Talk:Charter88

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[edit] Text from "Charter 88"

Charter 88 was formed by progressive (mainly liberal and social democratic) British intellectuals and activists in 1988. Its name was inspired by that of Charter 77.

It quickly became a cross-party pressure group whose "signatories" were in effect members. It campaigned for freedom of information and for constitutional reforms including a written constitution (with a bill of rights that would be enforceable by the judiciary), and proportional representation, devolution of power to new elected bodies in Scotland and Wales.

The campaign printed advertisements in national newspapers calling on citizens to sign the Charter.

The party most sympathetic to the Charter's demands was the Liberal Democrats, but the Labour Party gradually adopted a substantial part of the programme as well.

In 1999, a group called Charter 99 was formed with the intention of promoting reform of the United Nations and other international bodies, but never really got off the ground.

Charter 88 still formally exists but is less active than formerly and is struggling financially.

Text (above) from the former "Charter 88" article, now incorporated with links into the existing article. Most of this information was already in the article. I transferred and added links to "... formed by progressive (mainly liberal and social democratic) British intellectuals and activists..." MPLX/MH 20:43, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC

[edit] Michael Foot

Michael Foot is described here as "left-of-centre" - whilst he wasn't Militant Tendency, I think it's fair to say that he was from the left-wing side of the Labour Party in the 1980s rather than "Left of centre", which would be more apt to the break-away Social Democrats. Wee Jimmy 00:49, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] United Europe

"Much of the original drive behind the organization has been drained and rendered moot by a parallel movement to enact a written constitution for a United Europe." I see no evidence for the rather odd second half of this statement - perhaps we should remove it. I think the reason the drive has been drained is largely the fact that in 1997-9 it was felt that the Labour government had largely adopted many of the Charter's aims anyway.