Whether or not you’re into party politics, the general election is a rare chance when people will be more open to discussing the kind of future we want for the city and the world. It allows us the opportunity to raise issues that we are passionate about and influence the agenda of the future.
A coalition of groups have started a process of raising the profile of global and social justice issues during the election, and we now invite your group to join us. We can build on one another’s strengths during the election and beyond.
During the last general election Tidal got together with eight other organisations in Leeds and hosted the Fair 10 Challenge. This campaign aimed to get Leeds election candidates to commit to strong action on social and environmental justice. The challenge asked candidates to sign up to a 10-point manifesto which covered a range of issues including climate change, debt cancellation, tax justice and refugee rights.
The New Coalition
On Monday 19th January a new coalition of organisations came together to decide what we could do about raising the profile of global and social justice issues at the next general election. Representatives attended from a range of groups including:
- Leeds Diocesan Justice and Peace Commission.
- Hands off our Homes.
- Talking Buses.
- Leeds Global Justice Now.
- Tidal.
- Christian Aid.
- Angel of Youths.
- Nigerian Community Leeds.
- Yorkshire CND.
- Leeds for Change.
- Unite Community.
- Frack Free Leeds.
- Leeds Solidarity Network.
- Together for Peace.
We as a coalition of organisations wanted to make sure that during this election we could raise the profile of global and social justice issues. We endeavour to do this by making sure that our concerns don’t slip off the agenda and that we can hopefully challenge the narrative of election issues. Just a few of the issues that arose during the meeting were: accessibility of public transport, TTIP, fracking, climate change, tax justice, food poverty, protest rights, youth voices, BAME representation and many more.
We want to say that we know that we are just some of the groups on Leeds for Change, and we’d love for more of you to come join at this very early stage.
Fair 10 Challenge 2015
It was decided that this time the Fair 10 Challenge would be a great tool to use as we build on the success it achieved five years ago. Just some of the outcomes from the 2010 challenge were that we had a record of commitments to keep the candidates accountable to their pledges; it managed to raise the profile of global issues in Leeds; all of the candidates had to at least think about the issues raised, whether or not they agreed with them and it provided the electorate with useful information about the candidate’s views which allowed them to make an informed vote.
This time we want to adapt Fair 10, sort of a Fair 10 with extras. We want to use this as a tool not just to converse with the candidates but to have conversations with the electorate. We want to speak to people, to challenge public opinion and the election narrative as well as informing people where candidates stand on issues. We want the conversations to keep going, though we want to challenge them about their views, we want to challenge you on your views and we want to be challenged on our views. To do this we will be creating a more open environment for debate to take place whether it’s through hustings, social media or at speakers events.
Over to you…
The next step on our general election journey is to open up the floor to all member groups of Leeds for Change. We would like to invite you to craft a question that you would like to put to parliamentary candidates standing in Leeds. Whatever your group is passionate about we want to hear it. Your question has to be a firm yes/no question – we all know how good politicians are at dodging difficult questions! Here’s an example from the last Fair 10 Challenge:
Despite the notable successes of campaigns such as Jubilee 2000 and Make Poverty History, still only 20% of unpayable poor country debt has been dropped. Would you be prepared to contact the Secretary of State for International Development about progress on international debt cancellation and to push for the creation of a fair, democratic and transparent debt tribunal run by the United Nations that would adjudicate on payability and legitimacy of debts?
Your deadline for forming a question is Monday 9th February at 10am. To submit your question, please fill in the form here.
Once the questions have been collected we will hold an open vote on the questions we want to be brought to the candidates. The 10 most popular will become this general election’s challenge.
The coalition is an open group and we would welcome any other groups to get involved in this process.
UPDATE:
The next meeting is Monday 16th February at 5.30pm at Ebor Court. Please email Laura at info@leedstidal.org to let us know you’re coming and we’ll send you all the relevant information.
You can also join the facebook event to see who else is coming and to shape the agenda.