‘I’m leading a movement against extremism’

Tabitha Morton, The Independent

If you’d have told me when I was 16, wearing Marigold gloves and elbow-deep in a toilet bowl, that one day I would be the CEO of a political movement of 150,000 people who aim to block extremism in politics, I would have laughed in your face.

I grew up on a council estate in Liverpool in a closed religious community. I was taken out of school at the age of ten to be taught at home but, after a few years, I ended up working for the family business cleaning and selling eggs and potatoes door-to-door. I thought that girls like me had their paths already mapped out for them. The highest hopes my parents had for my future were for me to be married.

I left the community in my early 20s in search of a better life, something more than just being someone’s wife, and studied for further qualifications. I worked in the private sector in construction for 15 years before I became an activist for women’s rights after experiencing sexism and misogyny in the industry.

I joined the Women’s Equality Party and ended up running for Mayor of Liverpool against Labour’s Steven Rotheram. I stood on a platform of ending violence against women and girls in a city that had the highest rates of domestic abuse in the country. I did it to push the other candidates to take on our policies. Before that, I just assumed that politics wasn’t for me.

I lost the election royally, but the experience that I gained from it was crucial. Two weeks later, I got a call from the new mayor, Steven, himself. He asked me to devise the strategy for tackling domestic abuse across the city, working with Merseyside Police to produce a new model that ended up being copied in other cities.

That was my first experience of cross-party collaboration, a way of uniting on a key issue that affects the lives of hundreds of thousands of British people. I felt so energised by what I’d achieved in Liverpool, when I was asked to lead More United, an organisation that aimed at doing just that with MPs across the House, I jumped at the chance.

We were formed because we believe that politics has reached breaking point. Political debate is increasingly extreme and MPs are being forced into tribes that put party before real people. We want to change this by encouraging politicians to work across party divides to find solutions on the issues that matter to our everyday lives. Issues that are just as important as Brexit, from the homelessness crisis to our social care system and the environment.

Our movement is one of hope over hate, one that provides the mechanism through which progress can continue to be made. During the last parliament, our network of 61 MPs — including politicians from seven different parties — helped to push through several amendments that will change the lives of thousands. This includes making sure deaf and disabled candidates are given extra funding so they can run in elections and several changes to unfair immigration laws.

This election, we will back candidates in 200 seats who have signed up to our movement, share our core values and promise to collaborate with each other. So far, we’ve announced 35 of the candidates we’ll be endorsing, with more revealed each week. These include Labour’s Rosie Duffield and Paul Williams, the Lib Dems’ Luciana Berger and Layla Moran, Conservative Paul Masterton, the SNP’s Stephen Gethins and Plaid Cymru’s Liz Saville-Roberts.

Alongside their endorsements, we’ll channel funds and volunteers to the most marginal seats where we can make the biggest difference to a candidate with liberal values winning. Over 150 volunteers are already signed up to canvass in these seats. In this cold, dark and often divisive December election it’s heartening to know there are a people across the country willing to fight for a better politics.

We have a choice in this election — and it’s not just about Brexit. Just like the choice I made in my early 20s — to leave and work for a more meaningful life – we have the choice to vote for better politics. It is something all of us in this nation deserve, no matter where we come from or what our backgrounds. None of us should put up and shut up with the futures we believe have been decided for us.

To do this, we need to elect a better type of politician. We need to reward behaviour that leads to solutions and focuses on building consensus. So let’s do it. Let’s fight tribalism at the ballot box and vote them in, wherever they are standing.