What is the new Together Membership about?
Here’s a fuller explanation of the background to Together’s new Membership – an ideal ‘primer’ if you are new to Together.
Background
The Together Declaration was formed in August 2021 with one main purpose: to unite people from all walks of life to push back against the rapidly growing infringements on our rights and freedoms.
In a short space of time, and with extremely limited resources, we feel we’ve made a positive impact on discourse in the UK through a range of activities including media appearances, co-ordinating direct public appeals to MPs and other elected officials, lobbying, participating in protests, and launching and supporting a small number of legal challenges.
The original “Together Declaration” attracted over 200,000 signatories from all walks of life in just a few months. All rejected “vaccine passports” or any similar form of medical certification in the UK as unethical and discriminatory, as well as a grave threat to privacy and basic rights.
We presented this 200,000-strong petition – along with an additional 160,000 signatures against vaccine mandates – to 10 Downing Street on 17 January 2022 in the presence of Steve Baker MP.
Shortly after this, the vaccine passport scheme was overturned in England, with the rest of the UK following suit, and the NHS vaccine mandate was also revoked.
You can get a sense of some of this work, and the way it has been covered in the media, here:
Big wins – but enormous battles still to fight
The removal of the compulsory vaccine passport scheme was a huge relief, just as it was another huge relief when the NHS vaccine mandate was stopped through the pressure we and others were able to exert, shortly afterwards.
However this relief has always been tempered by vigilance, because although the Covid threat itself seems to have subsided, the threats to our fundamental freedoms certainly have not.
Yes, “vaccine passports” may have gone in the UK – but there is little doubt that many influential people would still like to see everyone in the UK with a compulsory Digital ID linking to a central database (and, in due course, Central Bank Digital Currency), topics we addressed at our recent panel event:
Such a position would be extremely dangerous to the rights and privacy of everyone in the UK and we don’t accept it.
We can and should take tremendous courage from what we were able to do together, to stop vaccine passports and mandates in their tracks.
But the last two years have shown us we have a huge fight on simply to retain rights we’d previously taken for granted. Together supporters tell us that their some of their biggest concerns as we move forward are the following (each of which area we’ve addressed in the short videos from Together co-founder Alan Miller below):
Getting accountability for Covid policy decisions
Protecting individual rights, bodily autonomy and free speech
Ensuring unaccountable groups and Non-Governmental Organisations don’t have too much influence
Amidst these challenges, the last two years have also shown us that few-to-none of the people, or institutions, we’d imagined would fight our corner is prepared or able to do so.
So what is the answer?
The answer is us: the public.
Only WE can fix things – by continuing to work together.
We can curate the future we want, but:
It’s going to take the same kind of organised, concerted effort it took to overturn vaccine passports and mandates – if not more.
This is where Together Membership comes in
As of today (Wed 27 April 2022) we are very excited to be launching our Membership Association.
Having worked as volunteers on a shoestring budget, Together is now at the point where some funding is essential if we are to meet the huge challenges ahead, reach more people and increase our impact.
Together Membership is an easy, effective way for supporters of our core principles to make sure we can continue to campaign successfully, organise, expand what we do, and grow.
There are options to suit different budgets, and for a limited time, if you wish you can join as a “Founder Member” at a very special rate so you can be involved, support this vital work, and get a few membership benefits yourself too.
You can get all the details about the Together Membership “Founder Offer” here.