This post is based on a series of tweets by a well-known Labour campaigner, who has asked the SKWAWKBOX to help get the word out. This blog is glad to help, as the advice is excellent (and fits perfectly with this post about the lessons real Labour supporters need to draw from the Copeland by-election), and asks you to do the same by digesting and saving this information:
Use your time and energy – don’t squander it
Corbyn supporters, don’t get in to arguments on Twitter with people fundamentally at odds with the essence of party. Instead, organise in your local CLPs (constituency Labour party – the key ‘on the ground’ organisational unit of the party), where Left influence can have the most fundamental effect.
Control the Labour Conference
Most important thing for Left Labour right now is to ensure a majority of left delegates at conference to push through rule changes that will lower the number of Labour MPs that a left-wing candidate needs to enter the leadership contest. This will ensure there is always a left-wing candidate for the membership to support – which will prevent the right-wingers from derailing Labour and will do much to discourage their continued attempted sabotage.
Join Momentum
Momentum has had its problems recently, but it’s still the best-positioned organisation for supporters to co-ordinate and maximise their influence across the country. As well as joining Momentum, also consider the LRC, Red Labour, CLPD and other left-wing organisations, to build your networks and contacts.
Keep your perspective
A large part of the country won’t even have known there were elections last week, remember social media is an organisation tool, but also a bubble.
Be an activist on and offline
You can share information online very effectively, but winning win people over on Twitter etc is much harder. The key battleground in the revolution is offline – and with over half a million members, no party is better positioned to win it than Labour. Talk to your family, friends, neighbours to counteract the media propaganda – chances are, BBC News and the like is their main source of information – unless you make it you.
Plain English
Speak in simple, plain English, not political jargon. Explain – in plain English – exactly why their hospitals, employment rights and schools are being destroyed by the Tories. Jargon is a useful shorthand – when both parties understand the language – but it’s a bad habit and we need to communicate our ideas in words anyone can understand.
Use social media where it works
Social media are a great networking tool, so while it’s not great for winning people over, if you have people on Facebook and Twitter that you see eye-to-eye with, create groups, share ideas, help each other get ready for the offline battle.
What we can do for each other
The movement has an obligation to you to provide you with information and facts, we will give you the resources. In return, it needs you to be its champions where you live, work and socialise.
Crowdsource ideas
We need to – and will – devise new campaigning methods and come up with effective ways to change the apathy for politics.
Genuine grassroots change
We need to change Labour from the bottom up – wholesale. The old politics is dead and eating itself. There’s no more time for ‘managed decline’ of an ever-dwindling Labour vote. We will not ‘make a pitch’ to the country, we’ll bring the country into our movement so they can march with us as stakeholders.
Choose your battles
Please, let’s ignore those who wish to tie up our energy in unproductive chatter. Instead, let’s make waves in ways that will benefit our movement.
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Reblogged this on Declaration Of Opinion .
Reblogged this on Sid's Blog.
Love it. Do’s ‘n don’t. Good strategies – thank you.
My local CLPs have stands in the town centres on market days and busy Saturday mornings. We highlight various issues and it gives us an opportunity to talk to people.
I’d also recommend that supporters wear a Jeremy Corbyn badge at all times (as I do). It encourages people to come and talk to us, which is better than us trying to talk to them! This then gives us the opportunity to put right any misconceptions they may have. Some people may need some training on how to respond to various points that people may raise. Perhaps a Facebook Group dedicated to answering people’s questions?
PS One of my CLP members bravely wore his JC badge at the local rather Tory bowling club, and was pleasantly surprised to find that some members there support Jeremy! So go to it!
Good advice in the main. The part about contesting people who are obviously not going to be persuaded is very relevant. At The Dangerous Globe we do that from time to time,but it is a deliberate effort to unearth who it is we are talking to and locate them and the Think Tank or whatever other organisation they are lurking in. It usually turns into a slanging match just before we block them, but it does add to our list of “Undesirables” and you never know when that can come in handy. Its not to be recommended that everyone does this, its a very tiring process.
One other thing, in modernising the approach, I would seriously think about dropping the “Comrade” and replace it with “Friend” in all communications. It serves no useful purpose in my mind, and can well be susceptible to attack from our opponents. It might be seen as a badge, but vast numbers see it as a sign of 1950’s mentality. The struggle is hard enough without us making it any harder.
Yes, never been a particular fan of ‘comrade’. Tend to use ‘mate’ or similar! 🙂
I would advise generally, don’t bow to the stereotype or be a cliché. All that retro stuff is fun but gives the impression we’re Communists. The Labour candidate in my council ward had photos on her public Facebook page of her Che Guevara staircase. Don’t wear loads of badges, just one small one.
Retro stuff?