Citizens UK

Strangers into Citizens was a political advocacy campaign from February 2007 to May 2010 by London Citizens. The campaign called for undocumented migrants in the United Kingdom to receive a work permit if they had been resident for four years. The campaign became definitively and formally defunct in the year 2013.

The campaign was organised by Austen Ivereigh, a former director of public affairs for the Archbishop of Westminster, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor,[12] and as such had strong links with amongst others the Cardinal Archbishop, Westminster Cathedral, the Catholic Bishops' Conference of England and Wales and the Catholic Herald newspaper, all three being enthusiastic supporters of the political advocacy campaign.

The campaign attempted to influence the policies of the political parties and candidates in both the 2008 London mayoral election and in the 2010 general election. During the London mayoral election, the campaign was supportively endorsed by the Liberal Democrats and the Labour and Conservative candidates for the Mayoralty of London in their personal capacity, being Ken Livingstone and Boris Johnson respectively.

Launched in 2001, the Living Wage campaign calls for every worker in the country to earn enough to provide their family with the essentials of life. As a result of the campaign's success, other cities began to adopt the campaign and Citizens UK set up the Living Wage Foundation (LWF)[1] in 2011 to provide companies with intelligence and accreditation. Rates are independently calculated every year to meet the real cost of living with an hourly London rate and another rate for the UK, outside London. In the capital it is set by the Greater London Authority.The rate outside London is calculated by the Minimum Income Standard team at Loughborough University, supported by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. Since launching the campaign has accredited almost 10,000 employers to pay the living wage and has won over £1.3 billion of additional wages, lifting over 260,000 people out of working poverty.

When it was announced that London would bid to be the host city for the 2012 Olympic Games, Citizens lobbied to gain a lasting legacy for Londoners from the billions of pound to be spent. Following on from hundreds of one-to-one meetings and a listening campaign across member institutions, in 2004 London Citizens signed an agreement with the London 2012 bid team, which specified what the people of East London could expect in return for their support in hosting the Olympic Games. The People's Promises, as they are known, had the following demands:

1. 2012 permanently affordable homes for local people through a Community Land Trust and mutual home ownership.[13]
2. Money from the Olympic development to be set aside to improve local schools and the health service.
3. The University of East London to be main higher education beneficiary of the sports legacy and to consider becoming a Sports Centre of Excellence.
4. At least £2m set aside immediately for a Construction Academy to train up local people.
5. That at least 30% of jobs are set aside for local people.
6. That the Lower Lea Valley is designated a 'Living Wage Zone' and all jobs guaranteed a living wage The Olympic Delivery Authority, the London Organising Committee for the Olympic Games and the Olympic Legacy Company work with London Citizens to ensure that these promises are delivered.

In May 2010 Citizens UK held a General Election Assembly at the Methodist Central Hall Westminster with 2,500 people from member institutions and the world media present. This event was three days before the election and was considered to be the most dynamic and electric event of the election campaign. Citizens UK had negotiated to have David Cameron, Nick Clegg and Gordon Brown as the leaders of the three main political parties attend.[14] Each candidate for Prime Minister was questioned on stage concerning their willingness to work with Citizens UK if elected. Each undertook to work with Citizens UK and come to future assemblies to give account of work achieved. In particular they agreed to work to introduce the Living Wage and to end the practice of holding children of refugee families in detention.

Citizens UK set up the Independent Asylum Commission to investigate widespread concern about the way refugees and asylum seekers were being treated by the UK Borders Agency. The report made a series of over 200 recommendations for change which are still being negotiated. In the lead up to the 2010 General Election a major campaign was mounted over the number of children being held in detention with their families seeking refugee status. Over 1,000 children were being detained annually. Promises to end this practice were made by all three political leaders at the General Election Accountability Assembly held by Citizens UK in May 2010 at Westminster Central Hall. This resulted in the ending of the practice of holding children of refugee families in detention by the Coalition government and a law was passed in 2014 to prohibit this.

At the height of the Syrian refugee crisis in September 2015, following the public outrage at images of Alan Kurdi washed up on the shores of Turkey, Citizens UK called for the introduction of sponsorship of refugees based on the Canadian model[15] of community sponsorship. Just weeks later, the then Home Secretary, Theresa May, announced that the Home Office would look at the idea. Citizens UK became one of the leading civil society partners helping the Government to design and produce the community sponsorship scheme. This was launched in July 2016. Citizens UK Foundation for Community Sponsorship of Refugees (Sponsor Refugees[3]) was established in October 2017 – and has been working to promote the scheme and to support pioneer groups to become sponsors ever since.

Citizens UK set up the Institute for Community Organising (ICO) as part of its Centre for Civil Society established in 2010 in response to growing demands for its training. The ICO is the first operating division of the Centre and was established to offer a series of training opportunities for those who wish to make community organising a full or part-time career and also for Community Leaders who wish to learn the broad philosophy and skills of community organising and who are in a position to put them into practice in their institutions and neighbourhoods. The Institute provides training and consultancy on a commercial basis to other agencies which wish to employ the skills and techniques of community organising in their institutions. The ICO has an Academic Advisory Board and an International Professional Advisory Body drawn from the global network of Community Organising Institutes in the UK (Citizens UK), USA (Industrial Areas Foundation) and Germany (DICO).[16]