A number of left-wing groups have united to offer people around Britain funding, training, and networking support in order to get active locally and nationally.
“Funding, training and national networks for local people”
Transform, Assemble, The Ron Todd Foundation, For the Many, Majority and OCISA have come together in order to support:
Assemblies and community action groups that give local people power in their neighbourhoods and nationally.
In their release statement, they explained:
We are providing funding, training and national networks for local people to run new Assembly campaigns and put up candidates in council elections.
And they clarified that:
An Assembly is an open meet-up in your neighbourhood, where everyone comes together to confront the challenges faced and create a list of shared demands for change. This then enables: 1) local people to take action, 2) citizen-led candidates to run in elections backed by the Assembly and its list of shared demands, and 3) the foundations to be laid for a powerful national network of allies
They also stressed that this does not mark “a call to join a political party”. Instead, they encouraged all people with interest to share the campaign widely and:
sign up to work collaboratively in your local community, building real grass roots power that can be connected nationally.
There will be a welcome call on 28 January at 7pm for those who want to know more.
Realising our power and acting to stop fascism
The groups emphasised that people around the UK “are in crisis” right now, and that:
The rich are running off with the money while our public services crumble.
Alongside this, we face the looming climate crisis and Western support for genocide. We cannot trust the political class, they insisted, so it is ordinary citizens who need to step up. They stressed:
If we don’t act, we know what’s coming: fascism through the rise of the far right. But we can act.
Transform’s Anwarul Khan told the Canary that:
Coming together to make decisions for your community seems so obvious but we are so used to others making the decisions we don’t realise we have that power. This project is about realising that.
In a Transform email, meanwhile, Khan said:
By working together with comrades across the left we can build a truly grassroots organisation that is worthy of calling itself a mass left party.
The main mission right now, he added, is “to empower local communities”.
The email also quoted Majority’s Jamie Driscoll, former North of Tyne mayor, saying:
This is a non-sectarian project. Standing together as allies makes us all stronger – and respects that local knowledge that each community has. It’s about showing solidarity while keeping your voice and your independence.
And it quoted Organise Corbyn Inspired Socialist Alliance (OCISA) asserting that:
It only takes good people to do nothing for evil to triumph. So, let’s get busy.
Featured image supplied
