Connecticut Property Tax Citizens Assembly

Am I tough enough a strong and stable leadership? Total rubber. Hell yes, I'm tough enough. Shut Frenge. Not another one. It's the politics show cast I'm Eene Landomore. I'm a professor of pololitical science at Yale University. I wrote a book called Politics Without Politicians, which was just out in the UK. Hope you enjoyed? All right, so we've just been talking a moment ago about Andy Burnham. everyveryone here is talking about Andy Burnerham and whether he's about to become Prime Minister because Kiss ararmer has just resigned And I was talking to you about what you thought about that sort of coronation about whether you thought it was right that he would simply be allowed to become Prime Minister without a general election. You had quite an interesting response to that. C tell me about it Well, I guess my reaction was like, why isn't there going to be another election or some sort of like consultation of the public before you replace you know, someone in this position with someone else. And you use that word coronation. I find that very interesting because Coming at it from an outsider and I live in the U.S, but I'm French. I think our democracies have stealed the DNA of monarchies and these coronations happen all the time Even when when, you know, Biden proved to cognitively you know, wek to continue being the candidate for the Democrats. There was no real consultation of the democratic base. It was immediately a coronation of the next person in line for the succession, right And I just think that that it's the same sort of logic in France where you have these Um peopleeople who've climbed up the hierarchy of the party And they expect their birthright to be put in positions of power next And it's these little arrangements among elites that have nothing to do with what people actually want. and you see it everywhere. It's really striking. I mean, that had a cataclysmic on the Democrats's ability to win that election. You know, that was talked about throughout the U.S, wasasn't it in the lead up? You know, the sort of the coronation of Kamela Harris Was she really the right candidate Well there you go I mean, what do you think it does to people's trust or even people's interest in politics when something like that happens when the line of succession is followed To me, it tells me that we live in systems where the elites, even when elected actually choose their voters rather than the reverse where we've completely inverted the logic of an electoral democracy it's really, you know, particularly obvious in the US. case because of the predominence of gerrymandering There are no competitive elections almost. like it's all that in such a way that you already know who's going to win and you And the next winner will recut the maps to make sure that they stay in power and, you know I think that's my problem in part with electoral model of democracy. It's been to the extent that it can be defensible and I actually have a theoretical argument as to why it's not that defensible. It's too oligarchic for its own good The version we have now is you know, is so corrupted anyway that we are we overdue for a sort of reconing and a rethinking Tell me about that theory. Okay, so it's this idea, which is actually's not a new idea. If you go back all the way to the ancient Greeks, they thought that election was not a democratic selection mechanism. that if you're going to use elections to identify office holders You're going to end up with the rule of the wealthy. the ru of the aristocrats, right And that thought know is carried through the histor of ideas and political theories through Montesquie, Rousseau all the way into the twenty first century, except we Weve just waved it away and we've convinced ourselves that electoral democracy is that's democracy. we forgot about the alternative, which in ancient Greece Were' lot, lottery jewry duty for politics when You don't get to campaign and promises you cannot keep and shake hands and then you access to power. No You get you put your your your name in a hat or your buttery shard in a system called claritarian in ancient Greece And then if you and then chance selects you or not And then you go and you're on a jury where you're going to decide the fate of Summer sumer. you know, some criminal case or civil case or or you extend to the council of five hundred where you're going set an agenda with another five hundred random you know randomlyelected person like you for your city U That was the intant model Somehow After democracy died and we forgot about it for centuries, when we reinvented it in the eighteenth century, we didn't reach out for that earlier selection mechanism lot We reached out for election And we baked in our definition of democracy so much that now it's almost unthinkable to consonsider an alternative black lotot But to my mind, it's a much more democratic selection mechanism because you pull out people from the entire spectrum of socioeconomic geography dimensions, geography, gender U age And that means you bring to power through The magic of the law of large numbers, a sample of people, the parliament, if it's large enough. that looks like the people, the larger public, thinks like them And it is much more likely to yield the kind of policies that will solve the problems of ordinary people Whereas when you select From basically the top ten percent, people who in the UK, it's quite visible that at least for a long time there was an over representation of, you know Ouxbridge types Eaten And that yielded a certain color and a certain style and a certain way of speaking to your political class, which is extremely elitist and I think it's changing for the better But still And it's true in France as well, where you know we have over representation of very educated urban Paris based politicians and it's sameame thing, it gives a certain coloration and a certain ance to the politics that's conducted compared to what actually people want. And you see it constantly in the resurgence of popular movements that try to push back because that's all they have, demonstrations and sometimes referent Alec Brexit, to say, no, that's not what we wanted. We want something completely different But it's always a reaction and it's a little can get very violent. We had the Yellow vest movements in France And the Yeoverse movement always use it as an example of this mismatch because It was a reaction so it's people who decided to wear this neon yellow jacket that we have in our we were so familiar with it here in the UK. are It was rolling news here. when it wasjes, right. And they rebelled against a carbon tax that the government had tried to pass in the full twenty eighteen in the name of, you know, climate reforms But of course, it's a very regressive tax and it seemed to punish peri urban workers who need their cars to get to work and don't have enough money to buy an electric vehicle and are not situated privileged enough to have access to the free transportation, public transportation that Parisians have, for example, So it was typical of a policy decided by people who live in this urban centers who are educated to have access to all all the resources that these other people lack and it totally failed to anticipate the damage that it would ose to their lives, the sense of injustice it would trigger And so you see that it's because you didn't have a single yellow vest type in the assembly. Nobody raised their hands and said Hey, is it such a good idea to make people pay a couple of euros more at the pump when they can barely make you know end meet and Shouldn't we try to like combine that with some other kind of redistributive measure or some tos. orr maybe try something else as we know they could have because A year year later When Macron decided to try a new strrategy He brought in a random sample of one hundred and fifty citizens, French citizens from all over the territory, including our Vvers' territory he said, look, I failed. You take the keys and you give me solutions to ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions that will not trigger a social rebellion. And in the one hundred and forty nine proposals that came out of this asstsembly nine months later, you don't have a carbon tax. They didn't choose that solution at all. They said, no, there's one hundred forty nine other way to do this And I mean, we can debate about whether that you know in the end, you don't need some sort of carbon tax anyway, At the very least there were other options and they were able to You know, consider them, put them together as a package because they were such a diverse group You had a I observed that assembly. I sat there for you know, weeks and Basically you had a roofer, you had a pilot, you had you know retired people, you had students, you had peopleeople who currently do not seat in parliaments. They're excluded from them. People who are not typically represented. And why is that Because they could never win an election. So I call them In this book politics with politicians, I call them the shy. It's a category. I Bilt on a que by G. K. S Sutton, who's British s, who said that All real democracy is an attempt like that of a jolly hostess to bring the shy people out And I thought when I read that quote, o my God, this is so different from classical definions of democracy as, you know, the Schumpetian definition of democracy as This method to, you know, u identify, you know, the rulers And to distinguish between different elites who compete for popular vote. It's just a method and it's all about Competing elites. And the public appears only as this source of votes, right? Very passively And in that vision that Gkist Ch Satan offers, all of a sudden, you have this vision of democracy as as a welcoming figure who's focused especially on the natural introverts but also the people who just are not attracted to power the way politicians are U are perhaps also less easily corrupted by power, are a little reticent to speak up make promises, again, play this game in public, et cet. And so I think that for me, this return to a sort of Athenian model is very tempting because we've reached a point where it's crisis after crisis, a great sense of disenchantment in the public the sense that Anything that us do with politics is profoundly toxic and alienating and polarizing and makes us hate each other. And it's true everywhere. It's true in the US. certainly, but it's true here too. It's true in France I mean, as it was just in the Netherland, I think it's true there as well. I mean, even in the most functional democracies you go to Norway, say or Denmark They trust the politians a lot more. They have less of that polarization. They have fewer conspiracy theories lot less frustration than I think we do in our UK, the U.S. and France. But there's still a sense of There's a mismaratch. There's an over representation of the interest of the affluent And it's feeding this wave of populism that is everywhere, right Why don't we try something new? and that's the idea. Why don't we try to bring in the shy in our system, listen to them for a change and try to implement some of the stuff they want which is not totally align with what politicians recommend or or even think of What you're talking about there certainly is an appetite for ordinary people to be making legislation When you look over at the states and you look at President Trump Do you thinkes sorry, you can see where this is question this question is going now But do you think that was a reaction to this sort of anti elites, anti sort of wealthy aristocrats running governments? Do you think he appeared to be for ordinary Americans that he might be quote unquote, one of them Yes, I don't know. I might be wrong, but I think it's a bit the same as Brexit in the UK in the sense that it was a sort of populist backlash against absolutely globalization, neol liiberal policies that sort of I sacrificed, you know parts of the population for the profits of corporations for the benefits of a fraction, I mean, a great deal of the population, certainly, but maybe we should have thought more about the losers and we should have invested more in inough well being in this difficult transition and maybe we should not have shred everything to China. and maybe we should have you listened when in France, for example, in two thousand five We had a referendum against the Cstitutional Treaty, the European Constitual Treaty And I think it's partly a rejection of neoliberal policies and to great economic integration that didn't have enough political and social safeguards And the politicians ignored it. and they ignored the same result in the Netherlands And so no wonder that a couple of years later, you get Brexit, you get Trump Trump did portray himself as the anti politician as a guy who tells it to you like it is as a guy who's an outsider, a business guy who's seen it all. rememember this I don't know if you remember it, but for me, this was really a turning point. The debate between Trump and Clinton over u taxes, something like that. And she was saying, Well, you never pay taxes. He says Yeah because of people like you because you're in my pocket and I pay you to create all these loopholes that you have no intention of closing because you need my money. And so for me as a businessman, it's smart business And I just thought she has nothing to say to this because it's true She is a politician who takes the money where you know and then's kind of bought byite and then is not really doing the stuff she said she would do, which is to take out the corruption And I think that's people it resonated with people. you know, it felt like okay at least one of one one of them is telling some sort of truth about the system And of course, he's terrible in every way and it's not the solution. But just because populists you know, are wrong about the solutions and I think Trump is not even populous, He is more of a Cupt I Oligard type but it claims to be a sort of populist force for the people, etceter. But just because their solutions are typically wrong and it's always about a savior and the lone guy and it's always a guy who's going to drain the swamp doesnn't mean that they don't have a point about the problem. And I think the problem, I think is very clear is that our electoral democracies are way too Oligarchic, pllutocratic, not representative enough of that did diversity of interest in the public and I think that's a problem that I'm trying to offer a partial solution to. Why don't you just do your job? Do your job? It's the politics show cast Seaan, do you know what time it is? No, I can't read a calendar. I don't even know what day it is. Well, Seaan, it's Sunday, which means it's time for a Joe Sunday promo Oh yeah. for saing. I love those guys. Where are you going on holiday this summer But you know, I am not going now, but earlier in the year, I went to Montenegro. Doid you get yourself a sim? I did because I had to because I found out when I got there that they're not in the European Union, so I can't use my roaming there. This is how he ended up with Brexit, by the way. Not that he had a vote, he's Irish Yet that's the only thing I'm not allowed to vote on Mad, isn't it? Well,n't you weren't involved in it at too. But I arrived here and I was able to vote in the European elections, but you know who isn't able to vote in European elections? The Montenegrins? And that's why you need Say when you go to Montenegro You can get fifteen percent off of one of their EIims as well. Joe Sunday is the code, if you're so fancy. That's right, yeah. yeah. And it's super easy to use. You just download the app straight away within three or four clicks you're back online. It's quite cheap as well. If you haven't booked a summer holiday this year, I would recommend. I went last year myself Bosnia, did a bit of Croatia, went over to an island called Brach It was o it. It was stunning. I mean, you know, the sort of place where you go to and you know people say, o, the water was really clear. Now, the water was so clear. It was only the Irish Sea or something like that. it was absolutely Sorry since when is the Irish seea I actually met the Atlantic. The other side of Ireland. The Atlantic. Yeah Yeah lovevely and salty. But if you had it your way, that would be the Irish sea, wouldn't it Yeah. I mean, we're working on it at the moment. We're working on changing the name of the British Isles as well. Yeah to the Irish Isles J Sunday, fifteen percent off. And if Sean's bothered, he's going to put it in the description box as well. so you can follow the handy little link You know I've done Also, while you're there Check because your roaming may not cover the EU anymore. That is an added stipulation you have to get to your domestic contracts. Some of us in this room, myself included, have been caught out by that I've not You can go and use an EyM for that as well E It's the pololitics show cast What would you do about expertise though? So if you elect So if you're using this Greek system, if people are quote unquote randomly selected in the way that a jury might be selected, how would you guarantee that there is a John, I'm asking you this question and I'm already like thinking to myself, it seems like a redundant question because do the expertise even exist in the MPs that we do elect, or the politicians that we do elect But how would you get that spread? Right? L bit And I'm glad you caught yourself thinking that because we have to remember what it is a comparison point The expertise is not in the MPs, it's in the politicians. It's usually in the lobbyies to write the law for them It's in the expt commission that they consultant rely on And then yes, politicians will develop a sort of niche expertise about a couple of topics and it's very valuable, but it's also very biased and sometimes it's wrong And sometimes it's reflective of corporate interests in a way that is not tracking the public good Whereas in citizens assemblies, they come in uneducated about an issue, but the thing is they spend their time listening to experts, asking them pointed questions, reframing their pads and and building together an answer to a question that is not just a scientific or factual question. it's typically normatively Latin morally Latin questions. So I'll give you the examples of the topics that are put to citizens Assemblies currently. And by the way, it' not it's not Fange movement, the citizens Assemblyies that there are probably at this point over a thousand cases around the world mayaybe not citizens assembly proes, but cousins like de liliberative pols and citizen joys and things like that based on a lot. And the questions that are I put to them are questions that have a technical component, but I also very political component. So it's things like U Should we legalize gay marriage? Should we deccriminalize abortion Should we how do we reduce greenhouse gas emissions in a way that respects social justice? That was the question put to the French Assembly I observed Should we liberalize the law on assisted dying and allow for forms of even euthanasia in France? and a huge moral issue, right But they also address questions like should we continue the exploitation of nuclear plants? That was a question put to a deliberative poall in Korea. Should we rewrite our Constitution to you know, cut or lengthen the politicians mandates, terms, etcetera. And are questions with again, a technical scientific and these component, but You bring in the expertise and you filter it through the minds, the diverse minds of a group that is really really representative of the larger group. So the So so that You minimize the risk of blind spots and you increase the probability that the solution will actually track what people want So I'm so interested in the decriminalizing abortion and greenhouse gases debate because they're too that are surrounded by lobbyists, you know, the lobbyists that you were just talking about who write this policy. It's a huge problem in the UK. We have this massive influx of Well, American evangelicals who spend a lot of money down on a street in Westminster called Tufton Street to influence policy on Marriage on women's healthcare. I mean huge huge amounts of money is washing through. and it is certainly influencing the debate this u D deccriminalising abortion just went through our Parliament maybe a couple of months ago I mean, honestly, should you should have heard or read what had been written about it because it was astonishing and it was F out of line actually with ordinary people when you spoke to them on the street Is that what you find in these citizens assemblies The presence of Labiz No, do you find a more diverse range of thoughts. Well, you find a range of thought that track the range of thoughts in the outside world. So you bring in the Irish Citizens Assembly on the on Aticul eight and all the questions actually had a lot of topics to address, the question of whether or not to decriminalize abortion Well, by the end, what's striking is that they voted to decriminalize abortion by I think it was sixty six percent of the. Um Assembly was in favor of decriminizing abortion. And when they put that when the Parliament put that same question to referendum, said, lookook, that's a recommendation that's coming out of this assembly. What do you think? It was exactly the same proportion of I You know yes, in the larger population, like in the referendum it was sixty six percent as well So it was accurate. It was very accurate. And it's hard to tell whether you know the assembly caused the conversions or just reflected it But I'm saying whereas sometimes politicians' views are completely disconnected from what people want. I think that was the case in Ireland. The political class I sort of hardened around very conservative positions and they didn't know at to They didn't know how to move away from them without feeling that they would be punished by their constituencies. So they were kind of stuck And they felt like, oh actually having an external actor to blame or credit for the change would be ideal. And that's why they accepted the offer from political scientists at the time David Fraul and Jin Sud, my colleagues over there to try something new, to try a new method that would break the grid lock. say, lookook, let's try something else. Let's try A sorry, this one was on marage equality. so on abortion was the second one. So anyway, so they were willing to try a new method. So on marage equality, they were not quite ready to do it fully random. So they did one third politician to sell randomly selected citizens And then when that worked out quite well, The second one, including on abortion was purely random There's ninety nine citizens thatetwor tr sa to at random So it's a good way to breaks through the grid loock. That's your question about lobyists. It's a tricky one because of course lobbyists would exist under a lob based system as well. I can guarantee you as soon as there's power and decision making power in this assemblies they would be surrounded by lobbyists. The question is, would you be able to u counter thept corruptive effect or the undue influence of these lobbisties more than you can in an electoral context. I have to confess, I think it's an open question because we've never really had you know assembl the citizens assembly that have a decision power that's binding. So we don't know. they haven't been tested. But there are some theoretical reasons to think that they would be resilient. Because this is what we concern would be is that now, not that the system is followed to the letter as it should be, but now if you have an elected politician, they are supped to, you know and log or, you know, record who they are receiving donations from on a public register. Not that everyone chooses to to do it And so you wonder if some doesn't have that, you know, if something is not democratically binding you won't have that mechanism of you actually do need to report this. So this could you know you could potentially open yourself up to more corruption. But I thinkm I'm looking at the sort of the back end of it when we should be looking more at the sort of the wider expanse of the idea Talk to me about the work you're doing now So right now, I'm excited about this project we're doing in Connecticut. We We' bringing the deliberative wave of citizens assemblies to the U.S at last. I mean there have been some precedents in the state of Washington and some local experiments, but basically we're running the first Lge scale Citizens Assembly in Connecticad onn the question of property taxes Because property taxes are a huge apple of discord in Connecticut. It's the only source of funding for local public services, including schools and the police and parks and all of that I'm And it's very very inefficient way of funding local public services, very unjust way, some towns are very rich, some towns are very poor, so you know we of equilibrium on that tax then. So even the poore areas so they expected to pay in line with what the wealthier areas are paying. Well, there's some sort of redistributive scheme at the level of the state, but the calculations are complex, nont transransparent and they' not kept up with inflation. so end up with these big inequities That means that a kid who was born in Hartford doesn't have the same chances as a kid was born in One of the the, you know, richer towns and so s and the politicians have been complaining about this, but they say to each other, donon't touch that topic because there's nothing to gain for us. It's just a recipe for not being reelected So they don't they have almost a conflict of interest in addressing this, or're not addressing it rather. So they so actually we're working with an entity called the Conference of Connect ect Connectut Cference of Munipalities, which represents towns and they wanted to put that to a citizens Assembly. So I designed it with my partners and we have a coalition with this state controller Shanscannan, who is Democrat and who is supporting the process U CCM And Yale, my University and the University of Connecticut. So it's a sort of joint partnership where we are We're going to bring a hundred citizens To the Yale campus I'm going to host them and have them deliberate from july eleventh very soon to septtember twenty sixth. and make recommendations about how to change the system if needed and make it fireair, more efficient, all of that. And one feature of that process I'm really excited about a little nervous about, to be honest, because the first time we're trying it is to empower the citizens to basically make the key procedural decisions about this assembly going forward So instead of having exps like me on top throughout and sort of micromanaging them and telling them, okay, this weekend you're doing this, this weekend, you're seeing this expert or that expert And at the end, we want this type of output We're going to sururnder our voting rights from day one and say, look now, you' in charge What kind of output do you want to give to the legislators What kind of exps do you want to listen to? give them more control over the process. So they look more like a mini parliament of sorts So you have I mean, when you're putting that together, then you have to keep in mind, presumably, you have to make a calculation of where people are coming from, where people live Do you also take into account the various life experiences they've had. So you're correct that we're not doing pure random selection, which would be, you know one person one lottery tickets because it's too small a sample. so we need to engineer it somewhat. So we do what's called stratified random sampling and given the nature of the topic, we chose Three main categories which were the geography, Is it northern Connecticut or Western Connectic cut eter whether they have children or not because the education piece is so huge. It really affects the way people think about the taxes. U with other homeowners or renters because that's also huge, you know dimension of the process. And then from within these three blocks, we're also going to take into account race gender and income bracket or something like that. So we ye. we've already selected them actually. so we partnered with the The Connecticut Ltery No, so I think it's a way for lotteries in general to redeem themselves. Right now they're just about distributing money after extorting money from people who, you know on disp, I guess But now we want to use them to allocate power. or form of power to people. and they were great partners actually so they helped us with this method and so we had like a bunch of balls in an in a machine and we picked one and it's bowl twenty nine, that one and worldall twenty nine corresponds to onene panel of one hundred and ten citizens. Wow. So we have the namesa and our team of cic concierge It's schoolooling them actively. We've recruited around sixty two that are fully onboarded Still because it's soon so we need to, you know And then where will it go after that sem? So once they've had, you know, once they've been discussing debating all summer. What happens to that at the end? Well, that's a big un non, right? We don't have a solid commitment from any politician. That's why this wave of citizens of assembly is behind the European one, where there was more such commitments. Right now we have the promise of controller state Sans Cannon that is going to take the recommendations to a legislature and we're going to have a legislative hearing. The citizens will have a legislative hearing That's all we've got So the question is how do we make sure that they respond to the citizens that this hasle Uh an afterlife. We're talking about things we could do So How would you see this working towards the You begin with these citizens assemblies, how would you see moving that towards actually creating legislation So I'll need to tell you about the first Citizens Convention on climate in France, the one I was just mentioning, because to my mind it was already quasar legislative. I don't know why but President Macron maybe was shaken by the Yellow of S movements and he wanted to do something bold and And he has this hubberristic moment sometimes. But anyway, he he decided, okay, Whatever comes out of this convention, I promise you, he promised on TV promise you I will take it directly to regulation a referendum or a parliamentary vote And frankly, when you read it You know, carefully even the mandate, the way it was phrased and everything, he was literally outsourcing the legislative prerogative of the prrime Minister's office to this one hundred and fifty randomly selected citizens So And they in order for them to do that, well, they gave them a team of lawyers who At the end of the process, we're put in charge of translating one hundred and forty nine proposals that came out of this convention. into the proper legalies that would be compatible with international law, with like all the treaties where So I mean, I think this is an example of a Of an assembly that was given a legislative power of source, like a diff facto one not constitutionalized one, but still I think that demonstrates that they are capable of doing it. Now the question is how do you go from the situation where I into this new model where you know, it's not that citizens assembies would replace elected parliaments. I think it's not really feasible and I short term at the very least even, you know I think for now, we need to find a sort of harmonious cohabitation and some division of labour between these different types of chamber But how do we get from here to there? I think that Why you need usually a crisis. So where I need a while I've been in it for a while, you might say, you need a social movement that supports these things. you need people who who kind of lobby actually to make them happen and put the ideD in the right ear and get politicians on board actually And then you need to practice, practice, practice until you understand the model that works best for your country and how you're going to reallocate power from one chamber to the other And I think right now we're in the phase of experimentation. So we've had three in France I think in France, it's not going too well. It's devolving into sort of glorified focused group, unfortunately. in Ireland, it's become quite normalized. so it's been stabilized and mainstreamized, but unfortunately, it's sort of turning into something with real power. It's still purely advisory and discretionary. So this means like the politicians can pick and choose the outcomes I can't imagine that that goes down particularly favouraably because this was the Brexit problem. Yeah. You know you had this referendum that went to the country mean we her you know, whether you voted to remain or not It did seem for a couple of years. we then politicians then debated about whether they would actually withdraw from the European Union. and immediately, I mean, The ramifications of that I imagine will be decades long because there'll be people who said, well, you gave me a vote and then you told me it wasn't legally binding. And it yeah it's wreaked havoc kind ofrum. I agree with you. And actually I have to say, as much as I disagreed with the outcome of the Brexit go I actually think that this was It was a remarkable sort of a democratic gesture to to say, lookook, it's a mistake, you know, we want to honor the sovereignty of the people and they've spoken. and Maybe they'll regret it, but that's what we're gonna to do. And that's thing I think that's how you learn, that's how people learn also. like Not every democratic decision will be the right one. But the mistake is to say, well, we just have to babys seat all this you know, ignorant people and correct our decisions constantly. I think maybe there might be some limits to that way of thinking on human rights and stuff like that. Of course, you would want the constitional protections. On the orient on the policy orientations of a country do you want to be part of the EU or not Absolutely it's for the people to decide even if they make a mistake and decide against their own interest. And you could even make the case that, okay, well, Maybe it wasn't a mistake. Maybe you know, in the grand scheme of things, it was a moment of clarity about what the EU has become. And in fact, it's sending a signal to the whole continent and the bureaucrats in Brussels that that model is not working and they need to rethink it and perhaps go back to the jowing board and maybe buildild more actively the political side of it Uh But in a way that is truly democratic and not you know, Cation of, you know, Yeahah, I think that there's certainly that there's there's a bureaucracy Yeah, critique that could be leveled at the EU and that the sort of the . customs within which that parliament works or the sort of the limitations of that parliament because It does it does seem rather opaque compared to even it's the nations that exist inside of it And I mean, you at' D I think if you could you put out a citizens' Assembly for the EU, I can imagine that Almost half of the UK would probably throw their hat in throw in their two cents of what they'd like to say Thank you very much Thank you very much.