A friend received this. My sense is that it sounds like a lot of waffle:
At our last Party conference, members brought a motion on proposed changes to the Gender Recognition Act 2004. The motion was debated by members and referred back to committees for further consideration. The Policy and Steering Committees have since then been discussing the best way to take this work forward, and we wanted to keep you up to date with those plans.
Together we have agreed a framework for engaging as many members as possible in a constructive discussion. The aim is to create a space in which members can work towards agreement on both the challenges and solutions. We want to set the standard for other political parties and organisations and show that this can be done in a way that unites rather than divides.
The Policy Committee has undertaken considerable research into the most appropriate methods of achieving agreement on difficult and potentially polarising subjects. It found that the most inclusive and effective method of reaching such agreement is by employing a form of assembly as was done in Ireland to enable the discussion of subjects that divide the community. Find out more about the citizen's assembly in Ireland.
In our case, this assembly will consist of Party members and experts in sex- and gender-based protections because we want to ensure that we hear from the broadest possible range of expertise and lived experience, balanced with time and resources available.
There will be four key stages to our consultation and members will be involved at every stage:
- SCOPING EXERCISE
This will look at the focus of the members' assembly and its design. WE aim for a gold standard in this. Ireland’s citizen’s assembly consisted of 99 members, drawn randomly from across the whole population. WE have to find a model that ensures we hear from the broadest possible range of expertise and lived experience.
- MEMBERS' ASSEMBLY
Its constitution will be recommended by the scoping exercise and is likely to include people randomly selected from our membership and together with additional panellists and witnesses.
- MEMBER CONSULTATION
This will be an online consultation, which all members can participate in to make their voices heard.
- REVIEW BY POLICY COMMITTEE
This will review the outcome of the consultation and recommend next steps for the Party, which could include proposed changes to Party policy.
WE will begin work on the scoping exercise this autumn and the time-frame for the assembly and consultation will be agreed by the Steering Committee based on operational and strategic priorities. This work is vital, but as a small party we also have to balance our limited resources against a number of competing priorities - in particular any snap General Election. Our priority is to deliver an effective consultation rather than a rushed one.
We very much hope that you will participate in the consultation and in the meantime you can contact us with any questions about the framework we have set out here by replying to this email.
Best wishes,
Steering and Policy Committee members
Women's Equality Party
www.womensequality.org.uk/