Jury Team
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Jury Team
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| Leader | Sir Paul Judge |
| Founded | 2009 |
| Headquarters | 152 Grosvenor Road, London, SW1 3JL, United Kingdom |
| Ideology |
Independent politics, Localism, Direct Democracy |
| Political position | Independent |
| National affiliation | Alliance for Democracy |
| Website | |
| http://www.juryteam.org/ | |
The Jury Team was a British political campaign established in 2009 to back independent candidates in United Kingdom domestic and European elections. Although it was a registered UK political party, it was described as an umbrella organisation giving financial and marketing backing to independent candidates, who were free to set their own political agenda outside of the traditional model of standing as the candidate of a particular party. Jury Team employed a novel selection process for its independent candidates, allowing any member of the public to apply to be promoted for backing, and leaving final candidate selection to the public, by text message voting. After contesting the European Parliament elections in June 2009, the Jury Team's first Independent United Kingdom parliamentary candidate was John Smeaton, who stood in the 2009 Glasgow North East by-election.
The Jury Team campaign for more independent politicians was launched on 8 March 2009 by Sir Paul Judge, a businessman and former director-general of the Conservative Party. Jury Team was registered with the UK's Electoral Commission's Register of Political Parties on 13 March 2009, eligible to field candidates in England, Scotland and Wales. Sir Paul is the registered Jury Team Leader and Treasurer, while Alan Wallace is the Jury Team Nominating Officer.
The name Jury Team reflected the idea behind the jury, that "regular people can make decisions about complex problems with integrity and without any vested interests".
Jury Team was described as an umbrella organisation, with the purpose of giving Independent non-party candidates the platform to compete against the established UK political parties, free of party allegiance and a party whip. The Jury Team aimed to "break the traditional party leaderships' control over the political process". A YouGov poll commissioned by Jury Team as part of its launch suggested that 55% of electors would vote for an Independent candidate if they thought they had a realistic chance of being elected.
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