Renew announces their candidate for the London Mayoral Election

Congratulations to Kam Balayev who has been appointed as the Renew candidate for the London Mayoral election. Kam works in consultancy and sits on several advisory council boards in the US. He has extensive experience working in the field of international law, global risk and transnational business, and has dealt with various stakeholders including the UN, European Court, Council of
Europe and Interpol. Kam was born in Azerbaijan and studied at Cambridge University and LSE.

Kam is passionate about Politics; notably defending the rights of EU Citizens in London,working with London's youth, making the streets safer, promoting clean air policies and supporting local business in the high street. To see more details please have a look at Kam's candidate page.

Please sign up on Kam's page to receive regular updates. Kam will be appearing on Facebook live on Tuesday 17th March at 7PM , so please register your interest on our facebook events page and email David in advance with any questions you may have.

We will also be campaigning in Clapham High Street on Saturday 21st March from 10am. Please keep an eye on our events page and we will update you nearer the date.

Clarke's Comment

It looks as though we may be in for an especially challenging few weeks, or even months.

In the world of politics it appears that our new government has taken Theresa May's infamous 'hostile environment' and applied it to Whitehall.

Never in the entire history of parliament has the enmity between ministers and mandarins broken out into such a public and bitter state of open warfare. It was clear that Cummings always intended to chuck a bit of stick about once he got into number 10, but what has been surprising is the amount of latitude he has allowed to ministers. It will be instructive to see how the Priti Patel scandal plays out; if she manages to remain in poition, it will set an extremely troublesome precedent for the future relations between the govenment and the civil service.

And if self-made crises were not enough to contend with, we are now facing the nightmare of a coronavirus epidemic that could potentially disrupt daily life in a way not seen in decades.

Traditionally, we have taken pride in our ability to cope with emergencies, but if the virus does break in a big way, it will be the most challenging test that a new government could face. Petty differences will need to be set aside, cross-party effort will need to be stepped up and the aforementioned infighting will need to cease.

Our fingers are crossed that we can avoid the worst-case scenario, but if it does happen, it is imperative that the PM starts showing the leadership, judgement and widom that the country so badly needs, crisis or not.

Digital Democracy

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Events (and exciting news)

Renew is proud to announce we're running in the London mayoral elections!

There's more news to come on this one, along with our plans for the rest of 2020, but in the meantime, we're inviting our supporters to come and meet our candidate, Kam Balayev on Tuesday 10th March, at Blackfriars Wine Bar.

Have you got something to say?

We'd love to hear from you.

Send us your views and you could be featured on our blog.

Try and keep it to around 500 words, and send it through to [email protected].

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Comment from Deputy Leader James Clarke

This week, Renew are presenting at two extremely important events.

We are hosting an outreach event for representatives of all the major campaign groups we have worked with in the last 2 years. Attendees will include Make Votes Matter, Electoral Reform Society, European Movement, The (former) Independent Group for Change, Volt Europa, Open Britain, Grassroots for Europe, 16Million Rising, United For Change, Conservative Group For Europe and other high profile individual campaigners.

Entitled 'What Comes Next', the event will centre around a discussion on how, post-Brexit, campaign groups can effectively work together with political parties such as Renew in order to push a progressive agenda and affect change.

Renew has a solid track record of co-operation with Advance Together, TIG, Unite to Remain, People's Vote, other small parties and independent candidates, and continuing this work will be central to our efforts in 2020.

The second event, on Friday, is a collaboration with Citizen Beta at Newspeak House. Citizen Beta is a symposium for people working on civic technology, empowering citizens and political transformation. It is hosted at Newspeak House, the 'London College of Political Technologists'. Their work is fascinating and well worth a look. 

Renew will be giving a presentation to the group, explaining who we are, how far we have come, and how we can employ innovative collaborative technologies in real democratic situations (i.e. elections), alongside further integrating technology into governance. We have put together a slate of speakers including James Smith of 'Something New' who will discuss our work together on the OpenPolitics Manifesto, and Flore Blondel-Goupil from NationBuilder, our main communications platform that is used in political campaigns across the globe. 

These are exciting times, and I look forward to reporting back to everyone next week.

Digital Democracy

This week on Digital Democracy, we've been looking at intergenerational housing as projects that can be hugely beneficial to those directly involved, as well as having a positive impact on society at large. 

Let us know what you think. To comment on this policy idea, head to Digital Democracy today and click on the policy title.

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Quote of the week

Comment from Deputy Leader James Clarke

"As the ship of state becomes cast off from reality, it is more crucial than ever that we remain steadfast in the defence of our values"

This week, Priti Patel announced the government's new immigration system, a cruder version of Australia's which, famously, has not reduced immigration. However, if it is ever properly implemented, it will almost entirely close the door on the recruitment of "low-skilled", low-wage migrants from the EU.

The UK business sectors likely to be worst affected include social care, construction, food processing, hospitality and retail. Carolyn Fairbairn, director-general of the CBI, (which has hitherto been regrettably silent on the likely effect of Brexit on industry) stated that, "firms will be left wondering how they will recruit the people needed to run their businesses."

In response, Patel's laid the blame for policy-generated labour shortages on the business community, baldly asserting that, “it is about time businesses started to invest in people in this country."

Further, she pointed to 8.5m 'economically inactive' people in the UK who could theoretically fill the shortages. ONS statistics revealed that 70% of these people were long-term sick, retired, students and home-carers.  

It underlines a key characteristic of what the UK is going through and what we must be prepared for. In the current political climate, policy will be built not around evidence, but around confrontation, blame and doublethink. Much of what passes for governance is now merely performative, signalling behaviour to core voters.

As the ship of state becomes cast off from reality, it is more crucial than ever that we remain steadfast in the defence of our values.

For Renew, immigration policy must be built around the needs of the UK's workers, bosses and businesses, not the requirements of an ideological project that panders to illiberal ideas. It must also be ethical and demonstrative of our commitment to openness, transparency and international cooperation.

In the coming weeks Renew will begin rolling out our version of the OpenPolitics Manifesto, and members will be able to play their part in building a dynamic document that shows who we are and what we stand for. 

I hope you will all elect to contribute to it and help us to build something new.

Help Carla and her family!

Renew candidate and activist Carla Burns has started a petition to make the "Life in the UK" test more relevant and realistic. Carla's husband, Yves, who some of you might have met on the campaign trail, was born in France but has worked and paid taxes in the UK for 20 years. As part of applying to stay with his family in the UK, he has to complete the test, which includes questions on obscure British history, dates and celebrities. We were wondering whether Conservative MPs would be able to answer the questions...

Citizenship should not be reliant on the ability to pass a test that would baffle many born in the UK. Especially when many of those who apply work round the clock to support themselves and their families, the added stress of completing arbitrary processes can be hugely damaging. 

Sign the petition here, and remember to share it on your social media!

Digital Democracy

This week on Digital Democracy, we're asking for your input on immigration, and alternatives to the currently-proposed points-based system. Open door? Similar system but with less stringent criteria? Priority for family members of citizens? 

Let us know what you think. To comment on this policy idea, head to Digital Democracy today and click on the policy title.

Remember: you need to be a Renew member to vote on Renew policy ideas. Sign up today for this exclusive benefit.

Article of the week

Quote of the week

Comment from Deputy Leader James Clarke

"We must realise that now is the time to be building an effective new political force"

As we awkwardly adapt to life under the new administration there is no real consensus on what to expect. The knee-jerk reaction to the election result was pure resignation and the overwhelming belief that Johnson would be in power for 10 years at least. Based on the performance of the Labour and Liberal Democrat leadership, the behaviour of their activists and the scale of their parliamentary defeat, it would initially appear that the route back would be extremely long and fraught.

Many in the UK can see that leaving the EU is a mistake, that Johnson is unfit for office, that the least extreme Conservatives have been removed and that Cummings is a reckless fantasist. The same people cannot also believe that the government's wacky schemes will come to fruition or that the Brexit lies will not return to haunt them. We are seeing signs of this already.

The idea of a road bridge from Northern Ireland to Scotland has been widely and deservedly ridiculed by groups as diverse as engineers, economists, hauliers, the shipping industry, journalists and politicians not to mention the Irish and the Scottish. And, regardless of its merits, HS2 will become increasingly controversial as the inevitable cost increases and delays kick in. It will end up costing more than the Channel Tunnel whilst providing far less of an impact.

Let us not forget that Johnson has form in the realm of extravagant folly, with the failed Garden Bridge project, London's cable car to nowhere (unsuccessful and extortionate), not to mention his (banned) water cannon, which was neither triumphant nor economical.

The Garden Bridge project cost £43m of public money, and this mock-up is all we have to show for it...

We learned this week that N26, a digital bank with 200,000 customers would be leaving our shores due to 'Brexit disruption', joining Jaguar, Aviva, Airbus, Barclays, Michelin, Panasonic, Philips, Sony, UBS, Toyota (I could go on) in the flood of disinvestment from the UK. Arguments over alignment in financial services and divergence (or not) from EU norms will not be resolved to our advantage and our broader search for trade deals is emphatically not leading to a rainbow-concluding pot of gold.

Expect this story to run and run.

Yesterday's cabinet reshuffle was also an instructive sign of things to come; the welcome and reasonable removal of embarrassing characters like McVey, Leadsom and Cox was totally overshadowed by the loss of his Chancellor, who refused the humiliation of firing his advisors. Once again, Conservative MPs are forced to learn the new rule: integrity gets punished.

Without a drastic and unforeseeable change in fortunes, Mr Johnson will be facing a 2024 election carrying the baggage of 14 years of austerity, division, recklessness, broken promises and, in all likelihood, an annihilated reputation for fiscal responsibility and good governance.

So we must realise that now is the time to be building an effective new political force. We must continue to oppose those who have managed to grasp the initiative and snatch power by harnessing popular discontent and channelling it into a dangerous and regressive political project.

New administrations don't last forever.

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