Urban75 Home About Offline BrixtonBuzz Contact

Political Groups: If you had to recommend one to join?

Who should they join?

  • Momentum (Labour)

    Votes: 8 23.5%

  • Green Party

    Votes: 3 8.8%

  • Socialist Party

    Votes: 2 5.9%

  • Some other Trot group

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • CPB (or similar)

    Votes: 1 2.9%

  • SolFed

    Votes: 3 8.8%

  • IWW

    Votes: 8 23.5%

  • AFed

    Votes: 1 2.9%

  • ACG

    Votes: 6 17.6%

  • Plan C

    Votes: 1 2.9%

  • IWCA

    Votes: 7 20.6%

  • Other

    Votes: 4 11.8%
  • Total voters
    34
chilango

chilango

Hypothetical Wanker
If a friend (let's say for sake of argument they're to the left of Labour politically and in England, cos I'm not really interested in what's to the Right in this thread) wanted to "join a group"....Who would you recommend, and why?

I'm sure I've missed some groups out of the poll, but there you go. Sorry
 
It depends on their politics, surely?
For starters the IWW is a union and there may be better options depending on where they work. It serves as a kind of home to some activists though. Plan C is very post grad orientated, even if it pretends it isn’t. I don’t know much about Trot groups, tend to be the MC masquerading as workers also though.
 
I've been a member of a couple of those, and vaguely involved in a couple more. Different groups for different reasons at different times.

The only one that I'd actively not recommend is The Socialist Party, which was just so very, very boring, and not actually doing much from what I could see.
 
Magnus McGinty said:
It depends on their politics, surely?
For starters the IWW is a union and there may be better options depending on where they work. It serves as a kind of home to some activists though. Plan C is very post grad orientated, even if it pretends it isn’t. I don’t know much about Trot groups, tend to be the MC masquerading as workers also though.
Click to expand...

Let's say they're pretty open minded left with no baggage. All groups are active where they live or nearby. They just want to join an organisation to become more formally involved.

It's a convoluted hypothetical to try and get a feel for these groups standings around here (U75, not Reading!) these days...
 
Jon-of-arc said:
I've been a member of a couple of those, and vaguely involved in a couple more. Different groups for different reasons at different times.

The only one that I'd actively not recommend is The Socialist Party, which was just so very, very boring, and not actually doing much from what I could see.
Click to expand...

...what are your thoughts on these groups on reflection?
 
Fozzie Bear said:
Cop out answer is "it depends where you are based".

Meeting up with SolFed if you were in Brighton or the IWCA in Oxford (after a read of their website pages) would probably be a good idea.
Click to expand...

Yeah, IRL that might oftenbe the deciding factor, but let's pretend they're all near enough geographically.
 
chilango said:
Let's say they're pretty open minded left with no baggage. All groups are active where they live or nearby. They just want to join an organisation to become more formally involved.

It's a convoluted hypothetical to try and get a feel for these groups standings around here (U75, not Reading!) these days...
Click to expand...

Out of those, I’ve got time for the IWCA, and SolFed to a lesser extent (but like the IWW they’re more workplace focused; not a bad thing but that makes them more a union).
 
I'd recommend none of the above but that they instead find a particular political battleground that interests them (housing, migration, health, whatever), then work out who is doing more radical* work on that issue and join them. There is always a way to tie particular fights into wider politics and for me the particular fight is often the better place to start from as it roots your politics in the basics - how people experience things, how they relate to each other, and so on. This so often gets obscured when you start with a higher-level political affiliation.

*I realise definitions of this may vary but that's for your friend to decide. Is this really for a friend? :hmm:
 
chilango said:
Yeah, IRL that might oftenbe the deciding factor, but let's pretend they're all near enough geographically.
Click to expand...

Personally I'm not in any groups at the moment but Solfed, IWCA and IWW seem decent enough.

AFED and ACG seem to be having a bit of a weird time at the moment and will probably take time to settle down?

Plan C are out of the picture for me after an interesting start because of their weird attitude to Corbyn. Also what Magnus said.

Angry Workers of the World - not sure if they are a "group" or not but seem pretty cool.

You've missed off local groups like Haringey Solidarity and others...

Trots, Greens, Momentum - not for me.
 
chilango said:
...what are your thoughts on these groups on reflection?
Click to expand...

Well, Greens was just because I'd become friends with Rob W, so whenever we met up he'd drag me out doorknocking, which was a chance to catch up. Ended up going to a few meetings to help organise around election time. Nice enough people, never too heavy on the politics. I would probably never join, just something social to do.

IWW was something I involving myself in because I liked the idea of "one big union", but the reality of "one tiny union" made it hard to get passionate about. The politics and organising was taken very seriously, even if it never seemed to get very far. The social side was good.

Labour is something that I've been a member of, and tried a couple of times to get involved with. Meetings were dry as fuck. No one ever approached me about getting involved in momentum or whatever. I've since moved towns and can't really find a local labour to get involved with, even though I've asked and am a member, let alone Momentum. I'm sure I'm missing a trick, but I don't know how.

SP was a talk each week about organising, with no actual organising done (apart from a bit of paper selling). The talk was usually boring. The word "pub" never came up. I got bored and stopped attending.
 
I'm pretty harsh these days in applying a test to a group of asking what are they doing, not what are they saying. So for me Plan C is problematic not because they put out some pro-Corbyn articles (which not everyone in Plan C agreed with by a long stretch) but because they've struggled to actually do anything at all.
 
Brainaddict said:
I'm pretty harsh these days in applying a test to a group of asking what are they doing, not what are they saying. So for me Plan C is problematic not because they put out some pro-Corbyn articles (which not everyone in Plan C agreed with by a long stretch) but because they've struggled to actually do anything at all.
Click to expand...

That’s because of their structure. It’s made up of activists who form into clusters doing various stuff (not necessarily under the Plan C banner) rather than an org that sees the promoting of the brand as a priority. Aside from their make-up being mostly post-grads (which isn’t different to a lot of left groups tbf) that approach is at least a change from the typical Marxist-Leninist left.
 
I've been in Labour for many years. It's ok, I go the pub after meetings with the union lot. We're a pretty radical bunch up here in Liverpool. But it's mostly trade unions, community groups and to a lesser extent Labour that is taken seriously. Greens do ok in a couple of wards south of the city and have a decent sized student following.

All the Trot/communist groups are irrelevant and don't get any real attention paid to them by anyone. If your a leftist here your probably in Labour or heavily involved with the unions (or both).

Guess it all depends where you are.
 
Last edited:
And Tories have, well the Tories. And we keep wondering why we lose even though there’s more of us...
 
My own view (a fairly distant one as I've not encountered anyobe except Greens/Labour around here) is:

I've a lot of time for the IWCA, if I was part of a stable, well-defined w/c community they'd be a preference. But I'm not. Nor am I likely to be in the foreseeable.

I *like* the IWW. But I work in a heavily unionised industry, and dual carding would be expensive and I can't see what the point would be.

Plan C ought to be an option. I dabble in post-grad studies, and aim to pursue this, and in theory their influence have a lot in common with mine. But Corbyn? Rojava? alarm bells are ringing loud for me.
 
Last edited:
A380 said:
And Tories have, well the Tories. And we keep wondering why we lose even though there’s more of us...
Click to expand...

Sorry for the derail but it’s easier for them because there’s less of them. The larger the group, the easier to divide it. It’s how it works.
 
chilango said:
Plan C ought to be an option. I dabble in post-grad studies, and aim to pursue this, and in theory their influence s have a lot in common with mine. But Corbyn? Rojava? alarm bells are ringing loud for me.
Click to expand...

This is because they’ve taken a broad approach (which has its pitfalls along with some benefits). It’s an umbrella org really.
 
Solfed helped to set up our local care workers network so I'll say them. Out of all the ones that I've come across them, IWW, and Afed seem the most appealing.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

N
Ever had a negative reaction to a political T-shirt?
2 3 4 5 6
Replies
151
Views
6K
albionism
albionism
Veronika94
What's happened to classic,old-fashioned political scandals?
Replies
27
Views
791
tim
tim
E
My tactical voting dilemma - and yours if you have one
2 3 4
Replies
96
Views
2K
JimW
JimW
Eric Jarvis
New group to challenge Steve Reed at general election
Replies
20
Views
925
Eric Jarvis
Eric Jarvis
tim
Anyone worried about the UK becoming a one party state?
2
Replies
54
Views
2K
Kid_Eternity
Kid_Eternity
Back
Top Bottom