Blat blat blat Zara Sultana blat blat SWP blat blat blat blat Jeremy Corbyn blat blat blat blat Karie Murphy blat blat blat blat Information Commissioner blat blat Adnan Hussein blat blat blat blat blat blat …

Bang!

Why? Because when they did this…

…she did this…

… and they responded with this…

… and the entire blogosphere went like this…

Trouble is, many of us were already nearly out of patience with her for making one-woman policy pronouncements and with them for not saying nearly enough about what they were doing…

Bottom-up, grassroots democracy

We have a lively and active local group in Hastings, that started back in the spring because already it was clear that the knight in shining armour wasn’t going to come galloping in and save the NHS, our transport system, the environment, the homeless – all the things that urgently needed saving. Lots of people have a lot of faith in Jeremy Corbyn – I do, but being nearly 65 myself, and nowhere near any possibility of retiring, I recognise that people get older, and Corbyn will be 80 when the next general election is due…

I don’t like the term ‘bottom up’, because it maintains the idea of a hierarchy. Nor do I like the term grassroots because – well, it’s just silly. But I do think the kind of democracy we’re aiming for simply isn’t the kind that sits around waiting for alleged leaders to do something at national level that causes us to get local democracy.

So I was an early sign-up to that local ‘let’s get on with it’ group. In between its founding and this week’s debacle, that group had gathered over a hundred supporters (we’re not a huge town), many of whom were already actively involved in housing, NHS, environment and Palestine campaigns. Organisers’ meetings have had upwards of thirty people present, and we’ve joined up with other local actions by Acorn, Unite Community, PSC… we’ve got rallies and political education events planned. We’ve got a film club – we were on the way to forming a local party to stand real, local candidates in elections … but we’ve paused that last bit for now, while we all do a bit of wtf over the national ‘leaders’ doings.

A state of emergency

There are groups like ours all over the country. Much of the urgency came from the widespread horror and trauma at what’s going on in Palestine. It came also from those who voted Starmer ‘to get the Tories out’ finally realising that Starmer’s Labour is just another branch of what the Tories became. It came from a sense of urgency over saving the NHS, over the burgeoning of poverty and housing deprivation across the country, from the appalling state of our education system, and the rise of the far-right.

Who can make real democracy?

I can’t remember who said it now, it may even have been Corbyn himself, but after he resigned as Labour leader, someone said that he’d ‘held the door open’ as long as he could, and that ‘that was all he could do’. Basically, we failed to get through it and take down the Holdfasts in Party HQ.

I do remember my friends, on my FB feed very recently, having a conversation about the ‘new party’ and someone (who hadn’t signed up) saying she ‘just couldn’t get excited by it’ and someone else (who had) said ‘it’s not a case of finding it exciting, this is an emergency.’

 Real democracy

The thing about real democracy is that it needs you and I to step up and support it. Not ‘them’, not ‘everyone’ – those are abstract things you can say whilst sitting in an armchair. The reason many of the local groups have got together and got active long before getting any instructions from above is that we learned from what happened in the Labour Party, and so we stepped up, whether we felt like it or not.  And we’re not going to stand down now, just because the alleged leaders can’t get along.

I recognise real democracy – it’s where there’s no official boss, but I still don’t necessarily get what I want but I don’t feel bad about it, because I can see we’re trying out what most people want. A couple of examples:

Party or coalition

I didn’t want a new party. Jeremy Corbyn (who of all people should know) and many of the independent councillors were talking about some kind of federation that would bring together all the anti-capitalist, pro-democracy groups of councillors, parliamentarians and activists. I was strongly in favour of that, because being an officer in the Labour Party and in Unite a few years back, I had a really close-up view of how organisations that go through the motions of democracy can be totally ruled, and dragged off course, by a bunch of ‘executives’ who are used to being in charge. I thought a federation was a far safer, more robust model, and would allow councillors whose independent groups were established, and other left-wing parties such as CPB, to join in.

As someone pointed out to me at a local meeting months ago, there may well be tens of thousands of Your Party sign-ups who think that, but there are hundreds of thousands who want a party, so it’s not a go-er. He was right. That’s democracy. Okay then, give it a go.

We gave it a go. I really, really hope that’s the experience that’ll galvanise the local groups.

Tackling the difficult stuff

I got very, very frustrated about something I urgently wanted us to do, and I messaged a whole bunch of our local people and said I wanna do this! I want that debate! But most of those who responded said no, not yet – let’s get to know each other, and let the group gel a bit more first. They were right. Our local group is growing and learning, and is already looking more likely to survive difficult political stuff than it was when I said that.

That’s real democracy. It’s not always getting your own way, but listening, and experiencing others’ views and ways. And I think that’s what we’ve all been patiently doing with Corbyn and his team, and with the indie MPs (of whom Sultana is one of six). So, we listened, and we waited, and what they’ve come up with is a spat and a potentially crippling (for them) court case.

Is this a good thing?

Earlier this week, it looked like panic and dismay all round. But if this is the panic and dismay that makes more people realise that ‘bottom up, grassroots democracy’ really does mean you and I, doing stuff in our town, getting into local politics and bucking the system until it starts working for us and the people around us…

Then the whole car-crash that is our alleged leaders has been a good thing, hasn’t it. Losing hope in the knight in shining armour is not the same as losing hope. Let’s keep going locally, and networking with other local groups, and build our knowledge and trust of each other. Our group is sending delegates to that big meeting coming up in Birmingham – you never know, we might end up being some kind of federation – but if the coming together of all the local groups shows a clear majority wanting something different to that, I’m happy, so long as it’s democratic, anti-capitalist and ready to challenge systems and organisations that are anti-people … and I’ll bring up that big difficult thing I want us to thrash out when our group reckons they’re ready.

I like real democracy, and I think that big falling out of the alleged leaders may just be the start of a shake-up that takes us in the right direction so let them get on with their court cases. Meanwhile, let’s crack on, build those local groups, put up some council candidates, maybe even some Westminster ones, when by-elections come along and — well, just ‘be the change we want to see’.

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