Jeremy Corbyn’s election as Labour leader opens up a fantastic opportunity to challenge the damaging austerity policies that the Tories have been inflicting on our communities. We can’t control the biases we’ve seen in the mainstream media, so their distortions will have to be challenged, and our positive vision presented, in the only places we do have power: Our own communities.
We are encouraging groups to form and existing groups to add themselves to the map so that we can create and promote spaces to discuss our vision for the society we want to live in. We hope these groups might create campaigns, events, parties, community crèches, art projects, flash-mobs, gigs, direct actions, inter-generational dialogues, pop-up cafés, picket line support initiatives, sports days, election canvassing, anything else, and much much more!
Suggested principles
The following six suggested principles are to help guide those wanting to establish their own Communities For Corbyn group or ‘circle’ – call them what you will…
• Each circle could be based on a particular geographical area, or perhaps focused on a specific political issue such as: ‘Housing’, ‘Anti-racism’ or ‘Public energy’. Potentially the two could be combined, so a ‘Manchester Housing’ group, for example, might be formed to campaign on this issue in the local area.
• Each circle should be democratically organised around a spirit of collaboration, creativity and respect. Ensuring the safety and self-expression of everyone is a priority, especially of those who are often marginalised on the basis of their gender, sexuality, ethnicity, race, religion, class, and educational or economic status.
• Each circle could use and experiment with grassroots forms of democratic decision making to allow everyone involved, to participate as fully as possible.
• Circles should be open to everyone committed to its aims, regardless of party affiliation and will seek positive and productive engagement with local Labour party branches.
• Circles could promote progressive values and the communication of ideas for political change such as: opposition to austerity, the promotion of equality and participatory democracy. These are the values for which Jeremy Corbyn was elected.
• Circles can act locally to strengthen existing campaigns, support Jeremy on topical issues that come up in the national media and organise to help him win in 2020.
Starting a Communities for Corbyn Circle
by Michael from Waltham Forest for Corbyn
Below is some advice for starting a circle drawn from my experience setting up Waltham Forest for Corbyn. Obviously it’s only one way of doing things and different methods might work better in different areas.
One of the aims of this is to show that it’s really not that difficult to get one going: you don’t need to be an experienced activist to take the initiative to start a local group!
Step One – Start a facebook group.
The first step is one of the easiest! Make a facebook group with a clear and brief statement of its aims. For me, that was to bring together people who were excited by Corbyn’s victory and wanted to work together to promote his politics in an open, democratic, and non-sectarian way. Next, invite everyone you know from your community to join and try get some discussion going. Post an article you find interesting, or ask a question you think it would be good to discuss. To get extra people involved you can post a link to the group on the pages of other local campaigns (I found both the local Left Unity page and the Unite Community page useful, though there will be many many more).
Step Two – Organise a meeting
Choose a date for your first meeting and create an event on facebook – you can create the event before you have decided on a venue so that you can get an idea of numbers first. Next find a venue – pubs can be good as they will often offer a room for free, though they often aren’t great in terms of disabled access. I didn’t really publicise the first meeting of our group beyond facebook, but if you’ve got the energy, printing out some posters and putting them up around the area is a good idea.
Step Three – The First Meeting
The most difficult task that may fall to you if you set up a circle is facilitating the first meeting. The role of a facilitator is to ensure that everyone in the meeting has an opportunity to speak and that no one voice is dominant. You will also need to try and structure the meeting into thematic sections, normally by writing up an agenda, which can give the meeting focus and direction. I started our first meeting by asking everyone to introduce themselves and to answer two questions: ‘What did Corbyn’s victory mean to you?’ and ‘What do you want this group to be/do’. The focus on the rest of the meeting was organised around people’s answers to the second question which I grouped into ‘Actions in our community’ and ‘Engaging with Labour Party structures’. By tackling distinct topics one at a time you can keep the conversation focused and hopefully end up with some action points (tasks for people to go away and do between the first and the second meeting), though the aim of a first meeting can be exploratory (i.e. brainstorming ideas for actions) as much as to make concrete decisions.
Step Four – Actions!
This is the fun bit! You won’t want to decide on actions before the first meeting, and the best ideas will probably come from discussions there, but you might want to turn up with some ideas to get conversation going. In the early phases of your group these may likely be aimed at getting more people involved, especially if like me your original publicising was limited to facebook. Thus, you might want to discuss doing a bigger public meeting or event, and producing flyers or posters to publicise it. But to reiterate, this is only a suggestion: The best ideas will be specific to any neighbourhood and will depend a lot on your interests and those of whoever turns up!
If you have any questions feel free to email [email protected] and we’ll get back to you ASAP.
If you are interested locally in the Weymouth & Portland area join us at 19.00 at The Old Rooms, Cove Row, Weymouth on 11th November. Contact 07837995958 for more info.
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