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
Who We Are
Tarka Accord is a small international pro-democracy organisation headquartered in the UK that operates both a UK and US Branch - our main goal with both branches being community organisation as a means of reforming and maintaining democracy. In our eyes, power is being stripped further and further out if the hands of the public and its time to come together to protect it.
UK and US Branches
Regarding the UK and US Branches of Tarka Accord, they broadly have separate sections of this website. The UK Branch of Tarka Accord – which this is the homepage for – is focused on starting and guiding a democratic reformation process in North Devon with hopes of expanding it elsewhere in the UK. The US Branch homepage is: here.
Democratic Reformation
As stated above, the primary purpose of Tarka Accord in the UK is democratic reformation. It is our belief that the way in which people engage in British democracy is a flawed way of getting the public's needs fulfilled. In North Devon, the rent that many tenants pay is ridiculously high, new builds are being made with seemingly no consideration for shops and infrastructure, the roads are nearly always congested and falling apart and the continually growing population is starting to push these issues to a breaking point. North Devon is laying the foundations of a very poorly designed city and we believe that a democratic reformation through a large community union is the only way to force through the change that we need. For more of the mission of the UK Branch, click: here.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the issue with our current democratic system?
The British political system, riddled with grifters only in the game for themselves, has repeatedly failed to produce a good government for quite some time now. Although a significant amount of the blame can be put on various officials and ministers over the years, we believe that this failure goes deeper than simply the failures of consecutive governments and - rather - lies with the system itself.
Our governance is far too centralised in Westminster. The financing of our local councils is far too minimal to get anything achieved. Traditional and social media stir up hate between countrymen to sell more papers, get more views and push the needle in the direction they want.
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What is Tarka Accord proposing?
In order to actually improve our communities and, hopefully, the country, we need to step away from simply supporting different parties with the hopes of change and step forward to take the reins of our country ourselves. The best way of achieving this, in our eyes, is by tackling the source of the Government’s power directly… their parliamentary seats.
In the UK, the Government sits in the House of Commons - where Members of Parliament sit to propose, discuss and vote on legislation; with this being said, members of the Government are almost always MPs themselves. Pivotal to our proposition is the fact that all MPs, without exception, hold their seats as representatives of small geographical areas called ‘constituencies’ across the country. Despite governance itself being highly centralised, this single element of decentralisation could hold the key to breaking apart the power of large political parties and directly handing the power back to the public.
How will Tarka Accord bring about this change?
Tarka Accord hopes to bring about this much needed change with the concept of community unions. ‘Community unions’, as we would define them, are bodies of people that take the concept of collective action bargaining from labour unions and apply them to geographic areas, constituencies in this case. If large enough community unions can be built, they will have the power to directly inform local government and their MP on the will of the public - and replace them if need be.
Although already great, control over local government has its limitations - as previously mentioned with the highly centralised nature of governance in the UK - but this issue can be sidestepped with networking. Alongside the establishment of community unions, we hope to provide a strong network for them where they can collaborate on research, policy proposals, publicity, financing and - chiefly - collectively press upon their MPs in order to get the wishes of the public represented in the House of Commons directly.
In order to get this project up-and-running, however, we will need the support of the general public to do so - so we would implore anyone who finds an interest in this mission to contact us about it.