Yesterday, Parliament Street hosted a very special event in the House of Commons on ‘Uniting the Kingdom’. In a time of large division within the United Kingdom, Head of Campaigns, Danny Bowman organised the event to bring people from all different sides of the political spectrum to discuss the issues that bring us together instead of dividing us.
The events aim was to focus on discussing domestic policies that for too long had been kicked into the long grass due to the Brexit debate. The domestic policies discussed included health, education, job creation, policing, environment and social security. These areas were broken up by two esteemed panels:
Panel 1 – Education, Social Security and Job Creation
The first panel discussion was focused on education, social security and job creation. The panel was made up of experts in these areas including Rachel Burgon who is an education expert, Dr Peter Hill who is programme director for postgraduate study at St Mary’s University, Twickenham, Matthew Lesh in his role as Head of Research for the Adam Smith Institute and author and entrepreneur, Dean Russell.
The key areas discussed included the reformation of the education system, universal credit and job creation after Brexit. The discussion was passionate but remained extremely respectful and civil.
Panel 2 – Health, Environment and Policing
The second panel focussed on the important areas of health, policing and environmental policy. The panellists for this discussion included Jack Gilmore, a parliamentary candidate at the time, Dr Jonathan Stanley, Member of the Royal College of Surgeons, Max Wells-Pestell, Police Officer in Tower Hamlets and Archie Mohan, Founder of the ITMatters movement.
The discussion focused on how to secure our national health service for the next generation, protecting the environment and resolving issues that the police face whist undertaken their duties. Again, the discussion remained civil and allowed everyone to make their case for how they viewed each issue.
The whole idea of the event was to facilitate a discussion on issues beyond Brexit and bring people from all different ideologies including Remainers and Leavers together to discuss the issues that matter to us all.
As our Head of Campaigns noted at the end in quoting the late Jo Cox, “We are far more united and have far more in common with each other than things that divide us”. That message rang true at this event.
Parliament Street would like to thank all panellists and audience members for participating in this extremely important and timely event.
