Jury Team
The Jury Team was a British political campaign established in 2009 to back independent candidates in United Kingdom domestic and European elections. Although it was a registered UK political party, it was described as an umbrella organisation giving financial and marketing backing to independent candidates, who were free to set their own political agenda outside of the traditional model of standing as the candidate of a particular party. Jury Team employed a novel selection process for its independent candidates, allowing any member of the public to apply to be promoted for backing, and leaving final candidate selection to the public, by text message voting. After contesting the 2009 [European Parliament election in the United Kingdom|European Parliament] elections in June 2009, the Jury Team's first Independent United Kingdom parliamentary candidate was John Smeaton, who stood in the 2009 [Glasgow North East by-election].
The organisation was dissolved in 2011. None of its candidates were ever elected.
Foundation
The Jury Team campaign for more independent politicians was launched on 8 March 2009 by Sir Paul Judge, a businessman and former director-general of the Conservative Party. Jury Team was registered with the UK's Electoral Commission's Register of Political Parties on 13 March 2009, eligible to field candidates in England, Scotland and Wales. Judge was the registered Jury Team Leader and Treasurer, while Alan Wallace was the Jury Team Nominating Officer.Politics
The name Jury Team reflected the idea behind the jury, that "regular people can make decisions about complex problems with integrity and without any vested interests".Jury Team was described as an umbrella organisation, with the purpose of giving Independent non-party candidates the platform to compete against the established UK political parties, free of party allegiance and a party whip. The Jury Team aimed to "break the traditional party leaderships' control over the political process". A YouGov poll commissioned by Jury Team as part of its launch suggested that 55% of electors would vote for an Independent candidate if they thought they had a realistic chance of being elected.
Jury Team had no manifesto or specific policies; any member of the public who was considered to be "committed to the principles of good governance, including selflessness, integrity, openness and honesty" could be publicised by the organisation as a potential Jury Team candidate, and candidates were selected by a system of public voting by text message. The Jury Team candidates that stood in the 2009 European elections represented both sides of the political spectrum as well as those representing several single issue platforms.
As well as Jury Team, Jury Team Party and Jury Team Independents, the organisation also registered the following as official Party Descriptions: Democracy 2.0, Democracy, Accountability, Transparency, Politics for the People, Politics Isn't Working, Politics with Principles and Politics without Parties.
While Jury Team had no party policies, they did declare 12 basic principles on issues of governance and representation, covering areas such as term limits and pay transparency for elected representatives, changes to the operation of select committees and Departments of [the United Kingdom Government|government departments], independence of statistical reporting and complaints functions, and changes to the rules regarding referendums and calling of general elections. They opposed the alternative vote and said that the AV referendum was a "political stitch-up".
Candidate selection
According to its founder and leader Sir Paul Judge, Jury Team Independent candidates "legally committed themselves to our three guiding principles of democracy, accountability and transparency and to abiding by the seven Nolan Principles of Public Life", and "had all "pledged to vote on conscience for the good of their constituents and the country and will not be required to obey a party whip".Jury Team Independent candidates for the European Parliament election in the United Kingdom|2009 European Parliament elections] could stand for selection in every British European Parliament constituency region except Northern Ireland. Candidates individual political positions were promoted through the Jury Team website between 16 March to 24 April 2009, during which time the public could vote for their preferred candidates. The successful candidates in each region were then ranked by the number of text votes cast, in order to produce a 'party list' for each region according to their allocated number of seats.
On 25 September 2009 it was announced that John Smeaton, an airport worker who came to national attention for intervening in the 2007 [Glasgow International Airport attack],
would be the first candidate selected by Jury Team to stand for a seat in the Westminster Parliament, and would contest the 2009 Glasgow North East by-election for the vacant seat formerly held by the Speaker of the House Michael Martin.