Citizens' juries will be useless

Prime Minister Gordon Brown today said that the Government would engage more directly with the public in future before deciding on new policy.

Speaking during the first citizens' jury event, he said the "old days" of policy being drawn up by someone in an office in Whitehall were over.

They old days certainly will be over because the EU will be the main decision maker, not our parliament or the British people. Citizens’ juries are nothing but a PR gimmick which will achieve nothing. The government already have a way of finding out British opinion and that is the e petitions website which has been totally ignored. Nothing has been done about many of the popular petitions including a petition for a referendum on the EU treaty which has received more than 18,000 signatures. Surely the opinions of 18,000 are better than the opinions of 50?

Gordon Brown should come clean and tell us that this is just a PR gimmick which won’t achieve anything. Allowing citizens initiatives is a much better way of encouraging democracy and finding out what people want.