Transcript: Law, Poverty, and Political Power: Justice for Single Parent Families, with Satwat Rehman

Host: Jen Ang

Quote: Satwat Rehman

The issue isn’t with how lawyers are trying to test the law or to support people to realise their rights through the law. It’s the flaws that are built in by the lawmakers.

Jen Ang

Hi everyone, and welcome back to the Lawmanity podcast, where we explore the complex relationship between law and activism and discuss the different ways that law can oppress people but can also lead to real social change.

I’m Jen Ang, a human rights lawyer and activist based in Scotland, and your host on the Lawmanity podcast.

Today, we’re speaking to feminist activist, anti-racism and anti-poverty campaigner and absolute legend, Satwat Rehman. Satwat’s most recent role is as Chief Executive of One Parent Families Scotland, the leading charity working with single parent families in Scotland – they provide expert advice, practical support, and campaigning with parents, to change the systems policies and attitudes that disadvantage single parent families.

Satwat’s activism has deep roots, with more than 30 years experience in the voluntary and public sector in Scotland and England, working in the fields of equalities, education, employability, economic development and regeneration and early years and child care. She’s a recent or serving member of the commission for childcare reform, the just transition commission, the social renewal advisory board , and alongside me, of the First Minister’s National Advisory Council for Women and Girls – and her breadth of experience definitely shone through in our interview.

Welcome to the show, Satwat.

Satwat Rehman

Thank you very much for the opportunity to be able to chat with you.

Jen Ang

So just to start off for this podcast, I’ve been experimenting with a surprise opener question, just to get us settled and to help people learn a little more about the people behind the legends who we’re interviewing.

So if you don’t mind, could you please tell me about a smell that you like that’s meaningful to you, maybe just something you enjoy, or something that’s connected to a place and a time that you like to bring to mind.

Satwat Rehman

Loads of smells come to mind. A smell that I’ve that really sticks in my mind is the smell I remember of the aeroplane door opening as we landed in Lahore in Pakistan. And every time since then, when we’ve been to Pakistan, and actually when I’ve travelled elsewhere as well, each place has its own smell, and every time I catch a whiff of that smell, it evokes all these memories.

So in terms of for Pakistan, it evokes memories of those journeys back home, first time, meeting lots of relatives so I didn’t even know existed, and touring around and getting a sense of who my. Mum and Dad were, and what made them who they are. So to me, there is something about every time you land in a different country, you get a sense of the place from the smell. And it stuck with me.

Jen Ang

I love that, you know, I was never having really thought about it in that way. I recently went back to Maryland, the United States where I grew up, and I was, I was, like, surprised, but actually, you know, in quite a kind of core and visceral day, surprised by this, this memory of the smell, not realising that the place had a smell, yeah, but it was the smell of home. It was so recognisable, and it was so absent everywhere else, absolutely. So I love that. Thank you for sharing that, but also for, I guess making me think a little different what I experienced earlier this year.

Okay, so having, we’re gonna get down to the questions which are, which are big, weighty questions.

Do you feel that the law works equally for you or for your community?

Satwat Rehman

That is a really big question, and I’m going to answer it by starting off by saying that there is no one answer to it.

It depends on so many factors, and I’ll speak about that from the perspective of the single parent families that we work with, but also I’ll speak about that as somebody who’s grown up in a racially minoritized community here in in the UK, and for me, it’s also about a number of levels, because sometimes the issue isn’t with how lawyers are trying to test the law or to support people to realise their rights through the law. It’s the flaws that are built in by the lawmakers. And some of those aren’t flaws which are unintentional. Some of that might be exactly what they want the policy to do you know.

And for single parents, you see that a lot in the design of benefit support, for example, where we might take you know and lawyers have, through organisations like Child Poverty Action Group, taken cases to challenge things like the two child limit, for example, or the benefit cap and other things which disproportionately impact on single parent families. But those cases haven’t been successful because of the way the law was made and its intent.

Jen Ang

Here, Satwat is referring to strategic litigation taken by the Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) in against a Conservative Government reform to welfare benefits as part of a programme of austerity in 2017. The two-child limit restricted support in universal credit to two children in a family. It left families without means-tested support for their third and subsequent children worth £3,514 a year and according to CPAG it was the biggest driver of rising child poverty.

CPAG led strategic litigation more than once to challenge the two-child limit. In 2021, CPAG led an unsuccessful human rights and public law challenge to the UK Supreme Court. Justices concluded there were no legal standards by which a court could decide how the government should strike the balance between a family’s financial needs and the wider public’s tax contributions, returning the issue entirely to Parliament.

And in 2025, CPAG led a second case, challenging the so-called “rape clause” which exempted children born non-consensually if they were born third or later, but not if they were born first or second, to the High Court.

They were again unsuccessful, with the court declaring the matter to have been previously settled by the Supreme Court: ”It is a policy question dealing in social, economic, moral and ethical subject matter. It is also a question with potential resonances in family law more generally. It is a political law- reform question.”

Following election of a Labour Government in July 2024, In April 2026, the UK government scrapped the two-child limit, essentially meeting the court’s reply with a political solution. As a result CPAG estimates that the measure immediately lifted 350,000 children out of poverty – and of course made marginally more dignified and humane the system for accessing welfare support for families in the UK.

However, there are more campaigns to be fought, and won. As Satwat pointed out another Conservative austerity measure, the benefits cap, still remains in place. This is a limit on the total amount most working age people can receive in the UK, also also a key driver of child poverty.

Let’s return to Satwat who carries on with a big question for single parent families:

Satwat Rehman

I am going to talk about poverty, because that is one of the big, as we know, the biggest issues for single parent families. Families. You know, there is so much evidence to show that the two child limit keeps and pushes families into poverty. You know, so on the one hand, you’ve got a child poverty strategy being developed at UK level. On the other hand, you’ve got them sticking with and pushing through further reforms that’s going to increase poverty levels amongst families. So there I would ask, is there a hierarchy in terms of which laws are considered important?

So I think there is something there about what role lawyers, who are activists and who believe in social justice, can play in the development of the laws, which is critical, I think, from this point of view.

Because I think what quite often happens is after the bills are passed and they become acts, and they’re being enacted. It can be too late. And so there is something about how you can be more more active as a profession, in supporting campaigns and activism, which is completely and utterly grounded in the experiences of the individuals who are meant to be the benefactors of these laws, or actually being completely and utterly, and I’m not using this word lightly, but destroyed by the changes that are going to be taking place, as we can see at the moment.

When we looked at disabled people’s organisations and their response to the latest set of welfare reforms that the UK government is considering, which is all about reducing the benefit bill by forcing people with lifetime conditions to be considering how they going to work, even though work may never be sustainable or affordable for them in terms of lifting them out of poverty. So I think there’s a big role there in how we can collaborate and work better together, as as lawyers and as activists and being able to challenge processes like, for example, do you know, are equality impact assessments even considered at what point are they considered and the processes of designing something, how are they? What weight do they carry?

Then what’s the role for the equalities legislation in that sort of space? Which are they going to consider as being of greater value. And how do we push, collectively as activists and as those working in the legal professions to be able to challenge that? So there’s that, which I think about in terms of even before we get on to what you can do to support with the laws as they are. What more can we be doing effectively in the law making process, which might make it easier for people and then where there are protections in place, like, for example, around child maintenance law, navigating those systems can be incredibly confusing, costly, and they’re often stacked against those without financial resource or legal knowledge.

And actually, if we look at family law, it’s one of the areas that it’s becoming nigh on impossible to find practising lawyers in Scotland who will take on those cases. So where do you go then? Do you know, if you know that your ex-partner is lying about what they’re saying their income is and withholding the money from their children, you know, where is the recourse in law? You know? And actually, all of this is incredibly expensive and costly for families as well, and again, so it will be those who can afford will be able to use the law and those who can’t afford will find it more difficult to use it, particularly as we’ve seen the erosion of legal aid and what legal aid can be done For so it’s not an easy question to answer, because actually it’s not a siloed question.

It cuts across so many things in terms of what the reality is for the families that we work with, and actually what many of them will say to us, we feel completely invisible in policy making and we’re not prioritised in legal reforms. So how can we do something about that?

And one of the things there has been that has been a movement to see whether single parenthood should be a protected characteristic inequalities legislation. And again, there’s pros and cons to that. You can see the protections it could bring, but actually, it’s not necessarily a fixed identity. It’s not a lifelong identity that you have. So are there other laws we should be using, or other things, like, for example, should single parents be named as a group that you have to take into consideration through the Public Sector Equality Duty, you know, should they be named to the Fairer Scotland Duty, which is the equivalent of the socio-economic duty, and so, but, you know, it’s easy to latch on to that, to say, if we do that, Equalities legislation, we’ll be protected. But actually that assumes the other groups already in Equalities legislation, are protected, and we don’t see much protection coming the way of some of those groups at the moment.

Jen Ang

Absolutely, and you’ve taken a very big question that I’ve asked you and just posed a series of questions. Sorry, but I think that they’re really interesting. So for you, is the law – Do you think is it still potentially a tool for social change or for positive, progressive change, or is it primarily a barrier?

Satwat Rehman

I would say it’s a little bit of both. Yep. On the one hand, I really do believe that laws empower us and can can empower us and can offer us those protections against unfair treatment and securing rights to housing benefits support services. Do you know, and that absolutely, I think without them, we’d be in a much, much worse position than we are now.

But it goes back to the point about the processes of the law, and the process of law and how difficult it can be to access and it’s intimidating for families. Do you know it’s intimidating for me, if I have to speak to a lawyer about something that’s really matters to me and is personal to me, and it’s not necessarily designed with the end user in mind, being the individual you know.

And you know, a lot of terms in law are archaic, difficult to understand, and I think we need to be demystifying it. And I think there are some real activists out there, and lawyer activists who are very good at doing that, who are demystifying the law. So you can actually begin to see actually this is what my right is, and here are ways in which I can realise those rights.

But we always are pushed back to the fact that what we can do is constrained by the system and the finances within the system.

I mean, you know, if we want to look at a really fundamental right, every child has a right to an education right, every local authority has a duty to fulfil that right to that education, but what we do is do it in a way which will suit what we think is the majority. You know, so it may work for 70% of children and young people, but there are 30% whose rights are often compromised, and when you speak about why that is, you’re told it’s because of resource constraints. You know, so if you’ve got a child with additional needs, if you’ve got a child who might require more one to one support to settle in class.

Those rights aren’t realised in terms of their access to education being equal, because the resources aren’t there, you know, and they’re incredibly difficult things to challenge as an individual, as a parent, and that’s where I think that there is a real role for the law as a tool in terms of collective action and being able to look at an issue and say, okay, then do you know that parent there spoken about it?

But actually, the evidence is showing us that this is a pattern, and then it’s the pattern that you need to be challenging in law, the problem then becomes, you could win that. But how do you implement Do you know your victory? Where are those resources going to come from? You know, are those who’ve got the duty to provide and to realise that right?

Going to be able to do so and so, you know, I mean, let me just give you an example of something that’s coming up more and more, which impacts on single parent families. Will impact on lots of families. But obviously we’re hearing about it from single parent families, where, due to the fact. Fact that resources are so limited in so many schools, if they’ve got children who’ve got additional needs, or who may be, you know, playing out the impact of early life trauma, or any of those things parents will tell us about the fact that sometimes they haven’t even got as far as walking back home and through the door before the school will phone to say we don’t have the staff and we don’t have the resource. It’s not safe. Can you come and pick your child up? What parent is going to say? No, you know, and we’ve been hearing about this beginning to happen more and more to the families that we’re working with.

And so there’s a fundamental there about that child’s not receiving an education, right? But then if you look at the welfare system and the fact that we’ve got a welfare system which has conditionality built into it, and you’re sanctioned if you can’t then meet those conditions, these are parents who are also being expected to be looking full time for work, enter work and increase their hours in work. And all of those areas have conditionality, which, if they don’t meet, they would be sanctioned.

Jen Ang

That is, that is, that is crushing. And you kind of paint a picture of the impossibility of the situation that these different systems and when they interact, and when neither of them actually have a, I will add this, a human rights based or equalities lens – just, just create an impossible set of decisions.

Satwat Rehman

And after placing them all on the individual to make, do you know, so in a way, the institutions there, in terms of education, have absolved themselves of their duty and responsibility and passed it back to the parent for that child.

Jen Ang

And I suppose, just to draw through another thread that you mentioned earlier, which is how eligibility for legal aid and access to lawyers can really affect your ability to resolve the situation.

I’ll know from my own frontline practice that the parents that you’re speaking about are exactly the people who don’t have the time to look for a lawyer to combat the legal aid system, to attend appointments and so on. And so even the access to, you know, it is no good saying there is a legal remedy, which might be, my instincts always like, that must be illegal. Actually, that’s that’s not useful for someone who doesn’t have time or capacity to even start to engage with that, to even find a lawyer who might do the work.

Satwat Rehman

Absolutely, absolutely what they want to do is problem solve their day to day reality they won’t necessarily be thinking about, well actually, if I start this now, in two years’ time, we might get somewhere that sort of thing. These things move slowly.

Jen Ang

No, absolutely, yeah. And as you said, there’s a systemic problem that an organisation like yours is able to identify, but in individual cases, some things might resolve. Some people might just lose touch, because, again, they’re dealing with day to day crises. But the systemic issue goes sort of unchallenged or unnoticed for a long time, not by you, not by the people it affects, but by governments or other bodies that might be found accountable.

Satwat Rehman

That’s right. That’s right. I mean, I remember speaking to a group of parents, because there was CPAG were looking for parents who might consider, you know, taking part in things that they were wanting to do as part of judicial reviews. But you have to commit to be around for a long time for that, you know. And the family said they were just not in a position to say, actually, yeah, I can be on this journey with you for two years.

Jen Ang

Yeah, no, absolutely. This leads us nicely on to the next question, which is a little bit and you’ve, you’ve actually, you’ve been very you’ve been generous in your in your in your suggestions of what lawyers legal system can do.

So the next question is, kind of, what is for you the right position for lawyers and the legal system in relation to supporting movements. And I will just add this extra provocation, I suppose, which is that when we speak about lawyers in the legal system, we’re not just talking about, you know, third sectors public interest lawyers. But I always hold in mind that people who act for government or people who defend unequal policies are also lawyers, the legal system encompasses all of us, as well as the judiciary.

So just exploring a bit your thoughts, you had many suggestions about places where social justice lawyers could support people to understand how to influence the creation of law that there’s a real gap around Legal Aid being enough lawyers, which I agree with, to do some of the work that’s clearly done. Is there anything else that on your wish list of things that lawyers and the legal system should be concerned.

Satwat Rehman

Okay, let me have a think. I think I’ve spoken about advocating for policy changes and being part of that process. We’ve discussed some of the issues with challenging unjust laws. You know that you often need cases to be able to do so. And then it’s about how, you know, I don’t know.

This could be a question you might be able to answer. Jen, for me, what level of wrap around support is provided to people who will take part in saying, actually, I’m prepared to be part of the group challenging this unjust law. Do you know? Yeah, so that’s I can answer that.

Jen Ang

Yes. So this is, this is rightly the kind of conversations that lawyers social justice lawyers, strategic work, do have with each other, yeah, and have with each other all the time, I suppose, from my perspective, having done this for a number of years, one thing that I will carefully consider when looking at a strategic case that would have an individual at the centre, not one that’s taken by an organisation, whether or not you ask for anonymity, is going to fundamentally impact someone’s life for a long time, I would always want to ensure that there is support in place, like one to one, advocacy or support in place for that person, and that often has to come from a partner agency effectively allocating resource in order to do this. And so actually, that’s why those kinds of cases often are not when individuals come to us initially, but a rise in partnership with someone else. The reason why I would want that is because, as much as myself, any lawyers working with me and anyone else in the wider team are also focused on providing more than just legal advice, yeah, actually access to support and and other things that you might need. That’s not That’s not our specialism. And also, actually, I think people deserve to have an independent advocate. Absolutely. I agree it would never be right for all of that tohappen from the organisation, and that’s because you, as you said, the law is intimidating, absolutely intimidating. But the relationship between a lawyer and a client can alsobe absolutely there’s a power dynamic there as well.

Jen Ang

Yes, yeah. So I think, I think that for me, I would, I would think about that and want to have that in place before even agreeing that this is the right. Not everyone has that luxury, and also not everyone works that way. That’s right. And also sometimes, and this is out of respect for for the individuals that come to us. Sometimes. We have had individuals come to us with cases who have gotten through to the point where they are by being independent, and they’re instructing us to just take this forward with them as they want to. And I will respect that. I will respect that in the right place for the right person, but also probably the back of my mind thinking, and it does always come to this point, but even at some point, you might want someone else with you.

Satwat Rehman

And you know, yes, absolutely. I think that’s a really important point. And it’s almost like that thing, you know, in terms of, how can they be allies? I think those partnerships with other advocacy organisations, even service delivery organisations, etc, are critical, because I agree with you entirely that that I think there should be independent advocacy in each of those cases, and not so much for my day job, but from work that I’ve been involved in in the past.

Many, many years ago, in the mists of time, I was involved in an organisation in London called Newham Monitoring Project, and I was, you know that, and that was a group of activists working around supporting families who’d been subjected to racial harassment, racist violence, and also state violence, right and state harassment. And none of the staff there were lawyers. They were all community activists and political activists, but what we had as an organisation were incredibly strong partnerships with human rights, you know, civil rights lawyers who would do, you know, do the legal bit, but we would do, getting the family to that point, supporting the family throughout, making sure the family understood the implications of what they were taking on, etc, and being there afterwards as well for the family, because even if you win your case, there’s an absolute shock that sets in at that point about, what does this now mean for me and and my family? Am I going to be exposed in some way? You know, having. Taken on the Met Police or whatever. Where does that leave me?

And so you always need to have that base of support in the communities the individuals are from, you know, because lawyers will come and then they will go, unless they’re sat in those communities. But the support has to remain within that community, because that’s where that individual is going back to. That could be a, you know, geographic community, a community of interest, or whatever. And that’s why I think it’s critical. I think that’s when Newham Monitoring Project was so successful, so successful.

We were closed down by the state, you know, which is, which is the other danger of these things? Yep, they like you, as long as you’re just challenging enough, expose them too much, and they’ll come for you, basically.

And I think there again, is where, if you can have cross sector partnerships, it gives you a bit of security and strength for the organisations involved as well. But you know, in terms of thinking about for single parents, I just think it’s that the system itself is overly technical, unaffordable and slow to act, and that’s what makes it feel like a foe. You know, it feels like something that’s getting in in the way of you being able to achieve it because of how it’s structured and set up, and so for many single parents, it really access to justice depends on whether they can find legal professionals who genuinely understand the challenges that they face and what would be The benefit and the advantage of seeing something through the court. We know judicial review, however you whichever route you take.

But having said that, I think an area where we’ve seen a lot of benefit from the law and from the processes of the law and the challenges to the law has been around employment rights, yeah, and just thinking back to something quite quite topical at the local authority elections, which took place in England recently, where we saw A surge in support for reform and reform taking over councils. And one of the first things that somebody said who had been elected to one of the Councils was, you know, named a whole series of workers who work in roles around equity and rights, and said, basically, we’re coming for you. And I just saw it on a post on social media, and a trade union person had written underneath, and we’ll be waiting, you know, because employment law in this country is stronger than what there is in the state, so you won’t be able to go in and do what you’ve done there. So basically, bring it on and that. And I thought that was really powerful, because that’s also sending a message to any worker who’s reading that that actually they’ve got our back.

Jen Ang

Absolutely. And it is. It’s a really nice, positive example in, you know, quite uncertain times for people are places where the law might still be for them. Absolutely, I think, also important for people to be able to feel that,

Satwat Rehman

Oh, absolutely, absolutely. And, you know, I felt really happy having read that, thinking, whew, yeah, yeah, you can’t just wholesale import the American way of doing things reform, you know. And and it just really made me think that that we mustn’t forget the important role that things like the trade union movement can play in all this as well, absolutely.

Jen Ang

And maybe in just sort of extrapolating a bit, you said, as well, and maybe in looking after those parts of existing British law, yes, accountability and protections could still be sought, so absolutely they are being questioned or sidelined, maybe just sticking by some of those

absolutely testing them and making sure that they are used.

Jen Ang

So once again it took me a while to get this podcast episode to you, and in that time, our political environment has shifted again in some significant ways. I asked Satwat if she had anything to add in light of the recent Scottish elections and the challenges facing the new Parliament as MSPs settle into office?

She said: “The recent Scottish Parliament results are sobering, but they’re also a call to action. Yes, there has been an increase in right wing representation, but also an increase in progressive representation, which gives hope. We know from experience that when the political centre shifts right, it’s the families we work with who pay the price first.

The Right doesn’t have answers for single parent families; they have scapegoats. Scotland has stronger legal protections than most – the Child Poverty Act, the Fairer Scotland Duty – and the challenge for the new Parliament is whether MSPs will use those tools with real teeth, or let them gather dust. The law isn’t a silver bullet, but it’s one of the few arenas where we can still hold power to account – and we need to be using it much more strategically and collectively than we have been.”

So this moves us towards a final question, and it’s a big one.

I asked Satwat: what does justice mean for you, and for your community?

Satwat Rehman

Okay, I want to start small, then build big. I think dignity, fairness and equity. Do you know if people can actually experience those things in the single parent community, not just in the law, but also.

Fact that what’s in law can drive how society behaves, you’d begin to see the beginnings of of justice right. Because if you have that, if you have equity and justice as the cornerstones, then and you build up from there, you should be actively designing poverty out of your systems, right?

You should be actively designing sort of things I’ve spoken about in education for families, it would be like the law would recognise that there is more than one type of family and they’re all equally valid. They’re all equally important, but actually they require different things, and that should be the cornerstone for me over and above, that it would be great if we had accessible, responsive legal systems that protect our rights without making us jump through hoops. That would be great.

Yes, a voice in actually shaping policies and understanding what the laws are behind those policies and how you can influence them as they’re being designed and not feel excluded from them because of the language and the process would be really important. I mean, I’m thinking about, you know, child support and child maintenance would be a classic example of that for single parent families, and actually, for all families.

We’ve been doing a piece of work on transforming child maintenance, and it’s no surprise to us. It might be a surprise to policy makers, but you’ve got a system that doesn’t work for anybody. It doesn’t work for the paying parent, it doesn’t work for the receiving parent, and it certainly doesn’t work for the children. So who is that system serving, apart from itself? And at the crux of why it is the way it is, is that they need to keep costs down.

But actually there’s a there’s a sort of cost further down the line to families and then to the services that have to support the families. And so actually the law should be an integral part of the overall systems change that needs to take place in order for these things to happen.

But actually, if I were thinking back on some of the things that parents have said they see justice as being seen, heard and supported.

Jen Ang

That’s quite that’s that’s quite affecting, justice is being seen, heard and supported? Yeah, yeah. I think that. I mean, it’s amazing to me how simple that sounds.

Satwat Rehman

And how hard it is!

Jen Ang

And how right that is, yeah, if you said that to anyone in any circumstance, yes, that’s what I want for myself, but actually, that’s what I want for my child, that’s what I want for my parent.

Satwat Rehman

Absolutely, yeah.

Jen Ang

And then though the kind of better communication and broader thinking that we need for that to be true, with what you’ve just outlined – which is all the different interconnection systems with their own individual concerns is, is pretty revolutionary, actually, it’s transformative vision. But I love that actually, yeah, yeah. Thank you for that.

Satwat Rehman

Oh, thank you.

Jen Ang

Okay, so I’m gonna go to our final question, which is just, it’s almost, it’s, it’s almost one for me, because I always get the best advice here, but it’s this.

So there will be people listening to this series of podcasts who are interested in becoming activists or just having passing interest in how, on how activists step into and do what they do. They’ll be looking at what you’ve accomplished today, all the many things, and we only had time to speak about one element of the many different pieces of work that you do. And they’ll be thinking about, you know, how they could one day maybe be you?

So the question is, what’s your advice to a younger version of you, or someone who might wonder, how to get to where you are today?

Satwat Rehman

Don’t doubt yourself all the time. Yeah, that would be my first thing. And you know, shake off that imposter syndrome. You’ve got a right to be there, and as much of a right as anybody else you know, we’ve all taken different paths to get to where we are. And I didn’t set off on my sort of work journey thinking, this is where I want to end up, but I’ve always and I think, yeah, I suppose this, for me, would be the most important advice.

Just be true to yourself in what you’re doing. Yeah, don’t be shaken from that and be happy in what you do. Yeah, because. We don’t struggle for the sake of struggle. We struggle for the sake of everybody having a better life, you know. And so that can’t just be about work and activism. We have to remember what it is we’re fighting for.

Jen Ang

Those are beautiful and wise words. And I mean, I have to say, first of all, knowing you as you are now, I can’t imagine you as someone who ever doubted yourself, because

Satwat Rehman

Can I just say one thing, there’s not a meeting I don’t go into without suffering from imposter syndrome, still.

Jen Ang

Really, that’s …Well, thank you for sharing. That is a humble but also, yeah, very surprising thing, because I think many people admire you for saying what you think – at least that doesn’t get in the way of you doing that. And maybe, actually, maybe that’s a lesson: you can feel your feelings, but actually, when you get in there, being able to actually share what needs to be said is super important.

And the other thing that I think is going to be resonant for lots of people, but we need to be reminded, is what you said about life is not just about, you know, work and activism is also important to know it’s not just struggle absolutely for something. I think many people I know who are really interested in changing the world sometimes find it hard to stop. You know, slow down, and do that.

Satwat Rehman

I was, was it weekend before last I went down to London to go to see Massive Attack in concert. And at the start of that, the wonderful actor, Khalid Abdalla, who’s been speaking out on Palestine since the word go, gave a five minute speech, which was absolutely amazing.

And one of the things he said towards the end was, I know it’s hard for you to think about enjoying yourselves and relaxing and dancing, because so many of you have been so active on Palestine and continue to be so active on Palestine, but it’s important that you do so. It’s important that you remember why we struggle and why we campaign.

Jen Ang

And that’s a wrap. Thank you, our lovely listeners, for joining us for another episode of the Lawmanity Podcast!

If you wanted to learn more about the some of the campaigns that Satwat has mentioned, we’ll put those in the show notes.

And for those of you legal beagles out there, we’ll also add some links to the CPAG challenges and the political change they inspired.

Feeling inspired to take action? Get involved locally by supporting anti-poverty initiatives and programmes that offer support to families struggling with the cost of living and the care crisis, like food banks, befriending and buddying programmes and after-school wraparound activities for kids. Get involved nationally by joining campaigns that will hold Scottish politicians to account, in ensuring they live up to the promise of our groundbreaking legislation like the Child Poverty Act, the Fairer Scotland Duty, and so on.

Our next episode is we will be joined by my colleague and friend, human rights lawyer and legend, Fiona McPhail. Fiona McPhail is a lecturer in social justice law at the University of Glasgow, School of Law, and former principal solicitor of Shelter Housing Legal Service at Shelter Scotland. We’ll be speaking to her about her work in 2019 as a leading member of the legal team that challenged the asylum-seeker law change evictions driven by private contractor to the Home Office, SERCO in the Scottish Court of Session.

If you loved today’s episode, please do hit the like and subscribe buttons, and share our episodes with friends and colleagues who might also enjoy learning a little bit about how law really works in practice and how it can be used to make the world a better, brighter place.

The Lawmanity podcast is co-produced by me, your host Jen Ang, and by the brilliant and talented Natalia Uribe. Shout out to Halina Rifai for mentoring us through our first year of this incredible project, and thanks also Amanda Amaeshi on graphics and socials. The music you’ve been listening to is “Always on the Move” by Musicians in Exile, a Glasgow-based music project led by people seeking refuge in Scotland.

Thanks so much for tuning in today, we hope you enjoyed listening, and see you next time!

Additional resources for this episode are linked below: