Corbyn’s quiet revolution

Thursday, 1st June 2017

Corbyn_August 2016

Jeremy Corbyn

• AS members of Holborn and St Pancras constituency we would like to endorse the experience and feelings of optimism that other members and activists of the Labour Party around the country have spoken about.

What we are seeing when we go door to door on estates in Camden is a renewal of interest in politics across generations.

This is a remarkable phenomenon given the really hard times the many have had to put up with because of the enforced austerity policies of the last 10 years, alongside watching the wealth of the few grow like it’s on hormones.

Given that austerity and its terrible twin children, enforced debt and political disillusionment, have hit the youngest the hardest, their willingness to join the party in tens of thousands and get involved is wonderfully inspiring. We also have a new social movement, Momentum, that has been integral to the repositioning of socialism as the beating heart and soul of the party.

With this quiet revolution on the estates and in the streets is the transformation of the Labour Party into a mass membership organisation since Jeremy Corbyn was elected leader. It has quadrupled in size to become the biggest socialist party in Europe.

Some of the new members are returnees but many are young people energised by the hope, optimism and decency of Jeremy Corbyn practising a kind of politics that they have not seen in their lifetime.

His vision of socialism represents a break from the war-torn neo-liberalism of the last 30 years. He has provided a life-support system to insecure, indebted, despairing people and laid out in the manifesto a blueprint for restoring society to full health.

Knocking on doors on council estates in Somers Town, Kentish Town, Gospel Oak and other working class areas of Camden, we find people enthusiastic about the policies of building one million homes to deal with the chronic shortage; renationalising our overpriced railways and other key utilities that we all rely on, properly funding both schools that nurture our young and the NHS that cares for us when we’re ill, and ending insecurity at work with the abolition of zero-hours contracts and the strengthening of trade union and employment rights.

These are improvements that benefit the 99 per cent, so selling the manifesto has not been difficult. A lot of voters tell us that for once they have a clear choice between more of the same and a chance to change direction.

Every Labour MP has an unprecedented number of party, Momentum and trade union activists helping in the campaign. It is face-to-face contact that is the most influential component in getting across policies, especially for a party like Labour that, while it has trade union support, has very few friends in the mainstream media and cannot rely on rich oligarchs to pay for infinite amounts of advertising and publicity.

People talking to each other is how we’ll win this election and it is Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership that has led to hundreds of thousands joining and rejoining, enabling us to do this.

There is a world to win, a world where the unleashed creativity and imagination of everyone in our society is given the opportunity to flower and contribute, where co-operation not greed characterise us, where the young and old are cherished not impoverished, and where all feel valued, not just the few.

PHIL VASILI, Highgate, Holborn and St Pancras CLP
SARAH WISE, Bloomsbury and King’s Cross, Holborn and St Pancras CLP
SAM GISAGARA, Primrose Hill, Holborn and St Pancras CLP
AMANDA SEBESTYEN, Highgate branch, Holborn and St Pancras CLP
SHEZAN DIN RENNY, Highgate, Holborn and St Pancras CLP
PAUL RENNY, Highgate, Holborn and St Pancras CLP
JO ROSTRON, Primrose Hill, Holborn and St Pancras CLP
LINDA SAYLE, Bloomsbury and King’s Cross, Holborn and St Pancras CLP
ZULMA WICKENDEN, Highgate, Holborn and St Pancras CLP
PETE WICKENDEN, Highgate, Holborn and St Pancras CLP
REBEKAH BALL, Highgate, Holborn and St Pancras CLP
MABEL SUMNER, Highgate, Holborn and St Pancras CLP
SIMON GUNN, Highgate, Holborn and St Pancras CLP

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