New ‘Labour Society of Campaigners’ relaunches ‘Labour Organiser’

A group of ten Labour activists from across the movement have jointly launched the ‘Labour Society of Campaigners’ today with the aim of turning the party into a “world-class campaigning organisation”.

The initiative is kicking off with the relaunch of Labour Organiser, the party newsletter that first started 100 years ago this month and allowed members to share campaigning techniques with each other.

LabourList understands that the new Labour Society of Campaigners hopes in time to become a socialist society, which would involve formal affiliation to the Labour Party, but will first apply to be a ‘Friends of’ group.

The project is led by campaign coordinator Nathan Oswin, Labour Together’s Hannah O’Rourke, Labour Party Graphic Designers’ Kevin Kennedy Ryan, tech officer Peyman Owladi and Campaign Lab co-founder James Moulding.

Co-founders also include Broxtowe Labour activist Jane Marshall, Labour’s former community organising head Sotez Chowdhury, Oliver Coppard of Campaign Plus, FutureGov’s Claire Hazelgrove and David Littlefair of Labour Beyond Cities.

It is a non-factional umbrella group comprising a number of already existing grassroots campaigning organisations and experienced campaigners within the party who will share insights and best practices.

The freshly launched organisation intends to promote “member-led” campaigning in the party that “starts with each member taking responsibility for more effectively communicating, persuading, organising and campaigning”.

A selection of Labour Organiser articles will be published online this week, before being included in the first print edition next year. Writers include Bernie Sanders’ head of design and the head of digital for US Senator Ed Markey.

The first event being held by the society, which is “designed to be practical and action-led”, will be a ‘hack weekend’ run by Campaign Lab to address the challenges of campaigning during the Covid crisis.

Without door-knocking, Labour activists will need to make the most of phone canvassing and digital campaigning in get-out-the-vote (GOTV) operations. This event will take place on Saturday, December 12th.

Party members can join the Labour Society of Campaigners for £1 or £5 a year. Those signing up now will become founding members and have their names published in the first issue of Labour Organiser.

Below is the full text of the launch statement.

Through the strength of our common endeavour, we achieve more than we achieve alone. The struggle for a better society is one that we can only win together. We can only achieve this by getting Labour back into government.

Yet our collective efforts to campaign effectively can often be undermined by the poor organisation and communication across CLPs, poor data management and factional fights on all sides holding us back.

The recent Labour Together election review found that many of our campaigning methodologies, techniques and practices are outdated. We continue to do what we’ve always done, with predictable results, regardless of our leadership.

Our lack of innovation means we are failing to compete in a changing political environment where voter loyalty is in decline and digital spaces are more and more important, but increasingly contested.

At a time when the electoral coalition we rely on is shifting beneath our feet, our understanding of persuasion techniques and strategies remains mired in a mindset that sees political identities as largely fixed, and get-out-the-vote (GOTV) as the sole purpose of campaigns.

Despite the evident problems we face, there are examples of Labour campaigners working together across different groups and geographies to trial and share great practice that overcomes those challenges.

• Campaign Lab’s Hack Days, bringing campaign organisers and technologists together to co-create 21st-century solutions to our organising challenges.
• Labour Party Graphic Designers pioneering innovative and professional approaches, providing Labour activists with the tools to communicate and promote important messages.
• The Del Singh Memorial Award winning work that has seen East Midlands Labour Unions ‘twinning’ the seats we need to get Keir Starmer into Downing Street.
• The massive mobilisation efforts of Labour Beyond Cities that takes activists out of the cities and into towns across the country, to ensure we have resources in the places we need to win.
• Broxtowe Labour’s innovative hub, bringing community organising in as a key platform across the whole of the constituency and embedding the party at the heart of the communities it seeks to serve.

But these isolated examples of good practice aren’t enough. We urgently need more support, information and insight to be made available to branches, CLPs and campaigners across the country.

That’s why we, the campaigners behind these initiatives, have come together to form the “Labour Society of Campaigners”. We’re a group drawn from across the breadth of our party, with decades of experience across the various disciplines that make up modern campaigns.

But we can’t do this alone. It will take all of us, with the strength of our common endeavour, to make sure every branch and CLP in the country has access to the tools, skills and knowledge to maximise their campaigns and overcome their specific local challenges.

The Labour Society of Campaigners will be a space to bring together the skills, energy and experience of campaigners across our movement.

The campaigning efforts of Labour members have always been one of the greatest strengths of our movement, so our mission to make Labour a world-class campaigning organisation must be member-led. It starts with each member taking responsibility for more effectively communicating, persuading, organising and campaigning.

That’s why we are asking you to join us, share with us your experiences, and help us identify and spread examples of good practice.

To support members, this week we’re relaunching Labour Organiser, the original party newsletter that explored campaigning techniques and was launched exactly 100 years ago this month.

This week, you’ll be able to hear from: Tyler Evans, Bernie Sanders’ head of design on branding a candidate; Paul Bologna, head of digital for Ed Markey on digital organising during a pandemic; and Claire Hazelgrove, former US organiser and deputy director of field operations for the Remain campaign, on the digital changes to the ground war in the recent Presidential election.

Our society is designed to be practical and action-led. So our first event will be a hack weekend, run by Campaign Lab, focusing on creating solutions to Covid campaigning challenges we’re likely to face in the local elections. You can find out how to get involved here.

These are just some of the things we have started to plan and achieve by working together. Imagine what we could do with more members.

For Labour to succeed in its mission to rid the country of Boris Johnson and his populist, pathetic government, we need to maximise our movement’s campaigning potential and achieve more than we ever could alone.

You can help make this happen by:

1. Joining the Labour Society of Campaigners from as little as £1 by visiting labourcampaigners.co.uk/join-us
2. Checking out our websites labourcampaigners.co.uk and labourorganiser.co.uk – and sharing them across your social media
3. Following us on Twitter @labcampaigners

Together, we can put our Labour values into action – by coming together, learning together, and campaigning together.

Nathan Oswin
Hannah O’Rourke
James Moulding
Peyman Owladi
Kevin Kennedy Ryan
Oliver Coppard
Claire Hazelgrove
David Littlefair
Jane Marshall
Sotez Chowdhury