James Purnell on London Citizens

Posted on 26. Apr, 2010 by webmaster in News

Passionate about the new activism

A record number of MPs are to stand down at the general election on 6 May. One of them, a former Cabinet Minister, is filling the gap with an enthusiastic interest in community organising – neighbourhood action which, he says, can transform the political process.

I’m writing this as Gordon Brown is on the television, calling the general election. For my former colleagues in Parliament,it’s an exciting moment, laced with hope and dread. For me, it’s a nostalgic moment. I’m not standing at the election, so by this time next week I will no longer be an MP.

I’ve spent the last 20 years of my life in and around Westminster. So, as other MPs go back to their constituencies to fight for re-election, I’m thinking more about the last few years and what I’ve learnt. I continue to think that politics is a noble profession. Some people have shamed it over the last few years – but the national disappointment only serves to highlight the importance of politics. People wouldn’t be outraged if they thought politics was irrelevant.

Over the last year, I’ve become very interested in community organising, and particularly the work that London Citizens do. A few weeks ago, I attended the weeklong training they organise for community leaders. Some people have said that this shows that I think community organising is a better way to achieve politics than representative democracy. In fact, the opposite is true.

The training week was in some ways a love letter to politics. London Citizens were cleareyed about the deficiencies of modern politics. But they also made a passionate case that politics is the best vehicle for change that democracies have. If our politics is broken,then it’s not politicians who suffer, but the people, because they lose their best tool to solve together the problems they face. So, my decision to stop being an MP is a step away from Parliament, not a turning away from politics. It’s a personal decision – I don’t want to have spent my whole life in the oak-panelled, green-benched corridors of Westminster.

What London Citizens teach is that politics matters, but that politics happens everywhere there is power. That includes Westminster – but also business, local government, the City, in academia, in churches and mosques.

 Many people have an ambiguous, even uncomfortable relationship with power. They don’t like to be seen exercising it – they either deprecate their own ability to wield it, or pretend that they’re not in a position of power, even when they are. They also often talk as if having self-interests is the same as being selfish. But the combination of those views is an abdication. It means that power ends up being wielded by others and in the pursuit of other interests. It is only by recognising and proclaiming our self-interests that we can forge some common interests with others. And it’s only by coming together that we become powerful. Once that’s done, the next task is to work out who has the power to meet those demands. It could be the boss of a company that we want to persuade to pay a living wage. It could be a council housing officer who needs to get some repairs done. It could be the party leaders who have the power to put a cap on interest rates, or increase spending on international development.

Once we’ve worked out who has the power, we need to get into a relationship with them. A political relationship. One where they recognise our strength and the valid nature of our demands. That’s where numbers come in – showing through public meetings or actions that the organisation speaks for a large number of people. A huge amount of the work of community organisers – the paid cadre – is ringing people up to ask if the organisers can meet them, and to maybe one day persuade people to turn up to a meeting. I am full of awe for the dedication and courage, the listening and motivating skills, of the community organisers that I have met. Then the final step – once we’ve got a working relationship – we need to learn to compromise – to work out how to reconcile our interest in change with the legitimate interests of those in power.

Because in the end, we don’t judge our achievements by the noise we make but by the difference we achieve. It was this pragmatic empowerment that attracted me to community organising. I have never been very interested in the kind of campaigning which judges itself on the pureness of its principles or the extremism of its protests. We are not going to change global capitalism through street mime. Very often, I have wondered whether this kind of protest is actually representative of the people in whose name it is made. It can be as top-down and patronising as much of politics and government are at their worst. Community organising is the opposite. It only works if it grows out of hundreds of people, represented through institutions of society – whether churches, mosques, student unions or youth groups.

Politics can learn from this work. The most obvious lesson is that we need to replace meetings with change, and minutes with relationships. The classic Labour Party event is a general committee meeting where people turn up to listen to their MP and councillors speak. Of course, many constituencies do better than this – using meetings for political education by inviting interesting speakers, or those active constituencies that spend more time campaigning than meeting. But even these changes are not sufficient. The Labour movement did not start as a vehicle for election. It started off as an association for change – for providing welfare services to Power to the people: autumn assembly of London Citizens in 2009.

Photo: Chris Jepson

Politics, citizens and grass-roots involvement – 1 10

THE TABLET 10 April 2010 each other, for Churches and trade unions to come together to negotiate a common agenda. I’ll be campaigning hard for the Labour Party in this election. But whatever the result, afterwards my party has a great chance to rediscover those roots. It would mean far more one-to-ones where party members talk to each other about what got them involved in politics and how they want the world to change.

It would involve negotiating a common interest – perhaps setting to one side some of the issues of personal freedom that divide us – but concentrating on the common issues that unite us. It would mean working with other parties and other parts of civil society to achieve those changes – but not being upset if on other occasions those groups are campaigning against us. We have different interests and those coalitions will shift.

Most of all, it would mean remembering the iron rule of community organising – never do for anyone anything that they can do for themselves. This is the key insight of Saul D. Alinsky, the godfather of community organising. People have to be part of the solution to their own problems – anything else robs them of their dignity. That’s why I’ve always felt that giving people choice over their public services was so important – for people to achieve lasting change, they have to define the goal and they have to be part of reaching it.

In his book Rules for Radicals: a pragmatic primer for realistic radicals, Alinsky made the surprising claim that what mattered was the process, rather than the outcome. He was exaggerating to make a point – of course, the content of the campaigns matters. But his point still stands – it’s just as important for people to come together to realise that they have power. Because that is what undermines fatalism – once people see that they can remedy one grievance, they will see that they can shape other changes. And that’s when society will be able to play its role in resisting the power of the state and of markets. We can all play our part in re-threading society. Some will do it by being professional community organisers. Some will do it by being leaders in their communities – the people who go to church or help run their local school, but feel that a wider engagement with power is necessary to achieve the goals of their organisation.

Some will give money, some will just agree when one of their board members comes up with this crazy idea of joining London Citizens. Some will turn up to public meetings. Some will give testimony to the need for change.

Some will pick and mix between these, as I hope to. But far from being an alternative to politics, this is a revival of the purpose of politics – and for me of an earlier Labour tradition that has much to teach, whatever happens on 6 May.

James Purnell, an MP until Monday, is director of the Open Left project at the left-leaning think tank Demos. This article first appeared in The Tablet.

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