Latest / Save Democracy / To Campaign: Passion, grit + relationships

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To Campaign: Passion, grit + relationships · Save Democracy

0:04
Hello, and welcome to Save Democracy.
0:06
I'm Katherine Davies.
0:08
I recently noticed there was a campaign that had been successful
0:12
in the Westminster Parliament in the United Kingdom, running a workshop
0:15
explaining how they did it to the public.
0:17
I thought, "We need to speak to those people and invite them onto the podcast,"
0:21
because of course there's parliaments all over the world, and to some of
0:25
us they seem kind of impenetrable.
0:28
I found out it was a prominent nonpartisan pressure group in the UK called
0:32
Unlock Democracy, and I invited their head of campaigns and digital, Shaun
0:38
Roberts, to come and join us today.
0:40
Welcome, Shaun.
0:42
Thanks for having me.
0:43
Great to have you here.
0:45
Do you mind if we start, first of all, with just a little bit
0:47
about what is Unlock Democracy?
0:49
Okay, so Unlock Democracy campaigns exclusively in the UK for a
0:55
better democracy that empowers people, puts people in charge.
0:59
And so the areas we tend to work in are areas around systemic change, like
1:04
changing the voting system, reforming the House of Lords, and devolution.
1:08
We also do a lot of work around what we generally would term restoring
1:11
fairness to the electoral process.
1:13
So, we're involved in quite a big campaign to try and make sure that
1:16
every eligible voter is actually registered to vote in the UK.
1:21
We're also trying to get things like big money out of politics to end
1:25
the dominance of a handful of super rich individuals over our politics
1:29
and very often the political debate.
1:31
But we also look forward, and we are one of the few organizations, I
1:35
think, in the UK that campaigns for a written constitution for the United
1:39
Kingdom, which is something that the UK is fairly unusual as a democracy,
1:44
not to have a written constitution.
1:46
And I think over recent years we've seen a lot of problems in the United
1:49
Kingdom where because of that lack of a constitution, it's given governments
1:53
freedom to change things - take away rights - that they probably
1:57
shouldn't have in a modern democracy.
2:00
So we very much think that that is something where the moment has
2:03
come for in the United Kingdom.
2:06
Well, we'll probably circle around to that.
2:08
Could we speak a moment then about the campaign?
2:10
Could you maybe just outline what was the mission, what was the goal?
2:14
Back in 2021, the, UK's Electoral Commission, which is the independent
2:20
watchdog for overseas elections in the United Kingdom, came under threat.
2:25
They'd been involved in a handful of cases involving politicians breaking the
2:31
rules, and some of those politicians, strangely enough, weren't very happy
2:35
about being held to account about this.
2:38
And there was no question that the Electoral Commission
2:40
was behaving unfairly.
2:41
It was investigating people on all sides.
2:43
It was doing what it was supposed to do.
2:46
But the government at the time, which was the Conservative government under
2:49
Boris Johnson, decided that they wanted to do something about this.
2:53
And in fact, at the time, the chair of the Conservative Party actually wrote
2:58
to, the government and said, "We should just get rid of the Electoral Commission."
3:03
A letter, that you can see?
3:04
Yes.
3:06
I think that sometimes in democracies like the United Kingdom, we can take things a
3:10
little for granted, because I've worked internationally, and done elections in
3:14
other countries and I know an independent Electoral Commission very often is one
3:18
of the cornerstones of democracy, and without one, you, you really struggle.
3:22
So there previously… There'd never been a question about making
3:26
changes to its independence here.
3:28
So the government actually brought forward legislation as part of its
3:32
elections bill that said, "We will allow ourselves to set the priorities and
3:38
strategy of the Electoral Commission" in a statement, which effectively
3:42
took away the independence of the Electoral Commission and allowed the
3:46
government of the day to sort of say, "Hey, Electoral Commission, here's what
3:51
we think you should be focused on."
3:53
And we thought, and lots of others thought, that this is very much a
3:56
power that no government should have.
3:58
Who are the stakeholders in this campaign?
4:01
Who did you need to bring on board?
4:02
Apart from the British
4:06
people.
4:07
Well, I mean, strangely enough, this kind of thing is quite a difficult
4:11
thing to get the wider British people intimately involved in.
4:15
The awareness of what the Electoral Commission does is
4:18
very much in the background.
4:19
It is not a super well-known public body, but what the role it plays is
4:24
one that's quite easy to understand.
4:26
And one of the things that we did was try and put this into language that
4:29
more people could understand and we'd always at times take a football analogy
4:33
to it as saying, "Well, this is like one side being able to dictate to the
4:37
referee how they should referee a game."
4:40
And that was something that people go, "Hmm, that-" That's good … "that,
4:43
that doesn't seem right." But, at the time, there was a large
4:46
conservative majority in the House of Commons, so it was always going to
4:49
be very, very difficult to stop it.
4:51
We very much built a coalition of other organizations.
4:54
We're a fairly small organization that really recognizes the
4:58
value of coalition-working to really make a difference.
5:01
Are you talking about general civil society… or is there something
5:04
in common about all these groups?
5:06
Civil society groups in particular, so other democracy organizations, but
5:10
also other political parties, anyone involved in the political process … that
5:14
might look at this and go, "Hang on.
5:17
The Electoral Commission has to be independent or the whole thing falls
5:21
down." And we also reached out in different ways to some of the independent
5:27
authorities in the United Kingdom.
5:28
So there's a committee in Standards in Public Life, for example, which
5:32
is a, a very inf- I, I was about to say a very influential committee.
5:36
It should be a very influential committee because it is there to
5:40
safeguard our standards in politics.
5:42
Unfortunately, it doesn't.
5:44
It makes a lot of recommendations, that very often are ignored by
5:48
government and that, that's a problem.
5:49
Is this a parliamentary committee?
5:51
It's an independent committee.
5:53
It was chaired at that time by an independent peer called Lord Evans, and
5:57
we attended an event with Lord Evans and we got a question asked about,
6:03
what does he think of this change, allowing the government to set the
6:06
priorities of the Electoral Commission?
6:08
And he came out with a very colorful phrase, which was like, "This is
6:12
like handing a toddler a gun."
6:15
This is not a good idea in any way, shape, or form.
6:17
It is an extraordinarily dangerous thing to give a government
6:23
the ability to influence how elections are adjudicated and run.
6:27
And, you know, that was a very powerful thing at the time.
6:30
Now we realized, that when this legislation was going through, that
6:33
we were not going to be able to stop it in the House of Commons.
6:36
The conservative majority was very large indeed.
6:39
We did get on board almost all the other opposition parties, in fact, to speak
6:44
out against it and vote against it.
6:46
But we lost in the Commons.
6:47
But our plan at that time was very much, well, let's see what
6:50
we can do in the House of Lords, because in the House of Lords, the
6:52
government doesn't enjoy a majority.
6:53
The role it plays in
6:56
the United Kingdom is very much to read legislation in more detail, act
7:01
in a more independent manner, and actually highlight to government when
7:05
it is perhaps doing something that it really should think twice about.
7:09
And through a very extensive campaign to particularly…
7:12
So not so much in public, but very much directed at peers, issuing regular
7:16
briefings, meeting with key figures in the Lords, making sure that we had got
7:21
the right, particularly crossbenchers on side … because crossbenchers are
7:26
independent members of the House of Lords, and very often are the balance of power.
7:30
And through several months of campaigning and debating in the
7:33
House of Lords, we actually did get it defeated in the House of Lords.
7:38
But what then happens, it just goes back to the House of Commons, and the
7:43
House of Commons goes, "Ah, we're not going to think twice about that. We're
7:47
going to send that back to the Lords and tell the Lords to think again."
7:50
And it was right at the end of the parliamentary session,
7:52
and the Lords rolled over.
7:54
They didn't send it back for a second time.
7:56
So we had a brief moment of thinking, "Wow, we might have stopped this." And
8:00
it was unfortunately just a brief moment, and the government just overturned it
8:05
in the House of Commons, and the Lords wouldn't push it through a second time,
8:09
which does highlight one of the problems of our House of Lords in that because
8:14
it lacks democratic legitimacy, it
8:17
can't really have a proper fight with the government even when it
8:19
should, and this was definitely one of those times it really should.
8:22
So they had the opportunity- to spell out everything that was wrong with it.
8:26
But the lower house just ignored them.
8:30
They don't have any sway.
8:31
Yes.
8:33
So that was 2022, and it becomes law.
8:35
Now, we are very much we're not going to give up with that, even
8:40
though we knew it would be some time probably until we got it to change.
8:43
So we very much carried on campaigning.
8:45
It's impressive, you know?
8:49
I mean, you could have just thought, "Oh, it's law, and, it must…"…
8:50
There's something very final about that for people outside how this all works,
8:56
and the fact that you just picked yourselves up and kept going is fantastic.
9:01
So- … we're campaigners, and we know in every campaign there's always
9:06
many defeats before you get a victory.
9:08
Sometimes victories come very quickly, and that's lovely, but very often it, it
9:13
takes years and years and years and years to kind of get, you know, what's right.
9:18
And- Yes … so when it's something incredibly important like this,
9:21
something as fundamental as this, you, you just can't walk away from it.
9:25
You can't leave something that's, just a, a complete injustice sitting there.
9:31
So what followed that is that the various parties enter into their manifesto
9:35
process as they're running up to the 2024 general election, and we very
9:39
strongly engaged with those processes and did manage to get it in one or
9:43
two party manifestos - restoring the independence of the Electoral Commission.
9:46
But I think critically, we kept going some good relationships we'd built with
9:50
some Labor politicians during the passage through of the actual elections bill,
9:55
and very much sort of said, "Hey, if you end up in power, you could change this.
9:59
You could restore this independence." And those relationships were very important
10:04
to maintain, so it wasn't something that potentially would be forgotten
10:09
if there was a change in government.
10:10
And of course, in 2024 there was a change in government.
10:14
Labor came to power with a massive majority.
10:17
We certainly hoped that something would be then delivered very
10:24
quickly, restoring the independence of the Electoral Commission.
10:26
But we actually had to wait I think about a year until the government
10:30
actually published its election strategy.
10:33
And when it published that election strategy in July 2025, and this was
10:37
basically an outline of everything that it was going to put in its
10:39
legislation, it didn't include the independence of the Electoral Commission.
10:45
It was in their manifesto?
10:47
I don't believe it was in their manifesto, but because the, I mean,
10:52
manifestos, do not go down to perhaps the level of detail about elections-
10:57
that we would like.
11:02
They had some broad, sweeping overarching comment about electoral reform.
11:02
Yes But it hadn't- There was plenty of stuff
11:06
covering fairer elections and strengthened democracy.
11:10
But the, we accept that modern-day manifestos, certainly in the United
11:15
Kingdom, do not go down to very high levels of detail in many areas.
11:19
And in fact, very often are are very much focused on perhaps the issues
11:24
that the public are more engaged with, like the cost of living,
11:27
health, environment, those kinds of issues, which is very understandable.
11:31
So we do get that.
11:32
But we were confident that the will of the party, certainly the will
11:36
of the MPs we've been dealing with, was to restore the independence
11:39
of The Electoral Commission.
11:41
But as I said, unfortunately, when they published their
11:45
strategy paper, it's not there.
11:47
And that came as quite a shock to us.
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In the election strategy paper, there was genuinely some good news.
11:53
There were lots of positive steps forward, but this wasn't there.
11:57
And so we really had to set about again building up a campaign
12:03
to really put the pressure on.
12:04
And I can tell you that I remember being at an event with a Labor
12:08
MP a couple of weeks after the strategy had been published.
12:12
And I won't reveal her name, but we had a chat with her afterwards and said, "Look,
12:16
we know you've been with us on this independence of The Electoral Commission."
12:19
She said, "Yeah, yeah.
12:20
Absolutely." And we're like, "You do realize it's not in the strategy paper?"
12:23
And she said, "What do you mean it's not in the strategy paper?" and so,
12:27
you know, it was kind of almost a shock for some of the people that had been
12:33
with us on this, that it wasn't there.
12:35
And when we did some digging and we got to the sort of bottom of what we thought
12:40
was going on, and, you know, it's not that a spokesperson ever came out and
12:45
said, "This is why we're not planning to restore the independence of The
12:48
Electoral Commission," but the word we received was that, well, you know, what
12:53
if The Electoral Commission started to do something that we didn't want them to do?
12:58
We want to be able to control The Electoral Commission, and
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you're just like, that is not the way to think in a democracy.
13:07
It's upside down.
13:08
Yeah.
13:09
And also to have perhaps a think about what might your opponents
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do should- yes … they be in that situation and in power, and would
13:17
you want them to have that power?
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And maybe a future less reasonable government.
13:21
Indeed.
13:22
Yes.
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Indeed.
13:23
So it was really back to the campaign again, and very much back with our
13:27
coalition, the coalition we've been working with on this, dozens of
13:32
other organisations over many years.
13:34
We were working on the government's new Representation of the People's
13:37
Bill, which, as I say, had a lot of positive things in it that we welcomed.
13:40
But we were looking to say, "Okay, how can we strengthen some of the stuff
13:43
where they've gone a step in the right direction, but actually there's more to
13:46
do." And so we really put the independence of The Electoral Commission back at the
13:51
heart of that as almost whatever you're doing around elections, one of the most
13:55
fundamental things is you've got to have an independent referee watchdog overseeing
14:02
the elections that all sides can trust, and most importantly, the public can
14:06
trust to say that these people are being even-handed, and they're making sure that
14:11
elections are being done for the benefit of the public, the voter, and not for one
14:15
party or for the government, because that would be a deeply dangerous place to be.
14:21
Indeed.
14:22
Yes
14:23
So over many many months we started campaigning again with people, MPs
14:30
raising this in parliament, particularly, Labour MPs as well as opposition
14:33
members now, and writing letters to the minister, and eventually we
14:37
actually got in to see the minister.
14:38
And it was a meeting that was covering the whole bill, but the first thing
14:43
we actually addressed with her was the issue around independence of the
14:48
Electoral Commission, and she was very circumspect and said, "Look,
14:52
we are listening on this issue."
14:53
Which was good, it was the first sort of sign that we actually
14:57
had that someone's realized this might actually be a problem now.
15:00
We were putting forward all the expert advice.
15:03
I mean, this is one of these sort of strange campaigns where
15:06
you've got all the facts, all the evidence, all the sense of fair play.
15:10
It should be a very, one-sided-
15:14
Very clear
15:14
… - discussion.
15:14
Yes.
15:15
But strangely it's not, and it almost never is, and it's very much if someone
15:20
has power, they are often reluctant to give up even a little bit of it, and being
15:25
able to set the Electoral Commission's strategy and priorities is power.
15:30
I should say, like, all the time this power's been in place, no one has
15:35
actually set something that you would actually say, "That, that's wrong, that's
15:39
unfair." But they could have, and in the future someone else could do that.
15:45
So our campaign went on through, there was, some public stuff, but we
15:49
were doing briefings with MPs, really trying to build up that noise and
15:52
actually to some extent pushing people in the Labour Party saying, "Well,
15:56
you voted against this in opposition.
15:58
You spoke out so strongly against this- Yes … in opposition.
16:02
Now you have the power, come on, let's put it right." And finally, when the
16:07
bill was finally published, they did come round and the independence of the
16:12
Electoral Commission will be restored once the Representation of the People's
16:16
Bill passes, hopefully later this year.
16:18
And we're really pleased about that, but it's kind of an odd one because, you know,
16:23
we always want democracy to be moving forward and getting stronger and better.
16:27
We're just bringing it
16:31
back to where it was five years ago.
16:34
And it has taken an awful lot of time and effort to do it,
16:37
very valuable time and effort.
16:38
I'm really glad we did it, but in a country where people are so
16:44
upset, feel let down, have very, very low trust in the political system
16:50
and the way politics is working for ordinary people right now.
16:53
It's a shame that so much effort's been going back into something as
16:59
basic as this, rather than looking at things where it's like, actually we
17:03
need to modernize our political system so it engages more people again, and
17:06
people feel more connected to what's being done in their name, and they
17:10
feel that their vote means something.
17:12
Indeed.
17:13
Could we just speak a little bit about the mechanics?
17:15
So right at the start, it was really clear the case, what you were trying to achieve.
17:21
It was pretty black and white, why it was important.
17:24
And then you set about working out, okay, who else can we bring
17:28
on this big collaboration, all the different organizations?
17:32
And, so just to understand the mechanics of that, obviously some
17:35
of these groups you would've already known personally or you had some
17:38
connections, but there would've been people you hadn't outreached to before.
17:42
So was that like, just because … This is kind of out
17:46
of the public space at this point.
17:47
It's like writing emails, making phone calls, trying to build
17:51
relationships in this coalition.
17:53
Is that how would you describe it?
17:55
I mean, I, I've worked on campaigns where it is like build a million
17:59
strong petition or national newspaper headlines, all that jazz.
18:03
And, you can't really do
18:07
that on a fairly niche part of our democratic process.
18:12
We know that.
18:13
But it is something that the politicians themselves do care about because they
18:17
stand for election every five years.
18:19
They are part of this process.
18:20
So it was a campaign that was much more focused on getting the
18:24
politicians to do the right thing.
18:26
And so the kind of things that we were doing, we were holding drop-in events
18:30
where, MPs would invite MP small parties in to talk about why this was important,
18:36
why it was a, a very dangerous power to be in the hands of any government.
18:40
That definitely helped.
18:41
We wrote a lot of letters to the minister.
18:45
We got other MPs to write to the minister and to the prime minister.
18:49
We did a public letter.
18:51
I'm sounding like it's just letters, but it was a lot more than just letters.
18:56
A letter signed by about 18 different civil society organizations
19:00
encouraging the government to do the right thing on this.
19:03
We also did a public petition.
19:05
As I say, it wasn't a huge petition, but it was tens of thousands of people.
19:11
Where was the media on this?
19:12
I guess they, because the public was looking elsewhere,
19:15
they were too, were they?
19:15
Exactly.
19:16
Exactly.
19:17
And, you know, it's, is a… The media pay a lot of attention to how elections
19:23
are run during each election, but their attention tends to be on the parties
19:26
themselves and not the system that's actually making it work, and certainly
19:31
not on the adjudicator for that system.
19:34
It's really remarkable when you think about- The commentary you hear in the
19:39
media here about elections overseas and different ways that, there is
19:45
no watchdog or there's been some interference by the government, you
19:49
hear that in the news when they're covering elections around the world.
19:54
But the independence of the UK watchdog is not a news
19:57
story.
19:58
We actually heard,
20:01
I think it was Boris Johnson actually, talking about what you just sort of said
20:05
really, very much talking about democracy.
20:08
It was an international democracy summit, that was held around 2022.
20:11
[Dec 2021] The UK government was represented at that summit, and to
20:16
hear them speaking, you'd think, "Well, they can't have even seen
20:20
the elections bill that they're in the process of passing at home."
20:23
But again, this is not something that really gets picked up.
20:26
I can remember at the time, this was… I think Joe Biden when he was president
20:30
organized these sort of international democracy summits to promote democracy,
20:34
which was a really good thing, but the amount of press coverage certainly it
20:37
got in the United Kingdom was tiny.
20:40
Absolutely tiny.
20:42
So just, bringing this back to our viewers and readers, maybe
20:45
they've heard of something happening in their Parliament, and
20:49
they're really concerned about it.
20:51
They can see down the track that that's a dangerous development.
20:55
I guess as an individual, you're really looking for a kind of parliamentary
21:00
lobby group, a civil society group that's nonpartisan that you can join
21:06
and, to be part of a wider group.
21:08
Because - other than one letter to your MP and maybe inviting your friends to
21:14
do the same - it's probably not going to move the needle if it's something
21:17
to do like what you've been doing.
21:19
And also to join that group with the expectation that this is going to take
21:24
a while, and if it's important, it doesn't matter, because it's for our
21:29
children and our grandchildren and, this is big what you were dealing with.
21:34
Some people have the expectation that, they're going to join this group and be
21:39
part of this campaign and, six weeks later Bam, we've got our win, but this took
21:46
five years and, it was really important.
21:48
Congratulations!
21:49
Can I just
21:52
pause and say that
21:54
Thank you.
21:54
I mean, we were really happy.
21:55
Our entire coalition was delighted, and the people that have been doing this for
21:58
those five years, it was really good.
22:00
Our supporters, our members, were very happy and relieved about it as well.
22:05
But I think the, the nature of campaigning is sometimes something
22:09
can take days or weeks, and sometimes things can take years.
22:14
And one of the other issues that we work on is around proportional representation
22:18
for elections, so UK electoral reform.
22:21
And the most prominent organization that campaigns on this is the
22:25
Electoral Reform Society, and they've been going for nearly 100 years.
22:28
And we haven't won yet, but we're there, and we're stepping the campaign
22:32
up, and I'd argue we're probably closer than we ever have been in
22:36
that 100 years to getting change.
22:38
Our new prime minister in the United Kingdom, Andy Burnham, is on the record of
22:42
being a strong supporter of proportional representation for UK elections.
22:47
And that is-
22:47
Recent?
22:48
Recently?
22:48
Yeah, very recently.
22:50
Okay, interesting.
22:50
Well, we'll see.
22:52
So much resistance against that, that's for sure.
22:55
But there's always resistance and even to the most obvious things.
22:59
And so much of this does come back to power.
23:03
Those that have power don't want to give it up.
23:07
And in a democracy, the power should be with the people.
23:11
In an era of democratic decline- And all the winds that are blowing, in
23:18
terms of the rise of authoritarianism and autocracies and entrepreneurial
23:23
populists, and it's touching the UK and France and Germany and Australia
23:30
and the US, and so many places.
23:32
And authoritarians around the world have entrenched their regimes and become
23:36
more kind of underhand, so as long as they get in, they just change all the
23:42
rules and so they can stay in, right?
23:45
so, I guess pointing to the future of the United Kingdom and saying,
23:49
"Look, if you don't have an independent electoral commission, some- a future
23:53
government," you know, it- it's really a disaster, and then I guess
23:56
the same argument for a written constitution and a lot of the things
23:59
you argue for, in the hands of a more autocratic, government in this country,
24:07
these things are really dangerous.
24:08
So when you point those things out, do elected representatives understand the
24:16
sort of… Are they fearful about that or are they preoccupied with the next week
24:22
and the next year and the next election?
24:24
I think for a long time
24:28
that fear wasn't there.
24:30
I think that … for traditional UK politics over the last, I guess
24:33
100 years, there's not really been a fear of that kind of government.
24:39
But I think in the last five to 10 years, seeing what's happened around Europe,
24:43
what's happened in the US, and seeing the rise of some parties in the United
24:47
Kingdom, I think that is becoming more of a worry than it ever was before.
24:52
And to be honest, that's the thing that's probably going to
24:55
drive change more than anything.
24:57
And I think there's a very-
25:00
I say
25:02
a very British thing of like really we, we don't really like fixing things until
25:04
they go wrong really, really badly.
25:07
And I think that's very true when it comes to our democracy in that,
25:12
it's had things that have been going wrong for years and years.
25:16
We've not modernized it.
25:17
We've not kept it up to date.
25:18
People are getting more and more unhappy about how it works.
25:21
It's almost like no one wants to touch it until it, crashes.
25:25
And our argument would be let's not let it get to that.
25:27
Let's try and actually do something before that because I think the thing
25:32
I would say about what's happening here and around the world, I think you hit the
25:36
nail on the head where the authoritarian right, as they're coming through, usually
25:42
authoritarian right, they're quite smart.
25:44
They don't try and say, "Oh, we don't believe in democracy." They're not…
25:47
They don't say, "We're going to cancel elections." What they do, as we've seen
25:51
particularly in Hungary but also to some extent in America as well, is that
25:55
they will just undermine all the other institutions around it, so actually they
25:59
can get the powers of a dictator but still have, be a notional democracy.
26:07
And the conditions that make that possible is how unhappy people are with their lives
26:13
right now, and I think there's a really simple choice that either we modernize
26:18
our democracy and we make it work again for the people so people can actually
26:21
look at it and go, "My vote matters.
26:24
It's making a difference.
26:25
I can see the connection to those politicians again." If we don't do that,
26:30
then their version of change, which is, "Hey, we'll just get rid of all
26:36
these"- Easy answers … easy answers.
26:39
We'll get rid of all the oversight, all the laws around this.
26:43
We know that's a very, very dangerous place to go.
26:46
But I think the risk that people in democracy have, or believers in democracy
26:51
have, is if we're basically trying to defend the status quo while people are
26:56
very, very unhappy, that is a mistake.
27:00
Is that what worries you most?
27:01
The tone of the electorate in this country?
27:02
It really does … I'm a voter myself, and I can look at this and
27:08
go, in the last 15 years or so, have lives improved in our country?
27:14
Have people been getting better off?
27:16
Are we a more prosperous country, a happier country?
27:18
And the answer to that very clearly is not.
27:21
And we've changed prime minister again and again and again, seven in
27:24
10 years, and people look at it say, "Well, it still feels like nothing's
27:29
changing." And the reason we would say that is because our political
27:35
system hasn't been kept up to date.
27:37
It's no longer fit for purpose in this modern day and age, and
27:41
that's why we need the kind of reforms that actually make people's
27:44
voices heard again about democracy.
27:46
So democracy has to improve and change, or we risk potentially losing it, although
27:52
losing it in a very sort of subtle way.
27:56
Yes, step by step, behind closed doors, nobody's noticing.
28:00
And is there something you can share about the joy of campaigning, even on a,
28:06
a really difficult long-term campaign?
28:09
Or if that's not your experience, you know, be honest
28:14
I'm here today because I used to… I took politics at school.
28:18
I wasn't from a political family and not gotten the bug.
28:23
What fired me up is the first time I saw proper homelessness in the
28:26
United Kingdom, and you're just like, "How? Why? This is wrong." And it,
28:32
it's something that's just sort of-
28:33
Where was it?
28:34
What did you see?
28:35
How old were you?
28:36
About 14 years old.
28:38
It was the first trip I'd ever had into London, and it was in the winter, and
28:41
it's freezing cold, and you just…
28:43
I'm a school kid going on a school trip for this event, and you just look at
28:47
this and go, "How? How?" It, and it just… That started up my activism.
28:51
It really upset you.
28:52
Yes.
28:53
Yeah.
28:53
Yeah.
28:53
And- How could this be in this country?
28:55
How could this be?
28:56
Yeah.
28:56
A rich country like ours.
28:58
And I spent about 15 years campaigning in my spare time as a… you could just
29:04
call it as a hobby, but it was a passion.
29:06
But then I was fortunate enough to be offered a job doing campaigning.
29:11
So for the last 25 years, I've effectively been paid to do the
29:15
thing I used to do for free.
29:17
It's always been a passion.
29:18
It's tackling injustice.
29:20
I don't want to say something corny like changing the world, but … you
29:25
know, I, I do want to change the world.
29:27
There is so much injustice.
29:28
There's so much possibility that's there for people.
29:32
And so often it's because a small number of people in power want
29:37
things to be best just for a small group of people like them, and,
29:42
democracy is supposed to change that.
29:44
Democracy can change that, and that's why I, … Every day I come to work and
29:50
I go, "Okay, this campaign might take a while, but we're not going to stop." And,
29:55
you know, as saw with, this one, we won.
29:58
And the bill that's going through Parliament at the moment, that this
30:02
government's put through, there are several key wins in there.
30:06
It's just that actually it's been a… I'll be honest, it's been a
30:10
lean spell for wins and democracy.
30:13
So we need to get some bigger ones in while the going is good, particularly
30:17
with the threat of rising authoritarianism and genuine threats to democracy.
30:22
Now is the time where we should be building up the defenses and building
30:27
up our democracy to the strongest possible level to really show the people
30:33
that this is what it's going to make their life better and not effectively
30:38
handing over power to one person as a sort of mini dictator or whatever.
30:43
It's a hugely important goal and very inspiring.
30:46
Happy for you to get this win, to you and all the people involved.
30:51
And anything else you want to share before we sign off?
30:54
I'd just say, keep dreaming, and never, never, ever give up, because quite
31:01
often it's the ones that just never give up who come out on top in the end.
31:05
That's a great message.
31:06
Thank you so much.
31:08
Thank you.
31:10
Bye for now.
31:13
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31:18
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