16 Comments
founding

While I follow your argument I'm not sure that devoting time to a political 'Party' is as good in the long term as building a political 'Movement', like Chartism, which, if it builds into a force to be reckoned with, will influence all political parties.

Five of the Chartist's demands were enacted by the Liberal and Conservative parties.

The trouble with 'Parties' is ,if they are elected, they have to swim in the same septic pool at Westminster with little chance to make a difference.

I believe,frustrating as it is, we need to build a political 'Movement' first before devoting energy to any political party. This 'Movement' should be based around the simple concept of giving more 'Power to the People' and has to build up from the grassroots, being leaderless, and following the principles of the starfish over the spider!

Sadly the 'People' are still not ready to support a Movement ,to improve our system of governance, because they are still not suffering enough but that could be about to change in the coming years as Westminster continues to crumble.

In summary, from a mass People's Movement are political Parties forced to change. By all means encourage the SDP to carry our torch but the effort should be to concentrate on building a mass Movement and not any particular Party.

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author

Real politics is contingent on real world social networks. That's how to get ideas off the ground. It is not wasted energy.

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Niall - I suspect with the right message it tends to be 'the party ' that underpins and is understood by Joe Average voter. Having a movement is and off itself a wonderful thing - let's call it The Harrogate Agenda for want of a better title - it's genuinely unfortunate that whilst movements can & do move things, it tends to be parties ( in the Anglosphere) that get elected to change things that the 'movement' advocates.

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founding

John - Yes this is Richard's view but the fact remains the Chartists movement ended up influencing all politicians and the five of their six demands that were enacted were done by a Liberal and Conservative government.

The 'movement' pushes out its message which the 'people' support and the politicians are forced to follow. However I accept that where we are now the 'people' will need to organise en masse and deploy the peaceful tactics of Gene Sharp to be heard.

Having said that if the SDP want to adopt THA's demands all well and good but IMO most of our effort should be gearing up the THA movement, I of course accept it is still struggling for recognition, so that when we hit the buffers we are ready to advise and built a grassroots 'peaceful' rebellion to demand 'People Power'.

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founding

From here it seems that THA is the agenda of a movement that existed in the past.

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founding

If you have read our six demands I cannot understand how you deduce that?

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founding

I don't deduce it. I describe an appearance, an apparent situation. I am a poor historian but it might be educational to study the history of the Chartists. How did they influence the politicians?

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founding

You said our agenda was "of a movement that existed in the past"?

Our six demands have never yet been advanced by any other group in the past or present so I don't understand what your point is. It may be me but I'd like to grasp your POV!

As to the Chartists the first book I read back in 2012 after the THA was conceive was 'Chartism' by Malcolm Chase and the reason five of their demands were eventually enacted was because the mass movement of people who supported the demands, that lasted 10 years, sowed the seed in the minds of all politicians and it was the Liberals and Conservatives that passed their demands into law.

The only on that wasn't, thankfully, was to hold General Elections every year!

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But how do we build a "mass People's Movement" when the 'People' are not ready to support such a movement? The Manchester Patriotic Union was built on the back of 4 years of grinding poverty and lead to the Peterloo uprising.

We could wait another 4 years in the hope that some economic collapse will bring about the right environment or we could work with what we have, a very very imperfect party system of government.

Maybe, in the meantime, Pete's idea of the SDP is worth a look, although I know very little about the SDP, apart from old memories, and it has no candidate in my area.

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it's the little acorns - same in my constituency too 🥴

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The SDP may be the acceptable face of the Left, but it's still the Left. I am a conservative, not a social democrat. If what you say is true then there is no right wing political party in the UK. Nothing. I can't join the SDP; it's too much on the Left, despite the patriotism they display and their reasonable, if sometimes wrong take on economics isn't enough to make me join. I respect them and would vote for them if the choice in my area was between them, Labour and the LibDems but to join them would be dishonest of me: I'd be there under false pretences. I'm going to be one of millions of conservatives, mainstream right wingers, with no one to represent me in local councils, at county level and in parliament.

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Refreshingly positive from you Pete and you’ve given me the impetus to sign up to the SDP. Happy to subscribe to them as I am to you . I know you are not particularly keen on their farming policy but no doubt you will put your case forward. Ive been impressed with Clouston since I first heard him on the radio during Covid. Wish there were more like him on the airwaves .

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I'm a supporter of you Pete & I've watched what you've said about the SDP - they have my support - I voted for their Mayor for London too.

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