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Labour’s mass movement – the unwritten story of this election

09/12/2019

6 Dec 2019

With under a week to go, Labour is taking its campaign up a gear. Activists are being bussed into marginals to bolster local doorknocking efforts. Money is being raised from grassroots donations in order to reach young voters in key seats. And the party’s mass membership is being mobilised to flood the streets over the next six days.
This is on top of the Herculean efforts already made by Corbyn supporters over the past five weeks. Whereas the 2017 election got off to a relatively slow start, Labour’s 2019 campaign has hit the ground running.
‘Unseat’ events – led by prominent left-wing figures such as Owen Jones – have seen hundreds come out at a time on cold winter nights for mass canvassing sessions in important marginal seats. Many more have taken part in rallies and phone-banking. Thousands of Whatsapp groups have sprouted up, allowing members to organise from the bottom-up. And a whole new layer has been brought into political activity, with many taking on leading roles.
The scale of this mass movement is the unwritten story of the election. In reality, there have been two elections taking place in parallel: that covered by the capitalist press – mainly a barrage of attacks against Corbyn, bolstered by a torrent of regurgitated lies and smears by the establishment and their media mouthpieces; and Labour’s mass campaign of optimism, taking place on social media and on the streets.

Tens of thousands take to streets to campaign for Labour

December 8, 2019

TENS of thousands of Labour campaigners were in action over the weekend targeting Tory-held marginal constituencies in the run-up to Thursday’s general election.
In the north of England, more than 200 volunteers from Manchester, including Labour students, crossed the Pennines to campaign in three Tory-held constituencies in West Yorkshire.
The seats of Calder Valley, near Halifax, Shipley in Bradford and Pudsey in Leeds are vital for Labour to form a government.
They are held with slim majorities respectively by Craig Whittaker, Philip Davies and Stuart Andrew, three of the Tories’ most reactionary MPs, even by Conservative standards.
The Labour candidates for the three areas are Josh Fenton-Glynn, Jo Pike and Jane Aitchison.
Teachers were also on the streets telling the public about the local effects of education cuts.
In Calder Valley, Sue McMahon of Calderdale Against School Cuts said that school heads, governors and parents were on the streets to “highlight the dire situation of school funding.”