The General Election and Campaigning

As Let’s End Poverty, we have a shared aim:

By working together in the lead up to the General Election 24/25, we aim to build political and public willingness to end poverty in the UK and therefore seek to strengthen the movement to end poverty in the UK in the long term.

The movement is made up of lots of different organisations, and The Methodist Church in Britain is playing a coordinating and facilitative role. As many of the organisations supporting Let’s End Poverty are charities, and in the context of a General Election, there are a number of regulations we need to be aware of as we work together.

We have put together some guidance to help supporting organisations participate confidently in Let’s End Poverty, and agree a shared approach to our campaigning.

You can download our guidance, and joint campaigning agreement below. This includes our ‘Dos and Don’ts’ guidance, and introduction to the way we want to work together and some top tips.

The top two things to remember are:

Please remember to never use the Let’s End Poverty banner or brand in a way that might be seen as party political. Many of the organisations supporting the Let’s End Poverty– including the Methodist Church as the host – are charities, and as such are required to be party politically neutral. That means we can never support or oppose a political party or candidate, or tell people who they should or should not vote for. That is the case even if a party or candidate has policies or views that align with ours. In any event, the most effective way for us to achieve our aims is to engage with a broad range of political and non-political bodies and persons.

No one should use the Let’s End Poverty banner for carrying out regulated campaign activity during the election period. Let’s End Poverty is also subject to Election Law and the so called ‘Lobbying Act rules’ in the 12 months preceding an election. This means there are financial limits on the amount of regulated activity that campaigners can undertake. Regulated activity is public-facing activity that can reasonably be regarded as intended to promote or procure electoral success for political parties, political parties who advocate particular policies, or for candidates who hold particular opinions or advocate particular policies, or who otherwise fall within a particular category of candidates.

Every organisation supporting Let’s End Poverty will be invited to sign our agreement on joint campaigning, to ensure that we are all working to the same standard. If you haven’t been invited to sign this yet, please email Hannah at hello@letsendpoverty.co.uk.