\n<\/p>\n
To combat rightwing populists, Chris Powell calls for \u201ca local action network, a permanent organising infrastructure \u2026 to listen, act and communicate \u2013 identifying local problems, launching campaigns to fix them and publicising every small win\u201d (What is Keir Starmer doing to push back the populists? Not nearly enough. We have a plan to take them on, 1 January).<\/p>\n
An organisation that could fill this role already exists: it\u2019s called the Labour party. And, under Jeremy Corbyn, it had a Community Organising Unit to do just what Powell now asks for.<\/p>\n
That he overlooks this starkly illustrates how \u201canalysts\u201d and \u201cadvisers\u201d such as himself have contributed to the party\u2019s slide to the brink of oblivion.<\/p>\n
The Community Organising Unit was disbanded by the Starmer leadership, and it has been made increasingly clear that members are only valued as canvassing fodder. So far from being listened to, they are ignored, and silenced when they attempt to contribute to organising efforts.<\/p>\n
As for listening to the public, in my borough a councillor was threatened with disciplinary action for raising local residents\u2019 concerns over sales of council property. When they resigned both council seat and party membership, the resulting byelection was lost to the Greens.<\/p>\n
It should be no surprise that canvassing sessions now rely almost exclusively on local councillors, threatened with deselection if they fail to fulfil their quota of door knocking. Chris Powell is right that Labour needs to acknowledge the anger and frustration of voters and fundamentally change its approach, demonstrating that it is on people\u2019s side in relation to bread and butter issues. But describing the threat as \u201cpopulism\u201d avoids the issue.<\/p>\n If so many voters are fed up, it is because our economic and political system is failing to provide them with a decent quality of life and a fairer society. Inevitably, the far right exploits this to blame the victims and peddle racism, fear and lies.<\/p>\n Our crisis is systemic and requires major system change. But characterising the problem as \u201cpopulism\u201d is not a political analysis, and it avoids the question of what alternative policies might be capable of turning things around and defeating the far right. This leaves us with nothing more than a proposal to relaunch a failed proposition with better communication and campaigning around \u201clocal problems\u201d.<\/p>\n Perhaps the most effective response to a popular programme of the right might actually be a popular programme of the left, grounded in radical equality, democracy and social justice. Sir Chris Powell may well warn of the potential \u201cpopulist threat to democracy\u201d. But he needs to take a close look at the actual erosion to democracy that Labour is responsible for. Treating climate change activists as though they are terrorists; long periods of detention without a trial; failing to act on genocide; proposing an end to jury trials; cancelling local government elections. It\u2019s too late, Sir Chris \u2013 your Labour party is the warm-up act for Reform UK. Labour appears blind to the success of populists\u2019 use of social media. Local constituency Labour parties spend hours producing reports and holding meetings to satisfy every interest group within the party. We cloak our vulnerability to populism\u2019s stoked-up resentments and nihilism with self-congratulatory PR waffle from above in preference to defining the nature of the beast we are up against.<\/p>\n Isn\u2019t it beyond time that the leadership seek people skilled in running antifascist campaigns, with social media skills spread locally? In their use of TikTok Nigel Farage and co are way out in front. Have an opinion on anything you\u2019ve read in the Guardian today? Please <\/em><\/strong>email<\/em><\/strong> us your letter and it will be considered for publication in our <\/em><\/strong>letters<\/em><\/strong> section.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" To combat rightwing populists, Chris Powell calls for \u201ca local action network, a permanent organising infrastructure \u2026 to listen, act and communicate \u2013 identifying local problems, launching campaigns to fix them and publicising every small win\u201d (What is Keir Starmer doing to push back the populists? Not nearly enough. We have a plan to take<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":41106,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[134,1121,2993,2651,7004],"class_list":{"0":"post-41105","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-social-issues","8":"tag-labour","9":"tag-labours","10":"tag-machine","11":"tag-party","12":"tag-touch"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41105","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=41105"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41105\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/41106"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=41105"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=41105"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=41105"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Julian Wells<\/strong>
Unite <\/em>community delegate, Eltham and Chislehurst constituency Labour\u00a0party<\/em><\/p>\n
Eddie Playfair<\/strong>
Leytonstone, London<\/em><\/p>\n
Stephen Stone<\/strong>
Norwich<\/em><\/p>\n
Anthony Collard<\/strong>
Lincoln <\/em><\/p>\n