Putting down a marker

posted by: Nick Lowles | on: Saturday, 9 January 2010, 12:08

For the last two months the HOPE not hate team has been working on its 2010 strategy. Obviously without knowing the exact date of the General Election it has not been easy to make definite plans but I would like to think that we are prepared for every eventuality. On Monday we will roll out the first phase of our campaign when we ask our existing supporters to sign into the 2010 campaign. With the BNP set to stand in hundreds of parliamentary seats and as many as 1,000 council wards there will be work for everyone to do but given the importance of Barking & Dagenham and Stoke-on-Trent we simply have to prioritise.

Yesterday we sent out tests for the new email. As usual we have a few different titles and we see which works best before we send out the bulk of the emails. However, even with the few we sent out several hundred people have filled out an activist survey, with most indicating they would be willing to travel to one of our regional priority areas during the campaign. If the same proportion of people say the same when we send out the 120,000 emails on Monday then we will have thousands of people wanting to campaign for us.

We have drawn up detailed campaign strategies for all our key areas and this includes three national Days of Action. They are Saturday 6 March, Saturday/Sunday 17/18 April and Saturday 1 May. Of course there will be plenty to do in-between these dates but I’m telling people now to put down a marker. If we can mobilise the thousands of people who are likely to register their interest in the 2010 HOPE not hate campaign over the next few days then we are going to have a massive army of activists.

We have a tough year ahead but I’m quite excited by it.