We’re looking forward to welcoming you to CHANGE: HOW? A Decade of Radical Renewal on Saturday 31st May. On the day, you’ll receive an abridged version of this programme in print. Before then, you can use this online version to get a flavour of what to expect on the day.

Welcome
Last year, Labour made a promise to us and to the whole country: to usher in a decade of national renewal. At CHANGE: HOW? A Decade of Radical Renewal, we’ll debate, discuss and imagine what that could look like. Thank you for joining us, for bringing your boldness, brilliance and big ideas. This will take all of us – so let’s get stuck in!

The venue
CHANGE: HOW? A Decade of Radical Renewal will take place at the Ministry of Sound, 103 Gaunt Street, Elephant & Castle, London SE1 6DP.

The venue comprises four main rooms: the Box, the 103, the Baby Box, and the Loft. Conference sessions will take place in each of these rooms. 

There is a courtyard attached to the venue in which you can get fresh air throughout the day, and where you’ll find some of our event partners running stalls. Swing by and say ‘hello’!

Getting to the venue
The Ministry of Sound is a short walk from Elephant and Castle Underground Station, which is served by the Bakerloo and Northern (Bank branch) lines as well as Thameslink and a host of buses. Plan your journey using the TfL Journey Planner.

There are spaces for taxi drop-off and collection on Gaunt Street.

Registration
Registration will open from 9.45am on the day. Please come to the entrance at the Ministry of Sound on Gaunt Street where our friendly volunteers will check your name against our guest list. You’ll then be given a sticker which you’ll need to keep in order to move in and out of the conference throughout the day.

Got a question on the day? Find our volunteers!
Members of the conference team will be on hand all day to provide assistance and answer questions. Look out for people wearing a pink badge. Any questions, just ask!

Accessibility
If you have any access requirements, please don’t hesitate to speak to a member of the conference team. You can also reach out beforehand on info@compassonline.org.uk. 

Only one space at the venue – the Loft – does not have step-free access. We’re sorry that this particular space is not more accessible. The rest of the venue has step-free access throughout. 

Lunch and refreshment
You will find free tea, coffee and other refreshments in the 103 all day. Please make yourself at home!

The conference will break for lunch between 12.35 and 13.35. There are some great spots for food near the venue, including Mercato Metropolitano, as well as a Sainsbury’s Local. On the ‘Lunch’ section lower down this page, you’ll find a map with these locations marked.

Toilets
All toilets, including accessible toilets, are located on the ground floor of the venue, either side of the 103.

Session formats key
There are five different types of session taking place throughout the day – plenary, panel, workshop, lightning talk, and in-conversation events. These are distinguished on this page.

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A Decade of Radical Renewal: How? (Plenary)
Time: 10.30 – 11.30
Location: The Box

Neal Lawson, Director of Compass
Frances Foley, Deputy Director of Compas
Mark Drakeford, Cabinet Secretary in the Welsh Government and Labour MS for Cardiff West, former First Minister of Wales
Louise Haigh, Labour MP for Sheffield Heeley

If Labour is to keep the promise it made to the British public last year – to usher in ‘a decade of national renewal’ – we need a sense of where we’re going and how to get there. 

In this opening plenary of the conference, we’ll ask: after a decade of bold and transformative change, what could the UK look like? Hear from our first keynote speakers of the day, Neal Lawson, Mark Drakeford and Louise Haigh, on how a decade of radical renewal could transform the country.

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Breakout Sessions: Round 1
Time: 11:45 – 12:35

Breaking the (Fiscal) Rules: the Price of a New Economy (Panel)
Location: The 103

Fran Boait, Writer, Campaigner, Strategist and Coach
James Meadway, Economist & Host of Macrodose Podcast
Polly Toynbee, Journalist and Commentator
Danny Sriskandarajah, Chief Executive at the New Economics Foundation
Nadia Whittome, Labour MP for Nottingham East

The need for a new approach to the economy is now mainstream, with most of the political spectrum critiquing orthodox economic policy which supports asset price inflation, an oversized financial sector, privatised public services, and austerity. 

What are the key battlegrounds – including shared priorities and areas of agreement – for the left to cohere around on the economy, and how can Labour be convinced to change course? The panel will discuss economic democracy, wealth taxes, and, critically, shifting Labour’s economic policy to align with the public on economic power.

It’s Coming Home: Organising on Your Doorstep (Lightning Talks)
Location: The Box

Aydin Dikerdem, Campaigner and Wandsworth Labour Councillor for Shaftesbury & Queenstown
Dan Firth, Director of Campaigns & Engagement at the New Economics Foundation, former Director of the Labour Party’s Community Organising Unit
Jana Mills, Executive Director, Small Axe

The Labour Party should invest in identifying and emboldening local leaders if it wants to reconnect with a disenchanted public. Organising is about building collective power so that people can make decisions about their own neighbourhoods.

This round of lightning talks will see three speakers tackle some of the issues closest to home for many citizens – housing, voter registration and place-based leadership.

The Devolution Revolution: Getting Power to Flow through the UK (Workshop)
Location: The Baby Box

Sue Goss, Writer, Political Scientist and Commentator

The Labour Government have recognised that our over-centralised system is poor at delivery and bad for growth. So they are proposing radical plans for devolution, including creating Combined Authorities with directly elected Mayors across the country, and re-organising the remaining county and district councils into unitary councils. But do these plans go far enough to develop the creative, energetic democracy we need? Do they offer ways to engage with disenfranchised and disillusioned communities? Do they offer the long-term financial settlements local governments need? Will Ministers share national thinking and decision-making with local leaders?

In this session we are planning to explore ways to ensure devolution really works, to build a network of vibrant local democracies that connect the people to power. What would a really democratic country look like?

The session will be Open Space – so you won’t be talked to from a platform. The format is simple, volunteers will be invited to ‘host’ a series of different conversations in workshop groups and participants can choose the conversation that most interests them. So come with questions to ask, and ideas to share.

Labour’s Missing Mission? Poverty, Social Justice and The Good Society (In-conversation)
Location: The Loft

Baroness Ruth Lister CBE, Labour Peer, Emeritus Professor of Social Policy at Loughborough University, Vice Chair of the Compass Board and author of the recent Compass publication The Good Society Starts Small
Rachael Maskell, Labour MP for York Central

Poverty, inequality and social insecurity have no place in a Good Society. But on these issues, Labour’s current agenda is lacking. With the Government apparently reluctant to lift the two-child limit and benefit cap and now planning cuts to social security for disabled people, progressives in the Labour Party must make the case for an alternative. 

This session will be concerned with that alternative. Speakers will propose the sort of principles, action, approaches and policy that a progressive approach to social security in combatting poverty, inequality and social injustice might include.

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Lunch
Time: 12:35 – 13:35

Please see the Ministry of Sound, Mercato Metropolitano, and Sainsbury’s marked on the below map by green flags.

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Breakout Sessions: Round 2
Time: 13:40 – 14:30

How can Labour Speak for Britain? (Panel)
Hosted by Renewal: A Journal of Social Democracy
Location: The 103

John Denham, Former MP for Southampton Itchen and Secretary of State, Director of the Centre for English Identity and Politics
Lise Butler, Historian at City, University of London
Sofie Jenkinson, Co-Director of Round Our Way
David Klemperer, Research Fellow at the Constitution Society

This panel will bring together academic and policy voices from contributors and the editorial team of Renewal: A Journal of Social Democracy, which has just come under the wing of Compass, to ask how the  Labour government should respond to public sentiment in the service of radical renewal. 

The panel will explore: what it is about the way Labour has approached government, economic policy, the state and the electorate that has helped create its current difficulties, and what to do going forwards; how Labour in the 1940s was able to adapt its rhetoric and platform to speak to new popular aspirations and evolving understandings of social class; issues of low and unequal turnout and how these disparities are warping British politics and limiting Labour’s room to manoeuvre.

Economy: Seeding, Sharing, Socialising (Lightning Talks)
Location: The Box

Patrick Hurley, Labour MP for Southport
Delilah Rothenberg, Director of the Predistribution Initiative
Jovan Owusu-Nepaul, 2024 Labour Parliamentary Candidate for Clacton, Head of Public Affairs at Social Enterprise UK

Labour must champion bold economic principles, ideas and approaches which empower people and communities and are conducive to our ambitions around social, economic, democratic and climate justice.

This round of lightning talks will see three speakers advocate for a particular economic principle, idea or approach – including cooperatives, predistribution, and social enterprise – that they believe Labour ought to champion in order to bring about a decade of radical renewal.

Clean Energy, Good Jobs, Fair Growth (Workshop)
Hosted by Labour’s Environment Campaign – SERA
Location: The Baby Box

Ben Carter, Executive Director of Labour’s Environment Campaign – SERA

This session explores the central role of the environment in delivering economic growth and social equity, asking how we make the case for net zero, clean energy and nature as part of a thriving, just economy under a Labour government.

The session is designed to spark and shape: participants will codevelop arguments, share experiences, and test ways to challenge economic narratives that set environmental action against jobs or growth.

This session speaks directly to the theme of radical renewal, making the case that rebuilding our economy and society means bold investment in green infrastructure, skills, and resilience, and that the environment must not be a side issue in the fight for fairness and prosperity. 

New Horizons: Britain’s Place in the World (In-conversation)
Location: The Loft

Clare Short, Former Secretary of State for International Development and former Labour MP for Birmingham Ladywood
Zoe Williams,  Guardian journalist and Commentator

What does a concern with economic, social, climate and democratic justice require of Labour’s foreign and international development policy? How should Labour respond to major shifts in the international order and which sort of alliances ought the government to pursue?

This session will be concerned with Labour’s current foreign policy and approach to international affairs. Speakers will propose the sorts of action, approaches and policy that a more progressive approach to international affairs might include, and one that is explicitly concerned with ‘a decade of radical renewal’. The session will explore the challenges posed by the changing world order, the rise of the populist right internationally, and climate change and injustice across the globe.

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Breakout Sessions: Round
Time: 14:45 – 15:35

From Murdoch to Musk: Understanding How Social Media has Transformed Journalism as the Fourth Estate (Panel)
Hosted by Byline Times
Location: The 103

Peter Jukes, Co-Founder and Executive Editor of Byline Times
Mic Wright, Media Critic and Author
Hardeep Matharu, Editor-in-Chief of Byline Times
Emma Jones, Board Member of Hacked Off

The biggest challenge to democracy today is the lack of shared reality, lies, and a charged political culture in which reasoned discussion, complexity, and nuance cannot really exist. This is directly linked to the tech information revolution we are living through. However, this issue – framed in this way – is rarely properly discussed, for the challenge that it is. We need to tackle this head-on by understanding exactly what is happening – in both traditional and social media – before we can formulate ways to address it.

The Labour Government has stated that it believes social media presents new, more relevant, and unprecedented challenges with regards to journalism (as opposed to the press abuses of the phone-hacking scandal era). This is therefore a topic ripe for new thinking and this panel will present fresh perspectives on these challenges.

Climate: Commoning, Cooperating, Campaigning for the Climate (Lightning Talks)
Location: The Box

Simon Opher, Labour MP for Stroud
Areeba Hamid, Joint Executive Director of Greenpeace UK
Pam Warhurst, Founder of Incredible Edible

Climate presents severe challenges, but also opportunities to make life more equal, communal and collective… There are already endless examples of how mitigation and adaptation can work hand in hand with social justice. 

In this session, we’re exploring just 3: commoning and the practice of common ownership, helping workers navigate a just transition and how guerrilla gardening is about more than feeding your neighbours… Come along and recharge your optimism!

Proportional Representation – Where are We and What Next? (Workshop)
Hosted by Labour For a New Democracy
Location: The Baby Box

Laura Parker, Labour For a New Democracy
Joe Sousek, Labour For a New Democracy
Alex Zur-Clark, Labour For a New Democracy
Caroline Osborne, Labour For a New Democracy

We believe that there can be no radical renewal, under this government or any other, without changing to the electoral system for Westminster.

This interactive session will provide a comprehensive update on where the campaign for proportional representation is in the Labour movement, and beyond. All participants will have the chance to join in political discussion and find out how to get involved in the campaign. Relevant for Labour and non-Labour members alike!

Know Them to Beat Them: The Rise of the Populist Right (In-conversation)
Location: The Loft

David Edgar, Playwright and Author, including The New Real for the Royal Shakespeare Company and The Little Black Book of The Populist Right
Neal Lawson, Director of Compass and author of After the Riots 

After last summer’s riots, we must reckon with the causes and cures behind the rise of national populism at home and abroad. This is precisely the moment to think big and deep, if we want to address the root causes of last year’s riots. The sparks that fanned the flames are going to keep flying.

What is the populist right, why is it gaining strength and how do we confront it? In this conversation David and Neal will explore these issues, with David using excerpts from his play to highlight how we got into this mess. The discussion will focus on how the Labour government ought to respond to national populism and the principles, approaches, policy and action that would underpin a programme to stem its tide.

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A Decade of Radical Renewal: Now! (Plenary)
Time: 15:50 – 17:00
Location: The Box

Neal Lawson, Director of Compas
Frances Foley, Deputy Director of Compass
Andy Burnham, Labour Mayor of Greater Manchester
Miatta Fahnbulleh, Labour MP for Peckham and Minister for Energy Consumers

These historic times of crisis call for bold and ambitious economic, democratic and social transformation. The cost of failing to deliver the meaningful change that Labour promised last year is clear for all to see.

In this closing plenary of the conference, we’ll ask: how can Labour ensure that this is a decade of radical renewal? Our final keynote speakers of the day, Andy Burnham and Miatta Fahnbulleh, will share their thoughts about how we can build a better future together.

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After the conference…

We’ll head to a pub near to the venue – and all are very welcome to come along! This will be the Duke of York (47 Borough Rd, London SE1 1DR). A reminder will be given on the day.

In the days after the event, you’ll receive a short evaluation form. Please keep an eye out for this, and let us know about your experience of the day!

Our members are the beating heart of Compass, without whom today, and the rest of our work, would not be possible. Join the movement for a Good Society today – and let’s transform our politics, democracy and economy together.