In conversation with Charlotte Leslie and Empire Fighting Chance

Author
Joanna Le Vannais
Fundraiser | Empire Fighting Chance
3rd February 2021

‘In conversation with Charlotte Leslie: Inside Politics, Brexit, Bristol and Charity’ saw renowned author and BBC correspondent of more than 30 years Andy Hosken grill ex Bristol MP and now Director of Conservative Middle East Council Charlotte Leslie on all things politics. Charlotte was then joined by Martin Bisp and Jamie Sanigar - co-founders of the charity Empire Fighting Chance who spoke about the work of the charity and our big ambitions for the future. 

Opening the event was Chief Executive of Bristol Chamber & Initiative at Business West James Durie. James shared how Business West were delighted to be partnering with Empire Fighting Chance on this unique event and promised an interesting session citing the immense changes going on in the UK from the pandemic to the exit of the European Union before handing over to Andy Hosken. 

Andy initiated the discussion by highlighting the current state of politics and with COVID, Trump and Brexit, ‘goodness what a state it is!’ Introducing Charlotte Leslie Andy hoped she would make sense of these ‘interesting times’. Citing Charlotte’s time as a Bristol MP and her accolade in 2013 for Backbencher of the Year following her investigations into several NHS scandals, Andy went on to bring up several topics. 

Disconnect from reality

Charlotte talked about how she got into politics in the first place and her desire to ‘change stuff’. This led to the discussion on ‘why politics is so out of touch with reality?’ In Charlotte’s view there were two reasons politicians were a few steps away from reality; the environment they occupy where it is easy to feel an overt sense of importance and the type of people who go into politics which Andy referred to as a ‘Professionalisation of Politics’. To bring a different type of person into politics Charlotte’s top tip to kids at school is, ‘if you are angry about stuff and want to change it but don't like the establishment then you are a perfect politician!’

Boxing - anger in Politics

As a Trustee of Empire Fighting Chance and as a boxer herself, Andy used boxing as an analogy about why we are always seeing politicians so angry now. Charlotte brought up two points, firstly social media and the commercialisation of our anger and outrage and secondly how people get frightened by changes in the world and seek to align themselves with their own tribe.

Picking up the theme of boxing in the Q&A Suzanne Thompson from the Restore Trust highlighted issues in the prison system and how sport and especially boxing can have a positive effect on rehabilitation. Charlotte agreed with this and cited the reformed prisoner John Macavoy as a positive example of how sport can change people. 

Brexit

Referencing Brexit Charlotte also remarked that; ‘Brexit saw in some communities great demographic identity shift’. Added to that she expanded on a ‘distorted corrupted capitalism’ where the private sector monopoly is bigger than government, leaving a disempowered population that feel they can’t make changes through standard democracy. This was expanded on in the Q&A with a question covering disproportionate representation. Charlotte again highlighted Brexit/Remain debate and whether this was a question about identity. She went on to talk about rules-based politics versus rule breakers such as Trump and are we moving towards Team Gangster vs Team Integrity?

Brexit was again brought up in a question around whether it will have a more negative effect on the most disadvantaged in society. As someone who voted for Brexit Charlotte pondered whether she should have foreseen that prices would rise as a result of changes in the supply chain but stressed that politics needs to drastically change if we are to help the most disadvantaged survive. 

Empire Fighting Chance

Before bringing Martin Bisp, CEO of Empire Fighting Chance into the discussion Charlotte, as trustee of the charity, remarked that ‘Empire is born of the community, it knows the community and knows people and I can’t support the work that Empire does enough.’ 

Andy introduced Martin to the panel where he explained how the charity Empire Fighting Chance came into being. As an amateur boxing coach he and Jamie Sanigar ran sessions after work when one evening they tackled two young men dealing drugs outside the gym and offered them some 1:2:1 boxing coaching inside the gym. Within 6 weeks there were 50 young people coming to boxing sessions at the gym. Highlighting real examples of kids who were being let down by a system, where schools were ill equipped and unable to support young people with mental health issues they decided they wanted to do something that would ‘tackle the core of the problem not the symptom.’ Thus the seeds of Empire Fighting Chance were born and now more than 4,000 young people are supported through the charity’s services across Bristol, South Wales and the South West. 

The impact of COVID

Martin explained how the charity is receiving more and more referrals and with increasingly more complex needs, marrying this with services that are stretched or stopped leads to a perfect storm of people needing help. Martin explained that he and Jamie took a decision early on to continue to work throughout all the UK lockdowns and facing a choice to ‘preserve the charity or preserve the mission’ they decided to preserve the mission. This meant that there was not one young person who came to the charity for help during this time that was turned away.

Future plans for Empire Fighting Chance

Martin stressed the need to make sure that Bristol and South Wales continue to be supported and new staff appointments have been made to support these areas further. As the charity expands, through discussions with local governments there are now 14 partners across Devon, Cornwall Dorset and North Wales delivering the Empire Training the Champions Program and Empire expects to double the number of partners and have a national presence for the charity within the next 2 years. 

Martin expanded on some exciting opportunities for the charity working with Home office and APPG to look at how ‘boxing can be a tool for social change’. The charity is now working with the Youth Justice Boards in North Wales and Greater Manchester to reduce offending. Not only that but they have recently embarked on a two-year evaluation with Manchester Metropolitan University, sponsored by the Home Office, to see if the work of Empire Fighting Chance can be a long-term solution to youth violence. Finally, Manchester Met University have added Empire Fighting Chance onto one of the modules their under graduates on their criminology course will study Empire’s approach to reducing youth violence. 

Andy widened out the panel to bring in Empire Fighting Chance’s co-founder Jamie Sanigar. Jamie talked about the fundraising challenges faced by the charity due to the pandemic but how funders and the community really got behind them as they continued their service throughout each lockdown. Jamie went on to discuss how the challenges young people are facing are different now than when the charity started more than a decade ago. He cited more complex mental health issues and over the last few years food poverty.  

BAME and disadvantaged communities

Bringing up how the pandemic has disproportionately affected BAME communities Martin reflected that COVID ‘feels like another kick’ and went on to talk about previous austerity measures. In his view these lockdowns have ‘exacerbated the difference between the have and have nots’. 

How can businesses get involved?

Building on the remarks from John Hirst, CEO of Destination Bristol who said how much he enjoys engaging with Empire Fighting Chance, Jamie expanded that ‘first and foremost we are looking at long term partnerships to tackle these big issues together’. He outlined many ways businesses could get involved and indeed benefit from a partnership with Empire Fighting Chance from using their skills and expertise with the careers team to doing team building sessions with the fundraising team. He closed by saying ‘If you have the will to want to be part of making a change, get the conversation started with one of our team and we can go on this journey together’.

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