Proposition 1 — People are empowered when they have space to organise

If people have spaces, online or offline to congregate and work together they can create power. This means that at all levels in our workplaces, institutions and in our services, people should have ways and the space to create their own networks or communities in which they can come together to organise. In a workplace this might mean providing spaces where colleagues can organise without management interference or the recognition of trade unions. In local government this might mean providing communities with physical spaces to meet or putting aside resources to support the formation of service user groups.

This kind of convening of groups and space is already happening with or without the consent of our existing hierarchies. Indeed, in some ways it is one of the oldest political practices in the world and forms a central tenet of community organising. Traditionally the Labour movement has always defended and created spaces through which we can organise from physical community spaces like the working men’s clubs, community centres to forms of associations like trade unions or tenant associations.

Physical Infrastructure

Though new spaces are emerging, the impact of the death of our physical community infrastructure cannot be understated. As more and more civic spaces close or are sold off or privatised, this not only affects community relationship building to combat the increasing atomisation of our lives but also limits our ability to organise, convene and collaborate; and thus, build power. In this context our party should wholeheartedly be fighting for the continued existence of public spaces. As Steve Reed argues in his civil society strategy Labour would introduce a community right to space:

“Civil society is a key part of bringing people together to participate in shaping their area to meet the community’s needs, now and in the future, but to do that we need to support local community led organisations and make sure there are community-controlled spaces that enable people to come together to act.”

It is these spaces that open up conversations allowing people to identify common problems, collective solutions and organise. For example, back in the early 2000s, Lambeth convened an initiative to try and reduce youth violence on an estate in the borough. They began by convening a series of community meetings which gave space for people to talk, listen and understand their problems. This space helped them to organise together. The result of these talks wasn’t a new top down service or awareness campaign, but a commitment to properly push power and resources down to the community and put them in charge of exploring the answers. The result was a community run set up a peer-mentoring scheme that won national awards after achieving the highest success rate in the country for preventing reoffending.

Technology and new spaces

Yet as our lives, our relationships and our politics are increasingly being played out online, technology has provided new opportunities for power to be built. From the network of WhatsApp groups that organise thousands of Deliveroo drivers during a strike and in their working lives, to the Bureau Local slack channel that fostered the collaboration between the network of journalists who compiled the first ever homelessness statistics, new online spaces are facilitating the building of power. Such spaces can operate not just in geographical terms but also across industries and interests.

A great example is The Funemployed which is a Facebook group for workers in the arts and entertainment industry. Most of this is contract or casual work tied to a particular creative project or performance. This group started as a way to support workers in the industry but became a space for them to congregate. Then people offering jobs started to recruit from the group. By convening the workers their online space had power and value as it was functioning as a Labour exchange. They used this power of convening to institute their own minimum wage where all job postings or offers must meet the required wage level, in return employers can access the talent within the group.

Local Facebook groups developed around places are also becoming increasingly powerful in their ability to convene people locally. They operate like the combined equivalent of message boards, advertising services, buying and selling, archiving and sharing local history and distributing local news and information. They are also becoming a forum for actual community meetings and organising. For example, when a bus service between several rural villages in Teesside was cancelled because the provider went under, people on Facebook groups across the villages started organising. They not only coordinated a campaign to put pressure on the local council to put in place an alternative provider but also started working together to organise lifts for people into school, hospital appointments and to do shopping. The local groups already existed as spaces for people to communicate but when it was needed, they became a local source of power and action.

As these new spaces emerge and become increasingly powerful it will be vital for existing systems of power to develop a way to interface with them. What could this look like? What if local MPs participated in question and answer sessions with local facebook groups? What if councils held a register of local online groups and published their consultations on them? What if the admins of these groups were invited to committees or consultations to represent community interests? What if admins were encouraged to run for election as councillors? What if new forms of workplace organising came out of these groups? What if existing unions started to work with these groups to source complaints within workplaces or industries?

Investing in Networks

Ultimately these spaces (both online and offline) lead to the development of networks that are not just convened for a particular one-off project and are not controlled by the centre. They are instead more loosely tied to a purpose, they develop cultures and work as a way for power to be transmitted and created. They have an emerging and growing life of their own. They develop organically and can become lasting political assets for a community. The potential social and political infrastructure they are creating cannot be ignored. By investing in opening up spaces and nurturing the ones that already exist, you are investing in people and their capacity to create power of their own. Spaces and the networks they create ultimately spawn new possibilities, innovations and sometimes even new communities or networks. For a political system that’s willing to listen they could become key touchpoints and sources of continuous democratic feedback for a state architecture that is currently completely out of touch.

What could this look like?

• Enshrine in law the right to have space to organise in a workplace, through unions or other emerging platforms.
• Establish in law a right to community spaces in a local area which are funded and well resourced. Perhaps map these spaces centrally (?)
• Create a new fund (?) for councils and local online groups or forums (facebook groups etc) to submit joint bids to look at how existing local political architecture can interface with these groups.
• Compile a register of Networks which are tied to locations, occupations or interests. These networks are to be given legal status, tax breaks and funding (potentially creating a new legal structure to allow them to exist). They will be more flexible than charities and easier to set up and operate.
• Encourage Labour politicians to engage with local facebook groups and their admins.