WHO IS BEHIND HOTP

Representational democracy was a product of its time. Even if Parliament remains for hundreds of years, it must better serve the people it represents.

House of The People, if we get enough people on board, seems like the next logical step in achieving true democracy.

Brexit voters were promised control over immigration. Instead, net migration reached 906,000 in 2023, an 182% increase from 321,000 in 2016, the highest in British history. Labour won 63% of parliamentary seats with 34% of the vote. Two million marched against the Iraq War in 2003. Six million signed a petition to revoke Article 50, which was debated but ultimately rejected. Students protested in their hundreds of thousands against tuition fee increases. Parliament ignored them all.

When outcomes consistently contradict public will, the problem isn't the people. It's the system. Yet we keep blaming individuals: corrupt politicians, ignorant voters, greedy elites. We rage, we vote them out, we elect new faces. Nothing changes. Why? Because the structure remains the same.

This is the engineering mindset that drives House of The People. We don't blame the people. We fix the system.

House of The People adopts a deterministic worldview rooted in cause and effect. Human behavior is the result of prior conditions and incentives, not spontaneous good or evil. If every action has a cause, then changing outcomes means changing the underlying causes.

Under the current Westminster rules, several structural factors consistently produce undesirable results: Many MPs sit in "safe" seats where they face little electoral risk. The voting system (first-past-the-post) ensures most votes don't count equally. Lobbying and party whips channel accountability toward party bosses and donors rather than toward the public.

Even well-intentioned leaders get channeled by these systemic pressures into preserving the status quo. In a determinist analysis, expecting virtuous outcomes from such a setup is wishful thinking, akin to expecting water to flow uphill.

If people are products of their system (and they are), let's build a better system.

This is where House of The People comes in. It's not a political party or an ideology-driven campaign. It's a tool that gives the British public a direct line into actual policy decisions.

Through a secure platform, citizens can vote on every bill going through Parliament. Think of it as creating a parallel "People's House" that runs alongside the House of Commons. It's simply democracy taken to its next logical step: consulting the people not just once every five years, but whenever the government is about to make a decision on the people's behalf.

Two core purposes drive this platform:

The platform is agnostic about policies; it takes no stance other than faithfully recording what the majority of participants support or oppose.

In that sense, it sidesteps the tribalism of party politics. Whether you are a Brexiteer or Remainer, socialist or free-marketeer, House of the People simply asks: do you want your voice to count? If yes, then use it here, on each question at hand, and see if the government listens.

This is not a call to dismantle the system. It's a call to modernise it. If we don't want true democracy, fine. Let's admit it. But if we do, we now have the tools to implement it. What remains is the will.

I don't actually believe in simple majority rule. I believe in algorithmic compromise. If we can compile every person's viewpoint on an issue, we can find a compromise calculated to best serve everyone's interests. This isn't just possible in the UK - it's possible worldwide. The technology exists. What we're building here is the foundation for that future.

For now, majority rule is the starting point - the fairest approximation we have today. But the ultimate vision is more sophisticated: a system that doesn't just count votes, but weighs perspectives, identifies common ground, and generates solutions that maximize collective benefit rather than simply declaring winners and losers.

If the result unsettles those in power, the problem isn't the platform. It's that they no longer represent the people. If the political class sees that the people consistently desire something else, the answer is not to dismiss the people, but to reform the political system. And if they won't, then the people will have a mechanism to assert themselves.

Charlie Jobson

I'm 23. Studied Russian at Durham - the language, history, politics, literature. After graduating in 2024, I worked as an assistant running a political forum.

The forum consisted of exclusive conversations about everyone else's future, with no attention paid to what the majority would think. I realised I didn't want to facilitate closed-door democracy - I wanted to open it up.

So I quit in August and spent three months building House of The People. No coding experience, just a clear problem that needed solving: we should be able to measure the gap between what citizens want and what their representatives do.

The platform exists because the gap between public will and parliamentary action should be visible. Every vote cast here helps measure that distance. House of The People gives clear data on the public will. Let's see if they pay attention.

I've always believed in adapting to the new world and utilising tools to humanity's advantage. Built this with AI assistance because, in the words of Chaplin's Great Dictator: "You the people have the power - the power to create machines, the power to create happiness, the power to make this life free and beautiful, to make this life a wonderful adventure... Let us fight for a world of reason, a world where science and progress will lead to all men's happiness."

In the name of democracy, let us all unite.

If we demand transparency from Parliament, we owe you the same standard.

From Charlie:

I've watched mass discontent grow in our political system and recognised that people need a genuine outlet for discussion and influence. It's no good shouting or needing to protest. History shows us what happens when people lack legitimate channels for their will: the Narodniks turned to violence, populist movements became destructive. This platform is designed to be the most effective tool of peaceful protest ever created.

I quit my job to build House of The People full-time. I saved a small amount of money to live on, but I'm incredibly grateful to my parents who have supported me financially when my savings ran out. For the last two months they've paid my rent. That has to stop. The country (and perhaps nations around the world) deserve a service like this. But transparency means being honest about financial realities: even mission-driven work requires compensation to live.

As the platform scales, all financial decisions will remain visible and accountable to the community that supports it.

Have questions, feedback, or want to get involved? We'd love to hear from you.