Category: activism
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Still doing politics

Notice to those doing whatever it is they are doing in Westminster: politics has left the building – mind you don’t get left behind. Thank you, LabourBAME Hastings and Hastings and Rye Labour Women’s Forum for an excellent gathering and an excellent supper in Hastings last night. Thank you, speaker Marc Wadsworth for reminding us…
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Why politicians are stupid

Never mind Starmer, Johnson or any other besuited blaguers. This line from Ceri Williams, in the informal, ‘thank you and good night’ speech at the end of an unofficial fringe meeting, was, in my opinion the most important utterance of this year’s entire political conference season. It’s like when you go to Spain with the…
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Back to reality

Well I ain’t in the Labour Party any more and I am really enjoying re-discovering speaking my mind. Here are three things that need saying everywhere and often, and that it’s damned hard to say in the Labour Party. Anti-semitism? Be VERY careful what you say about anti-semitism, and think very carefully about what you…
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I have invented retrospective resignation

I believe people are allowed to join in politics. I joined the Green Party when the BBC said Nigel Farage could be all over the telly all the time because his then party had more members than the Greens. So did around 60 000 other people – people want to have an effect in politics.…
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CRISIS!

From “argh, toilet roll!” to “argh, petrol!” A mild disturbance in the supply of absolutely anything we’re used to buying every day has more political impact than, say, people losing their homes, children going hungry, abused women being locked up with male sex-offenders, asylum seekers drowning in the channel, the govt selling our services and…
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Another community activist says farewell to Labour

Guest blog: Julia Price Julia Price joined the Labour Party in 2015, in south London. She canvassed for Labour in local elections and for the Mayor of London election in May 2016 when the Labour candidate, Tooting MP, Sadiq Khan won. After moving to St Leonards in 2016, she helped with canvassing in 2017.…
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Really useful feminism

Why we should all read Julie Bindel’s new book I’ve been wondering why feminism grabbed me so much the second time I looked, but not the first. I remember feminism going on around me when I was a teenager. I had a vague idea it involved a lot of arguments about whether you should shave…
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Solidarity? It’s out here!

Being a socialist feminist in mainstream politics is a pain, it really is. If you intend to read this article, for your sanity, before you start could you remind yourself that outside of party politics, people have families, friends and colleagues with a range of opinions and ideas, and they mostly manage to get along,…
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Dwellers on the threshold

List A: Things you can do without being a member of a political party Set up and promote petitions Go on demos Organise demos Organise political education and film nights Write to your MP Get up delegations to go and visit MPs for discussions Write blogs, make videos and pod casts Join an affiliated union…
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On re-uniting the left

All white people are racist; all men are sexist, racism and sexism are systems that can exist and oppress without the presence of a single person with racist or sexist intentions; sex is not biological but exists on a spectrum; saying you are not racist, sexist or homophobic is proof that you are; language can…