In October 2020, former Liberal Democrat MP Tom Brake was appointed as the new director of Unlock Democracy.

A loss of intellectual contribution, the organisation's increasing financial woes and a period of resignations and redundancies created a near crisis situation in late 2003.

In February 2005, Charter 88 and the New Politics Network (NPN) set up a joint working relationship to make the most of their resources in the establishment of the Elect the Lords campaign.

The movement and subsequent campaigning of the organisation could be seen as remaining truer to its Charter 88 roots than those of the NPN.

[12] Its primary goal is the setting in place of a democratic participative process resulting in a written constitution.

Unlock Democracy attends party conferences and runs external events such as People and Politics Day.

As a part of this campaign, Unlock Democracy commissioned a report by De Montfort University on the state of local government in England over the past 40 years.