Idris Elba launches new campaign ‘Don’t Stop Your Future’

The actor/musician started a campaign calling for a ban on zombie knives and machetes. The campaign is entitled ‘Don’t Stop Your Future’ and Elba has already advocated at London’s Parliament Square earlier this week.

On January 8th, 2024, Idris Elba launched ‘Don’t Stop Your Future’, an anti-knife campaign aimed to put pressure on the local government to increase policies surrounding knife violence, more specifically the ban of ‘zombie knives’ and machetes. Zombie knives are aptly named so due to their serrated edge often depicted in zombie-slaying movies and can be easily obtained through internet purchases. Last year, Home Office pledged to take action against zombie knives and machetes following a concerning statistic that saw a 3% increase in knife crime from 2022 to 2023.

Taking to Parliament Square, Idris Elba powerfully demonstrated the number of lives lost due to knife violence by filling the square with a pile of clothes, each piece of clothing representing a life lost. In a report from The Ben Kinsella Trust, an anti-knife crime charity, they’ve found that there were 282 deaths in England and Wales in 2023 alone, the highest number of deaths since 1946.

Posted to the ‘Don’t Stop Your Future’ website, Elba writes, “This morning, when our political leaders come to work, they’ll pass by a series of neatly folded outfits in Parliament Square representing those lost in 2023. While the victims come from all walks of life, they share one terrible thing in common. They all got dressed that day not knowing it would be their last.”

Elba was joined by Yemi Hughes, a mother who lost her 19-year-old son due to knife violence and carefully laid his old clothes on the pile in Parliament.

In addition to the new campaign, Elba released a powerful new song entitled ‘Knives Down’ featuring DB Maz that can be listened to here.

Additionally, the music video can be found at this link here.

To read more about ‘Don’t Stop Your Future’ click here.