Hello
We've been asked whether Mumsnet would support the idea of a Citizens Assembly to try to bridge the divide within the UK electorate over what should happen next with Brexit, and address what's looking like a deadlock in Parliament .
Current polling seems to suggest no majority in the country at large for any one Brexit outcome, from May's deal to a second referendum to no deal. (Here are YouGov's figures on May's deal from a few days ago and here's another set of YouGov figures appearing to show that no current proposal has majority support). Inasmuch as anyone knows anything, the conventional wisdom seems to be that there's also no majority in Parliament for any of the possible ways forward.
Citizen's Assemblies aim to be neutral forums for participative decision-making. (You can see the Wikipedia definition here.)
The Republic of Ireland set up a Citizens Assembly as part of the process that resulted in the repeal of the 8th Amendment to the Irish constitution, contributing to the recent referendum decision to change Ireland's abortion laws.
For Brexit, the proposal is that an assembly of 500 citizens (from a longlist of 10,000 people drawn from the electoral register) would be randomly selected by a polling organisation to be demographically representative of the UK electorate. The Electoral Commission would facilitate the process, and a non-voting Chairperson would call experts to give evidence from a variety of perspectives. The aim is that the Assembly would take place within the space of a week towards the end of 2018 or the beginning of 2019, and that its recommendations would be passed to Parliament for a vote.
A previous Citizens Assembly on Brexit was held in 2017: you can see the summary report of its recommendations here.
We'd be interested to know whether you think this is something MN should support - please let us know what you think (and if you're an expert on constitutional conventions please feel free to contribute 
)
Thanks
MNHQ