A HOPE not hate summer camp?

posted by: Nick Lowles | on: Thursday, 5 August 2010, 08:06

For the last couple of days I've been in Sweden attending the summer camp of the SSU, the youth wing of the Swedish Social Democrats. It's a fantastic week long event with 1,600 people camping out close to the Norwegian border.

Graeme Atkinson, our European Editor, and I gave a presentation about the HOPE not hate campaign as part of a series of lectures around the anti-racist theme. With a general election only six weeks away and the far right Swedish Democrats polling 6.5% in the polls there was real interest in HOPE not hate and how we campaign against the BNP and in particular how we worked with trade unions. It was interesting to hear how so many of the issues we are facing in the UK are similar to those in Sweden.

The SSU hold a summer camp every four years, each time just before a general election. They discuss politics and meet socially but more importantly they prepare their activists for the coming election campaign.

I was only there for two days but it is an impressive event and it really did get me thinking about whether we could do something similar, albeit on a smaller scale in the UK.