Tarka Accord
Website Image References: (link)
'North Devon' used to refer to North Devon District and Torridge District simultaneously on all pages
unless otherwise appropriate
Pro-Democracy
Democracy is the primary principle of Tarka Accord. Democracy for local communities through powerful and representative municipal governments. Democracy in employment through workers unions, strike action and a realistic opportunity for self-employment. Democracy with holding the wealthy and powerful to account using the might of the public. There are various forms in which democracy can and should be implemented, many which have failed to come to pass and others which are at risk of being stripped from us. It is the responsibility of us all to doubt our various institutions' capability and care to protect our right to rule. And thus, is the responsibility of all to play a part in the maintenance of our future.
UK and US Branches
Tarka Accord is split into a UK and US Branch, each with a slightly different mission due to the circumstances of each country - although both are committed to reform through meaningful policy change and investing into the idea of community unions that can bring our political environment back into our hands.
For the UK page, click: here.
For the US page, click: here.
Hong
Kong
Director's Statement:
Tarka Accord's history before formation was deeply inspired by the struggle for Democracy in Hong Kong and China. In 2019, the city erupted into a fight for their freedoms. Initially, protesters demands were only the repeal of a new extradition law - yet demands grew extensively alongside the enormous swell of support and international attention. Well over a million people took to the streets, the Polytechnic University was put under siege, and pro-democratic political parties somehow managed to make gains in the city's deeply rigged elections. The will of the people was clear - but the hammer of power prevailed. The revolution in Hong Kong failed.
Now: many thousands of people have left the city; the democratic movement has shrunk and what's left has gone underground; and the Chinese Communist Party alongside their army of manufactured nationalists continue to actively undermine Hongkongers and Hong Kong culture at every chance they get.
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Hong Kong was abandoned by the British state in 1997, given to a known brutal autocracy without the consent of the people of Hong Kong. The excuse used was the end of the lease of the New Territories to Britain with the transfer of Hong Kong being framed as a legal inevitability because of it; despite the realities that: the lease didn't apply to Hong Kong Island and Southern Kowloon as they had been permanent acquisitions, the people of Hong Kong were not allowed a referendum on their own sovereignty, and Britain made the choice of the Communist Party over the government in Taiwan as the successor of all the Qing Dynasty's treaties.
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Hong Kong's abandonment by a supposedly free democracy, the subsequent breaking of the handover agreement by the Communist Party, and the failure of Hong Kong's people to reestablish their own freedoms should be a sign to us all of how fragile our democracies truly are.
Democracy often dies in people's minds before it does in policy, where the efforts of an awoken public often come too late after laws have already been altered. Democracy dies when people drift away from the ballot box when it becomes clear that no option will bring change. I fear that democracy is already dying in people's minds, with voter turnout low and apathy high - seeing as how these are the environments in which autocracies manifest, either through bureaucrats slowly changing laws on the side-lines or populists with ulterior motives simply use the theatrics of democracy to achieve their own selfish desires. I founded Tarka Accord with the dream that democracy can be revived in people's minds through meaningful policy projects and an open door for the disenfranchised; the dream that we - not political demagogues - can decide our own future.
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- Oscar Kelly, Director and Founder of Tarka Accord