In the first of a short series of episodes exploring the topic of community organising, Sonali Bhattacharyya joins Tom to discuss anti-raids organising in Waltham Forest. How does a group form? What else in the wider ecosystem needs to be considered and engaged with? What works? What makes it sustainable and effective? Sonali talks generously and honestly about what she has learned and what we can all learn and do. The need for anti-raids organising is particularly acute at this moment, and there is much in this discussion that shows how interconnected and important other forms of community organising are in making this ground-level work effective. There is a lot of insight into the practicalities and what makes things work which listeners will find useful in their own activity.

Links mentioned in the episode:

Anti-Raids Network https://antiraids.net/

Everybody to Kenmure Street (doc) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Everybody_to_Kenmure_Street

Suburban Socialism by Oliver Durose https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/696636/suburban-socialism-by-oly-durose/

Defend The Community Organising Unit: Activists into Organisers by Tom Williams https://newsocialist.org.uk/activists-organisers/

In this episode we revisit Your Party via two previous guests who were involved in organising within the party to learn about what has happened and what we might want to do next.

Max Shanly wrote some of the most influential arguments ahead of the founding conference and produced actual working documents that added a level of development much less often reached. These things and further organising led to being deeply involved with groups that formed the Grassroots Left slate in the CEC elections. But after the slate associated with Corbyn and the party's bureaucracy won out the party has taken a different direction. Max talks about what has happened and what should be next.

The After Party

Towards a New Model Left Party

Andrew Hedges' was also very involved in organising around YP, albeit from some different positions, but also ended up looking beyond Your Party. After having studied and written up a critical account of the Green Party he has subsequently joined it, along with other socialists, seeing it as a more productive place to be. He takes us through the reasoning along with assessments of the Labour Party, the wider landscape, and with a maintained critical eye on the Green Party itself.

Contingency, contradictions and change in the Green Party of England and Wales

Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi's CEC report, mentioned in the first half:

Full CEC Meeting Report - 12th April

This is the final episode of this series with Tom Gann exploring how Marx understood class, and how we can understand class. There is a lot covered in this interesting and useful discussion, including thinking about the complexities of working class groups interests or needs in relation to those of groups in the global south; the role of cheap food in the British class system; what happens with permanent increased costs of energy and other essentials; remembering that action precedes consciousness; and what to do with the middle and upper classes. Get stuck in!

Check out our guest Tom's co-publication and writing here:

https://newsocialist.org.uk/

It's not simply humanity that is dominant in shaping the world and the climate, it's Capitalism. This might seem like an obvious statement to our listeners, but in this episode Jason W. Moore shows how deep ideas counter to this go and have been absorbed by many of us concerned with acting on the climate crisis. Even the term 'climate crisis' can be understood so much better, and the history and processes that Moore explains teaches us a lot about the current situation and what we can do about it. Why did imperialism need to create 'nature'? Why do myths about overpopulation persist? What caused the end of Feudalism? What roles do gender, race, class and soil play in the dynamics of our world, and the web of life? How are current events shaping the re-alignment of responses to a fundamental change in climate systems? Answers to these questions and lots more to think about, and do.

Jason's website:

https://jasonwmoore.com/

New Socialist interview mentioned:

https://newsocialist.org.uk/be-comrades-web-life-conversation-jason-w-moore/

Palestine, in fundamental ways, is not exceptional. And by understanding why this is the case we can organise and act in the best ways to liberate Palestine. In this episode we are very grateful to be joined by Rafeef Ziadah, Adam Hanieh and Robert Knox to talk about how to understand the situation of Palestine within the larger structures that shape the world today. Global capitalism, imperialism and the racialisation inherent to these systems. Palestine is a class society. Israel is a capitalist settler-colony. Imperial forces are driven by and use political-economic forces. Their book Resisting Erasure: Capital, Imperialism and Race in Palestine provides material analysis that shows how what underlies what is happening in Palestine relates to the wider region and to our own positions in other parts of the world. This helps us connect our organising in society, our unions and our parties with what is taking place in Palestine. And it prevents us from abstracting and exceptionalising what's happening in Palestine in ways that miss the real forces at play, that mystify our relationship to what's happening and that are racist. It's often said that Palestine teaches us, and Rafeef, Adam and Robert help us understand what we should learn, and what we can then know to do.

Resisting Erasure: Capital, Imperialism and Race in Palestine

by Adam Hanieh, Robert Knox and Rafeef Ziadah

https://www.versobooks.com/en-gb/products/3410-resisting-erasure?srsltid=AfmBOorDNdwtPMgAAwwWOWokQ6Vqqh3YU2o0K4n-a4O81kOfKW5gj0Cw

The Oslo Illusion 

https://jacobin.com/2013/04/the-oslo-illusion/

In this episode we are joined by Jen Forbes of The Many, the Corbynite slate standing for the Your Party co-leadership. As the leadership elections are happening this week, we learn about a significant section of the party, and potentially a significant section of the UK left, in this open and enlightening conversation. What kind of 'socialist' could Your Party be with The Many facilitating its development? Are Marxist and anti-capitalists welcome? What might happen to existing proto-branches? What are ideas behind the grouping and how did it come together? Is electoralism the dominant function? What will community organising mean? And what might Corbyn's role be? All these things and much more. A comradely meeting on which we can act and build. Thank you Jen.

https://www.themany.uk/

In the second part of this mini-series, Tom Gann takes us through the Marxist analysis that says the working class is not actually a majority. What are the ways of understanding class that lead to this common assumption and how might activists think about building a mass party? How else might people and different struggles in society be understood and what are the relationships when you throw a party into the mix? Was Marx wrong about class? And what about the theory around value and labour that Marx was using to conceive his interpretations of class and what drives a potential revolution? Gann helps us understand and explore these things with his generous and engaging contributions.

You can read the New Socialist here: ⁠https://newsocialist.org.uk/⁠

And follow Tom here: https://x.com/Tom_Gann

How do we act to respond to the climate crisis in the context of a climate movement that has long-lasting organisations with limited impact and others that have had more immediate mass impact but burnt out quickly—is a party the way forward? Chris Saltmarsh has been thinking about and studying this for a long time, and was at the centre of a key recent attempt to organise climate activism with party politics with Labour for a Green New Deal. He gives us insight into the politics and practice of organised climate activism in the UK in recent times and explains why he set-up Eco-Socialist Horizon to engage with the formation of Your Party and why he is standing on the Grassroots Left slate for the governing body. This episode explains a lot, from climate justice to eco-socialism to conjunctional analysis, and covers the Green Party, XR and Green Capitalism. It's good stuff.

Eco-Socialist Horizon https://linktr.ee/Eco_Socialist_Horizon

The Eco-Socialist https://theecosocialist.co.uk/about-2/

This deep dive episode gets theoretical about class. In this first part of three, writer and editor at the New Socialist Tom Gann takes us through what Marx meant by class and what the working class is in Marxist terms. With statements about Your Party 'being a working class party', and saying that the Green Party is not, we have to engage with what this might actually mean. This is an episode that requires closer listening. There is a lot in here that people newer to this area of theory can follow and use in thinking about class right now, as well as layers that can be further explored. Further episodes will explore further.

You can read the New Socialist here: https://newsocialist.org.uk/

And follow Tom here: https://x.com/Tom_Gann

'Tis the season for seeing friends and family and thinking about the year gone by—so this episode does both of these things. Friend of the pod Tom Greenwood joins Tom and Kallum to guide us through the sect groups of the left that many of us will have come across but not have really understood. The Your Party founding process brought some of these groups to more prominence this year than many will be used to. They are an active and often mysterious feature of left politics for many who choose to get involved. Here we learn more about the Good, the Bad and the Ugly of far-left sects: the Trots; the SWP; Comrade Delta; Tankies; the acronyms; the newspapers; Leon Trotsky himself; the differences; the tactics. Who are they and why are they like that? Get your bearings so that you can be more streetwise in your activism. Merry Christmas!