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T_i_B

(14,734 posts)
Sat Jul 30, 2016, 04:24 AM Jul 2016

Mass membership alone doesn’t make a social movement

Superb article (yet again!) from Owen Jones about the need to get people active in political parties. Getting people to move from being supporters to full activists is an issue that many voluntary organisations have to deal with.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jul/27/mass-membership-labour-social-movement-community

The idea of leftwing middle-class professionals descending en masse on working-class communities to campaign at election time is fraught with issues, mostly arising from contrasting experiences and different priorities and outlooks. But this is merely a hypothetical problem because it simply isn’t happening. Political rallies may brim with enthusiasm, as do many local party meetings when it comes to debates about the party leadership. But some constituency Labour parties have grown three-fold yet experienced little or no increase in door-knocking; some even report a decline. When it comes to campaigning, Labour has a very large paper membership. There is a clear danger of it being reduced to voting fodder and a source of funds.

If Labour is to have a future, that has to change. A mass membership offers immense potential that, as of yet, is untapped. Labour needs to adopt a strategy – led by trade unions – to recruit and give leadership positions to underrepresented working-class people, particularly in the north, whether they work in supermarkets or call centres. There needs to be a concerted effort by long-standing experienced members to get new members to knock on doors.

Partly this is about giving members confidence: some feel uneasy knocking on strangers’ doors for the first time. A scheme for community organising, backed up with sophisticated training, needs to be instituted. Setting up credit unions; creating food banks that organise recipients; social events for young people; schemes to organise private tenants and the burgeoning self-employed; volunteers to provide company for lonely pensioners – these are just some of the things a social movement could do. And what of mechanisms to feed in policies from the grassroots? The risk is of a movement united by total loyalty to one leader, rather than bubbling with ideas for policies to change society.

Progress won’t be achieved by intolerance for differing opinion on the left, let alone the wider public. An optimistic, understanding, empathetic, inclusive, outward-looking movement needs to be built. All of this must be part of a wider strategy for gaining power, of course. The Tories won the last election with few footsoldiers on the ground. Without a clear plan for power, the history books will refer to the left only as an explanation for how the Tories were able to rule for so long. Enough of the false dichotomies: Labour doesn’t have to choose between being a social movement and a party of government. It can be both.

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Mass membership alone doesn’t make a social movement (Original Post) T_i_B Jul 2016 OP
In itself, it doesn't, obviously, and nobody argues that it does. Ken Burch Aug 2016 #1
New members need to be welcomed T_i_B Aug 2016 #2
Or perhaps the Lambada. Ken Burch Aug 2016 #3
 

Ken Burch

(50,254 posts)
1. In itself, it doesn't, obviously, and nobody argues that it does.
Thu Aug 11, 2016, 05:05 PM
Aug 2016

But it is a lot easier to build a long-term mass movement if you've attracted a mass membership to build it from.

Labour can't win if it makes the hundreds of thousands of people who've joined the party to support Corbyn away.

There is no huge block of OTHER people just waiting for the Corbynites to be expelled before they switch over.

Why would anyone ever decide to throw their support to any party that is losing members, that people were leaving or being expelled from in droves?

Would anyone who wants Corbyn's supporters driven away have any significant progressive views? Hard to believe that you could if you had that much hatred of the idea of enthusiastic idealism spreading across the country.

T_i_B

(14,734 posts)
2. New members need to be welcomed
Fri Aug 12, 2016, 01:48 AM
Aug 2016

The article notes that they need to be encouraged to play an active part of their local branch. If new members stay as members on paper without participating in campaigning then the only real benefit is more subscription fees.

The challenge for Labour is to get new members playing a positive, active part of their local branch. It's a challenge faced by many voluntary organisations.

The best way I can think of to encourage this is more social events. Especially when you consider the need to get various factions to work together and know each other better. If people are socialising with each other they are more likely to understand each other. A couple of Momentum branches in London were widely mocked for organising a "dance for Corbyn" but personally I thought it was a great idea. Just needs to be a "dance for Labour" so you can have Blairites doing the foxtrot with Corbynites!

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