October Update – Battle of Ideas Festivals and More
In this update we cover our upcoming appearance at the Battle of Ideas Festival, a summary of recent and upcoming meetings and two new groups getting started.
Come and meet us at the Battle of Ideas Festivals
We are very happy to announce that we will have stands at the upcoming Battle of Ideas Festivals in both London and Buxton. We will also be appearing on one of the panels in Buxton discussing From debanking to Bud Light: the rights and wrongs of ESG – Battle of Ideas, a subject we’ll be discussing in detail at our next Manchester meeting. See below.
Members and supporters get discounted tickets to the London event. Find out more here.
Meetings update
The Manchester group had another great meeting on the 27th September when they welcomed guest speaker Peter Ramsay. Peter is a Professor of Law at the London School of Economics and co-author of Taking Control: Sovereignty and Democracy After Brexit, which formed the basis of his presentation. Peter spoked to a packed room and fielded many questions, mostly supportive of his theme. He explained that there is a growing void in politics between the citizens and politicians and that Brexit has served to highlight this even more. Read more about this meeting here.
The Manchester group’s next meeting on Wednesday 25th October when one of the group will be leading a discussion on ESG – Environmental, Social and Governance criteria. These have become a significant feature of managing large organisations and we’ll be trying to understand what they are and what their impact is on organisations and businesses. Read more about this meeting here.
The Newcastle group is meeting on Tuesday 10th October when they will be discussing “Nudge policy – a force for positive change or a threat to freedom“.
The Sheffield group met again on the 5th October to talk about “Can you become English?”, a discussion about what it is to be English, and Britishness.
Croydon Constitutionalists (one of our new partners) will be welcoming Howard Cox on the 18th of October who is standing as the Reform UK candidate in the London mayoral election. Find out more here.
There will also be a first meeting of the new Ilkley group, likely to be in November where the topic will be NetZero, and we hope to be launching a new group in Eastbourne. If you live in either area and want to get involved please let us know.
We are growing!
In 2023 we are hoping to expand our activities via regional Politics in Pubs groups and have created a map where you can search for a group near you.
Don’t worry if you can’t find anything nearby as you can start your own group. If you would like to be put in touch with other people interested in talking about politics, please reply to this email letting us know your location and we’ll help to get the conversation started.
We have also started to expand our partner network with other free speech groups who have a similar interest in open discussion and debate. If you would like to join our network you can find out more about partnering with us here.