About the Open Party

Our objective is to enhance governance in the United Kingdom by encouraging participation in, and improvement of the democratic process.

Democracy is about people.  For a strong democracy we need strong participation.  People actively taking part in the process.  We believe that politics has been the preserve of a very small section of society for far too long.  Membership of political parties is only 1.5% of the population.

We want to encourage, support and facilitate the many natural leaders in our society who are not politically active to take part in politics.  There is a colossal reserve of untapped talent.

We provide the public with a viable, attractive route to become a representative (MP/MS/MSP).  Through our open primary elections, interested candidates have a path to gaining public support.  Then we provide them with the finance, technical and practical support of a political party to get elected.

But, it doesn’t stop there.  We want everyone to be more involved in selecting their political leaders.  In our open primaries, the public set the questions, not the journalists.  The public can attend ‘Question Time’-style debates, watch candidate webinars on topics of their interest and meet the candidates in person at coffee mornings.  Most of all they can VOTE to choose who they want their candidate(s) to be.

Its about determining your actual representative, not just voting for an organisation.

The Open Party doesn’t have a particular political ideology.  We are not left or right, green or brown, in or out.  Our policy agenda is restricted to the enhancement of democracy.  We believe that the UK population has the ideas and wisdom to direct the country – we wish to assist in that process.

It is the policies and agendas of each Open Party MP/MS/MSP that will be exercised.  Their priorities will be different and will reflect the constituency that elected them.  Open Party representatives are free to collaborate with Government or oppose it, and to pursue their own agenda empowered by a vote they can actively broker as they are free of any party whip.

If this all sounds good to you we would love to welcome you as a fellow.

Fellowship is a looser relationship than membership.  We believe people should be free in their political allegance; to come and go in the same way we all do in other walks of life.  We want you to be a fellow of the Open Party because you enjoy and value it.

As a fellow of the Open Party you will be helping to build a new national party.   We face a once-in-a-generation challenge to sort out democracy and our country.  It is also a once-in-a-generation opportunity to make a genuine material difference.

Contact us at [email protected] if you are interested in joining as a fellow.

The candidates and elected representatives are the political face of the Open Party.  We deliberately do not want a small group of ‘leaders’ to take all the public attention, as is the case with traditional parties.

Less than 50% of the public know the name of their MP.  We want to rebuild strong relationships between each constituency and their representative.  This cannot happen if all the media attention is on a few faces in Cardiff, Edinburgh or London.

We have a team of committed individuals working for the Open Party.  The current Leader and CEO is Richard Hadwin.

We are growing and always looking out for great people.  If you are interested in working or volunteering for the Open Party, please do get in touch.

We are transparent about our funding.

The Open Party is, to date, funded by Renewable Energy Partnerships Ltd (REP).  REP is a UK wind energy company.  REP operates the Maerdy and Treorchy democratic wind funds in the Rhondda.  More information can be found at maerdywindfund.co.uk and treorchywindfund.co.uk.

The funding from REP is seed funding and the plan is for funding to widen with the growth of the Party.

Because the Open Party does not control the policies of its candidates and the candidates are chosen by the public not the party, there is no opportunity for party funding to influence either policy or people.  This is a deliberate design of the Party to separate funding and political influence.

Donations to the Open Party are welcome and appreciated.  However, we recognise the severe financial constraints on people at present and ask that people only donate if it will not impact their day-to-day life.  See Donations.

Accounts, donations and loans are published at the Electoral Commission website for public inspection.

If you have any query about the Party, please do get in touch with one of the admin team.