Labour must look at how Podemos re-engaged people in left wing politics

It is important as we rebuild as a party, we look far and wide for inspiration and best practice.  Last month ago a left wing party that is just over a year old took control of Spain’s two biggest cities, Barcelona and Madrid and two feminist radicals became the regions’ biggest political players – shattering the existing political order.

Podemos, or ‘We can’ as it translates, is a grassroots movement that has managed to be both radical and pragmatic in its pursuit of power, the average age of its staff is 26 and its website has around 15,000 visits a day.

Despite the fact that we have serious policy differences with Podemos it is vital we look at how they achieved their breathtaking success and reengaged millions of people in left wing politics.

They harnessed the internet to take politics back to the people and energised young voters. They are more Zuckerberg than MarX but the Facebook generation ‘like’ them.

Podemos use the internet brilliantly and through it have attracted middle-class and young voters in impressive numbers.  Theirtransparency website, which details all expenditure including salaries, gets between 15-20,000 hits each day and is used to genuinely shape the future of the party.

The process of writing the party’s manifesto is a good example, once local parties have fed ideas into the process the exact content is subject to online votes.  This generates greater debate and ownership of ideas from both activists and the public.  Of course this would need to be done in a sensible and measured way to ensure that manifestos were not impractical and uncosted.

However delivering the UK’s first democratic manifesto would be ground breaking and as I argued a few weeks ago, would feel more like a meaningful relationship between the British people and our party.

Podemos also use open primaries to select candidates ensuring that communities not just party members feel they have a stake in the local candidate, their policies and successes.

Transparency, internet savvy and primaries have helped Podemos to seem removed from the Spanish political elite and thus more attractive in the current political climate, to voters.

For Labour this kind of approach could help us reenergise millions of voters, deliver the UK’s first democratic manifesto and break the damaging image of being part of the Westminster elite.

Most importantly it would bring the British public closer to our party and as Labour has always fought to do – give them a strong meaningful voice.