The urgent need for courageous leadership from every UK region

CTP’s CEO Liz Zeidler chaired a panel for RORE (Reclaiming Our Regional Economies) at the 2025 Labour Party conference on the role of regions in resisting the rise of the far right. Here she reflects on the feelings of the day.

The corridors of power are rarely in ‘the regions’, but this week Liverpool was crawling with the occupants of the Westminster bubble. MPs and their advisors strode through rooms with an air of people with a nation to run.

Luckily for the rest of us, it was also alive with activists, campaigners, writers, entrepreneurs and citizens.

On Monday 29 September, Centre for Thriving Places led a panel of just such brilliant people discussing the desperate need for bold leadership, from every UK region.

I chaired the session for Reclaiming our Regional Economies (RORE). RORE is a multi-year project we are proud to be a part of, alongside the Centre for Local Economic Strategies (CLES) , Co-operatives UK and New Economics Foundation (NEF).

The powerful idea behind RORE is to directly connect communities to political and institutional leaders to help them build economies that enable people and places to thrive. 

For all of us who are working with people and places across the UK’s regions, it is no surprise that populism is openly surging in places where people feel most sidelined by centralised decision-making. Where assets, wealth and power have been systematically stripped from local communities.

Can local communities and local leaders now come together in an unbreakable pact to reclaim our economies from the billionaires who have hoovered up our cities, our public services, our media, and yes in some cases our democracies?

These are the people creating divisions and stirring up hatred in our cities and towns. Want someone to blame for the loss you feel? Don’t look to the people in the so-called ‘migrant hotels’. Look at the owners of those hotels, and other big corporations who have been hollowing out your community for years.

How can we end the decline into the powerless masses blaming each other for their decline?

We heard a swathe of solutions during our session in Liverpool, on how politicians and civil society can work together to help people from all backgrounds to genuinely have more say and input into the places we all call home, and the services we all rely on throughout our lives. Investments, policies, community ownership structures and a democracy which puts people at the heart of everything, were all explored.

‘We cannot begin to turn this tide until we reconnect ourselves to each other’

As I walked back through the streets of Liverpool, past high end shops cheek by jowl with homeless street sleepers and old men spilling out of betting shops, I felt no surprise at the rise of populism and division. We cannot begin to turn this tide until we reconnect ourselves to each other. Until we voice our need as one, diverse and brilliant community. Until citizens reclaim the power to retain assets such as libraries, maternity units and care homes. We know that the taking, taking and taking of assets and services by corporations will continue until everything we hold dear has been sold.

This was a day of hope and of mapping out the practical pathways to change. Let’s hope the people in the corridors of Westminster AND those in every city hall around the country start choosing those paths before it’s too late. 

Liz Zeidler, Chief Executive

Reclaiming Our Regional Economies (RORE) is funded by the National Lottery Community Fund, Friends Provident Foundation, the Barrow Cadbury Trust and Power to Change.

CTP supports people and communities around the country to help ensure their knowledge and wisdom is fed into decision making, working with local governments to rewire their systems, policies and plans so that they can do more for local people. Would you like practical support to help shift your organisation, community or region to a wellbeing economy approach? Get in touch at hello@centreforthrivingplaces.org