Our Rationale

We are at a crossroads and must choose between two paths: Leave the EU and head towards further decline and division or remain and build a new country of optimism and opportunity – a country in which the EU underpins our progress and stability, supporting individual rights, cooperation, free trade, and collective responses to evolving challenges.

At Renew, we want to take the second path – stay in the EU and take back control of our country and politics, which have been lost to extremes and a failure of leadership. We need to fix the foundations of our politics and the lack of effective representation, give people back control over their lives, and address the inequities that have been festering in our society.

When you last voted, was it with the hope of making your voice heard, standing up for your beliefs and backing candidates who would make a difference? For too many, it was an uninspiring choice between least worst options offering little hope of change.

More than ever, millions of people now feel politically homeless, disillusioned with politicians who prioritise party loyalties and career ambitions over people’s real interests. The Brexit referendum was an expression of anger that no-one was listening – a wake up call that we are a nation deeply divided, with discontent at inequality, a rigged system and globalisation that has not worked for everyone.

People complained of lack of opportunity and deep inequality – economic, social, geographic and generational. Areas of concern included identity, immigration, and sovereignty. Fundamentally, our political system has failed to deliver effective policy that responds to people’s needs – the EU became the focus/scapegoat for this anger. We must address all these issues. But Brexit will not serve uup magic solutions to our problems. In fact, it will make them worse.

Renew wants to deliver social change, end polarisation and renew our country. But we cannot do this if we take this damaging, complex and distracting path out of the EU.

We believe the UK’s interests are best served at the heart of Europe, with a framework for cooperation, trade and stability that empowers us to address what really matters in the UK. We must drive the creativity, entrepreneurialism, technological change and business innovation that allows us to be a world leader while ensuring everyone can make the most of these opportunities.

We must reconsider Brexit, now that we know more, and address issues directly through radical reforms within the UK and the EU. While the traditional parties fumble through an ill-conceived Brexit process against their better judgment, Renew is clear-sighted in our vision and proposition to voters: stay in the EU as a full member to help reform it from the inside, drive our prosperity and global cooperation and focus at home on fixing the inequality, divisions and broken politics which led us to this point.

Renew, as a centre-ground, progressive party, is the only party able to challenge the status quo and offer a path to a positive, inspiring future. We have neither baggage nor rigid ideology; with a uniquely fresh approach, we are best placed to be the catalyst for change this country sorely needs.

People who voted to Brexit wanted to shake things up; well, we want to shake things up too. We are gathering the views of everyone to create a new deal for the country – a deal of responsive economic and social policy to restore fairness and an open modern approach that embraces regional and global opportunities and makes them work for everyone. That deal includes a new contract, renewing the responsibilities the state and citizens have to each other.

Ultimately, ours is a vision that leaves no-one behind and holds no-one back.

Renew’s approach will help restore people’s faith in politicians and public institutions and shake up the system so that true values of public service and integrity can be restored. By bringing people from outside politics into the public debate, we offer meaningful change from the current failing and decayed establishment. We are already bringing in fresh ideas from around the country through a national listening campaign. We are putting people at the heart of politics and policy making. By speaking with people and looking at best practise from the UK and abroad, Renew is creating a new national consensus and inspirational vision that offers hope to everyone.

Renew aims to represent everyone who lives in the UK, from every region, age group and background. We want to engage Brexit voters upset about living standards, those having second thoughts, pro-EU voters, non-voters, new voters and EU nationals, whose future is now uncertain.

We are putting people at the heart of politics and policy-making; local communities and civil society, manufacturers and professionals, scientists and farmers, urban and rural, young and old, right and left, those born in and outside the UK. We want an inclusive vision that re-focuses on problems long ignored, pushes everyone forward and brings the country together in a spirit of unity and tolerance.

We believe that all of us have a stake in the UK’s future success and happiness.