Who’s afraid of community organising?

By Jon Wilson / @jonewilson

I joined Labour because I was angry that friends and relatives were denied a decent life and livelihood while the privileged had no sense of responsibility for the rest of society. It was 1988. I was fifteen. I lived in Tory Chichester. Winning elections wasn’t likely soon. But the small band of friends who set up the Chichester Labour Party Young Socialists wanted power. Yes, we went to Brighton to help in marginal by-elections. But more importantly we tried to make a difference where we lived.

We were passionate. But we were crap. Conversations on council estates didn’t go well. There was a disastrous session outside McDonalds. We soon figured out that most people were coming to meetings because they fancied the treasurer.

What we lacked was the humility to properly listen to people around us, and the barest idea about organising to do something about what they told us. We missed what Movement for Change is trying to do now: provide a few ideas, a bit of direct organising help, most importantly to create network of activists all trying to organise to make a different in their patch who can help each other out.

What we understood, though, was that power isn’t only possessed by politicians or the central state. It’s all around us, in the everyday relationships of capitalist society, in local public institutions, in families. We thought politics was about confronting the source of injustice wherever it lay. We campaigned locally because we thought ordinary Labour activists could be a power to change the society we lived in. A Labour government would make a big difference, but in 1988 it seemed a long way off. We just couldn’t wait.

People don’t join the Labour Party just to win elections. They join because they want to put Labour values of equality and solidarity into practice however they can. That’s why so many write ‘to change my community’ as the reason for joining Labour on their membership forms.

A Labour government is the best way to do that. But it isn’t the only way.

We need to get real about governmental power. Let’s be clear what happens when we win an election. Imagine a majority of Labour MPs. We form a government. That government consists of a band of MPs who become ministers, who give instructions to civil servants. Even Whitehall doesn’t have the direct ability to tell many parts of the public sector what to do on its own. But it does have two powerful tools to get what it wants done – it can spend money and can impose rules, either as laws or guidelines

There’s a lot that can be done with cash and regulation – the minimum wage, the national curriculum. As Marc Stears and Des King argue, the central state is good when it’s dealing with things that are standardised.

But there’s a lot that is simply beyond the power of Whitehall to command. Whitehall can’t alter the relationships of my workplace to make sure my boss doesn’t bully me; or make sure I spend my money on food that keeps me healthy.

Even where it can act, the command of Whitehall works best if local people are organised. Good schools have parents and neighbours active in the life of the school. The refurbishment of a council estate happens best when residents get together to tell the contractor their needs.

The belief that Westminster (in fact Whitehall) is all that matters is a delusion only the Westminster elite holds. It’s a delusion that will kill us off, if we don’t do something about it.

Firstly, the idea that Labour should only seek national electoral power prevents us from having anything to say about problems can’t be fixed by the blunt instruments of state power. Secondly, it cuts us off from the demand of Labour activists to do something about what makes them angry now – and not have to wait for the man or woman in Whitehall.

The attempt by rewrite clause I of the Labour Party might save us. Let’s see what the final text approved by the NEC is. Let’s not think changing a few words in the constitution will make a difference on its own.

But the symbolism is important. Public recognition that Labour’s purpose is served by local collective action as well as central power is vital to reconnect the party to a public disillusioned with Westminster, and out of love with the state.

It can also energise activists beyond Westminster to develop creative ways to make a difference not just at an election time, but all year round.

Movement for Change has begun to work with constituencies across the country, and is starting to think about how to do broad-based community organising in a political party – a difficult but vital task.

But there are other ways we can do collective action. What about working better with local Trade Union branches, running joint campaigns in local workplaces for example? What about, as Alex Hilton suggests, a shareholder fund for activists to elect delegates onto the boards of private firms? We could start by bring the Nationwide Building Society back into the Labour family. Labour movement setting up social enterprises once again? A Labour land bank, for example?

Labour’s aim should be to change things by ‘community action and election’. That means a myriad of different forms of organisation. There is no off-the-shelf model for reinventing Labour as a mass political movement, making a difference in every part of Britain all year round not just in Westminster.

If we do it, it’s going to be tough, messy. Some people are going to get very anxious; and a small number are going to get very angry.

But let’s be clear. To say our objective should only be ‘social justice through election’ (as Anthony Painter did here on Monday) is to deny the party the creative energy of local activism. It is also to suggest that the only way Labour people can get anything done is to go through the bureaucracy of Whitehall.

Some might say, if I believe that politics is about more than elections – if I want power to be wielded in mass, participatory democratic society not only through bureaucratic state – why don’t I join a social movement rather than a machine for winning elections.

I did.

It’s called the Labour Party.