How to influence your parliamentary candidates: A guide for freelancers

We’ve all faced it. Canvassers knocking on your door at the worst possible time or targeting your letterbox with a barrage of pamphlets.

But with parliamentary candidates seemingly keen to listen to the issues impacting you and canvassers reporting back with what has cropped up on the doorstep, could this be turned into an opportunity for you to influence them?

“What about self-employment? What would your party do for us?”

It seems an obvious one to ask, but many candidates and canvassers may not have yet considered how their party would support the self-employed.

We’ve seen from the published manifestos that many details can be lacking when it comes to coherent plans to support the self-employed, so this could be the ideal question for getting self-employment on their radar.

“Would you as a candidate personally support calls to abolish IR35/provide parity to self-employed mothers/tackle the scourge of late payment on freelancers?”

At this point, it’s worth raising the key issues that are impacting you as a self-employed individual.

Instead of asking how their political party may seek to tackle these issues, asking if they would support these calls as an individual candidate is often an effective way of getting them invested in a particular issue.

Similarly, sharing your personal story about how these issues have impacted you and your ability to operate as a self-employed individual can really help to get your case across to your candidates.

“Do you think the self-employed are important to the economy and wider society?”

This is a good one to get your candidates thinking about the contribution of the self-employed. They may not have considered the way that the sector enables clients to grow, supports wider economic growth whilst also being at the forefront of technical and scientific breakthroughs.

One other option is to email your candidates directly. At IPSE, we’ve been sharing our Manifesto with prospective parliamentary candidates and we’ve found many candidates to be very receptive to the key asks for the sector.

You can find the contact details for your candidates here. It’s important to include your address and impress the need for them to champion the self-employed on your behalf as a potential constituent.

Again, any personal stories you can share about the impact of government action (or inaction) on your self-employed business is a great way of getting the message across.

Social media is also a good option for contacting your candidates, although bear in mind that these accounts may not be run by the candidates themselves. Consider tagging your candidates in posts that ask for their position on certain issues that are important to you and your business.