NETLAP THE FIRST STEPS WITH MPs
2 October 2009
Initial Work
Lesley Docksey has written an interesting response to last Saturdays meeting. She feels that we must not try to run before we can walk. On the other hand, we should try to achieve something fairly quickly in order to gain confidence and creditability. We should therefore set ourselves early achievable tasks.
The website
We cannot wait until the website is up and running before we do something. However, much of our ultimate objectives will depend heavily on it. The first task is therefore to set up a pilot. This is the responsibility of the IT Group.
A Group of MPs
After the weekend Lesley Docksey will be getting in touch with you to see if you know any MPs who can help us. The aim is to set up a small group, say half a dozen, who could advise us. Norman Baker and John McDonnell, who were at the Conference, are obvious candidates. However, we should take care not to pack the group with obviously sympathetic people - usual suspects. The main criterion is that they would be willing to engage in dialogue, even if they disagree with us on some issues. They should also span the parties. If they are members of relevant All Party Groups, all the better.
We should offer to meet our selected MPs in Westminster in a single meeting if possible, individually if necessary. We should approach them by saying something like:
We think weve got a problem - do you agree? We need help and advice from MPs such as yourself so that other MPs can know more. Can you think of ways we could approach it and then put it before MPs and lawyers? How would you, as a Parliamentarian tackle this?
This approach would empower them and make them more involved.
We could tell them that were thinking of a meeting in Parliament in 2010, probably concentrating on the ICC/Security Council issue. This is a fairly non-confrontational area they would probably not know much about. We could also tie this in with a small letter-writing campaign to MPs we have not selected. If they pass these on to the FCO we might have useful information to use as examples.
First Steps
George will provide a:
Lesley will:
Lesley and I hope you will like these ideas and are certainly open to any comments.
Lesley Dockseys email is l.docksey@yahoo.co.uk
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Here is Lesley's letter to NetLap people. There is some repretion with the above but it does reinforce the approach we hope to take;