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Standing for election |
Great! You've taken the first step towards building a better democracy. You can stand just for Something New, or you can dual-ticket with one of our allies, if you're a member of more than one party, for instance - we don't mind!
To stand, we think there are just four things you need:
This is the most important thing. You need to want to do this. It's a long, thankless task, and you need to have realistic expectations about the outcome. But it's a great rewarding experience, a good way to learn about the system, and you never know, you might just change the status quo. But, you'll need to put in a lot of time so be warned!
You'll need to raise money to stand. You'll definitely need to pay a deposit, and on top of that you'll need more to print leaflets, and so on. The amounts vary depending on the size of the election you're standing in (we spent about £2000 per constituency in the general election), but the rest of the party are here to help you raise it.
Crowdfunding is the main way to raise this these days, and works well both as a fundraising scheme but also as a publicity tool. You'll need at least a couple of months to raise the money required, so don't leave this too late.
Standing by yourself is hard work, and can be very isolating. We would like every candidate to have a campaign manager to work with them. That way you're more effective, more likely to get your message across, and will feel less alone!
The campaign manager's job is to do all the administration jobs required, so that the candidate can get on with talking to people, discussing ideas, and generally inspiring people to vote for Something New. If you've got a friend who will help, great; otherwise we can help match you up with someone else who wants to get involved behind the scenes.
Last of all, you need ideas. We have an open manifesto that anyone can edit, but that's national. We'll create a sub-manifesto within the main one for your area (like Horsham, for instance). You can then add your stance, and use that hook to get more ideas and publicity locally. Getting local people involved in writing their own manifesto is a great way to show the power of open source democracy.
So, if you think you can handle that, let's do it! Join us and we'll support and help you all the way. See you soon!