the ballot box have less impact on the policies implemented. This political apathy has to be overcome. According to a poll from Eurostat 71% feel not properly informed on the constitution. At the same time 84% are in favour of referendums. There is a need for a broad public debate. A referendum will stimulate it.

Europe needs its citizens, Europe needs democracy, Europe needs referendums!

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intro - day 1/2 - day 3 - day 4/5 - day 6 - day 7