Citizens hit Parliament

On the 2nd September Citizen Network hit Parliament. This was a big day for us and we’re very grateful to the Baronesses Sheila Hollins and Natalie Bennett for hosting our meeting in the House of Lords.

Why did we go?

Now that Citizen Network has fully absorbed the Centre for Welfare Reform we can say that we began life on 1st October 2009, 16 years ago. If we were a citizen of the UK we’d be old enough to get married and join the Army—although not old enough to vote. In that time we’ve done many things in pursuit of our mission, but we’ve never gone to Parliament and presented ourselves in the centre of UK power. It now feels like time for Citizen Network to become more visible.

We are also living in a very dangerous time. Lies, prejudice and stigma is being rained down on refugees, migrants, disabled people and people from different ethnic communities by politicians greedy for power and heedless of morality. Instead of focusing on our real problems - the climate disaster, growing inequality and insecurity, species extinction, growing authoritarianism and a loss of faith in democracy - we are told to blame small minority groups, the very people who are suffering most and who are least responsible for the growing crisis.

So, we wanted to share the message set out in our book, Everyday Citizenship: everyone is equal, everyone is different and everyone is a citizen. We also wanted to draw special attention to the amazing things that our members, particularly people with learning disabilities are achieving around the country.

We would have loved to get everyone from Citizen Network from around the world involved, but with our limited resources we decided to focus on bring people from different parts of England - Cornwall, Dorset, Somerset, Derbyshire, Hartlepool, Newcastle, Sheffield and Doncaster together in London and allowing everyone to share something of the great work they are doing. We were also joined by our global ambassadors, coming all the way from Galway to join us: Fionn and Jonathan Angus.

You can see the slideshow we used here.

We also used this opportunity to connect with some of the groups that are also trying to shape policy in the United Kingdom, and we were delighted that Disability Rights UK, Learning Disability England, Compass, the King’s Fund, Care Full, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, Greater Change and Inclusion International all accepted our invitation to attend. After the talks we were also fortunate that many MPs joined us for a reception (tea, coffee and biscuits).

We used the event to share advanced copies of our new Citizenship Manifesto, which we’ll be launching shortly and also to talk about the importance of Neighbourhood Care as a critical policy that brings together many of the threads we’ve been working on for the past 16 years.

If you want to run a Citizen Network event in your country or region then please get in touch. In today's world it is important that we show up. The UK Parliament is only one place to do that. Let us know if you want to create any Citizen Network events where you are.

Photo: Citizen Network members, partners and friends in Westminster.