Getting activists into the community

posted by: Nick Lowles | on: Thursday, 9 July 2009, 14:37

I'm in Durham at the moment attending a Unite educational school. There are 120 people here from across the country and there is a particular emphasis on campaigning. We are doing a session on the HOPE not hate campaign generally and the Not in My Name (NIMN) initiative specifically. We are customising the campaign for Unite and they will be encouraging their braches to take it to their members. Every delegate is being given one of union toolkits and it is hoped that they will use the NIMN sign up cards as a way of engaging with their members on the BNP and other related issues. Just as importantly it is hoped that they will get their activists out into the community.

I had a great meeting last night in Newcastle. Held in the offices of the Northern TUC, a number of local organisers from across the region came together to discuss the elections and the way forward. There was a really good and frank discussion about the campaign but more importantly a number of suggestions were agreed about the way forward. Among them was a concerted effort to establish anti-BNP networks in areas where none exist at the moment and also to create a organsers programme to develop a new layer of anti-BNP organisers.

The BNP are certainly feeling more bolder and I think we'll see more hardline and provocative statements, like that made by Griffin on the BBC last night, being made by their leaders. In County Durham the BNP has put out a quite shocking leaflet entitled: Hope not hate nutters in Ferryhill this Sunday!

These 'nutters', it turns out, was Show Racism the Red Card, who were attending a community festival. The four-page leaflet included an article defending racism. 'So what's wrong with saying one race is superior to another?'