• Description: A political organisation that campaigns for equality, sustainability and democracy
  • What is good: Diagnosis highlighting opportunities for cooperation and networking Brough about by social change and technology
  • HQ Location and Country: London
  • Operation locations: London, Calderdale, Salisbury, Oxford, Liverpool, SW Surrey, Cambridge

Compass is an organisation that wants to achieve what it calls a Good Society which would have equality, sustainability and democracy as a living reality. The core belief is that no single issue, organisation or political party can achieve thus by themselves and that working together is necessary to make it happen. Compass started life as a Labour Party pressure group but realised that the logic of its position was really non-partisan. It became open to anyone in 2005.

How it shows

Joining the dots; As they say on their site "We see emerging collaborative practice bubbling up in civil society, the social economy and in the local state. Our task now is to join all this up, to amplify, aggregate and accelerate the desire and demand for participation we all want and all feel in our increasingly networked society."

Characteristics

Wide engagement; Compass strives for wide engagement across the political spectrum of progressives, it champions constitutional change, UBI and the Green New Deal. In 2016 it campaigned for an electoral alliance in order to increase the chance of a left of centre person being elected (as a tactic to overcome first past the post). It is trying to establish a common platform for such an alliance in the future which would include constitutional changes such as proportional representation. It has also suggested a citizens assembly (randomly selected citizens presented with all sides of the argument) to resolve the Brexit deadlock.

Notes

This organisations diagnosis of modern British society is as close to that of holistic political economy as any in any political organisation I am aware. It operates within the existing political system and still has a large number of labour party members in its ranks. It has so far failed to get traction for the constitutional changes it advocated. My personal belief is that its thinking requires it to leave the Labour Party even more decisively and take a step towards the Good Society by supporting independent candidates - if enough independents could push the agenda parties would be forced to take notice. Pursuing policy arguments within a political party is disputing, factional and so far hasn't worked.

Its radical diagnosis seems to be at odds with its rather conventional organisation and governance