HOW THE LABOUR PARTY CAN CONNECT WITH THOSE
LEFT BEHIND IN THE NORTH OF ENGLAND
Lisa Nandy
was elected as the Labour MP for Wigan since 2010. Before entering Parliament, she worked for the youth homelessness charity Centrepoint and The Children's Society. Lisa has served on the front bench in a number of roles, including Shadow Children's Minister under Ed Miliband and Shadow Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change under Jeremy Corbyn. She is a co-founder of new think tank, the Centre for Towns. A leading Remain campaigner during the EU Referendum, a majority of Lisa's own constituents voted Leave in June 2016. She has since become a prominent figure among those seeking to understand and articulate the concerns and frustrations that gave rise to the Brexit vote.
Since George Orwell wrote his famous book about the living conditions of miners in Wigan in the 1930s the region has seen more hardship. Margaret Thatcher closed the mines in the 80s. Work is not easily found. After Brexit EU subsidies will have to be replaced with funds given by the British government. Will the ruling Tory government in Westminster take care of Wigan? How can Labour reach the people of Wigan? "It requires a left that takes seriously the prospect of devolution. Not just the Tory model of transfer of decision-making from one group of men in Whitehall to another in the town hall, but a commitment to a genuinely federal model in which real power is held much closer to people.” (Lisa Nandy in The Guardian)
Philoxenia is a new lecture series curated by the London based Austrian journalist and author Tessa Szyszkowitz. 2016 was the year when fear, xenophobia and right wing populism upstaged rationality. Donald Trump was elected to the White House and Britain voted in a referendum to leave the European Union. But counterforces are assembling to think about alternatives to fear and xenophobia as driving forces of political processes. Philoxenia wants to do just that: Welcome guests to exchange thoughts in order to find answers together to the challenges of the 21st century.