A response to our question, What next?
Shan Morgain: First congratulations and thanks to Antony and Henry, and everyone else who created this great starting point. Now we need to go further.
Towards the end of this post I give a seven point practical plan for how to go forward.
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ANTHONY BARNETT SAYS:
“Look to yourself and what you can do in concert with others. Remember that we are powerful together – and if you don’t feel this to be so, perhaps it is because this is how they want you to feel. Many organisations are already combating the four-fold undermining of liberty as we can see. Please join and support them.”
Anthony – if doing it on our own, including networking, were enough we wouldn’t have come to or connected with the Convention. We are looking for a meta-network that can link small efforts together.
HENRY PORTER SAYS:
“When people ask me what next? I reply, well, reading the papers would be a start. Find out who your MP is and pester them; set up a local group to discuss the attack on liberty and what you can do about it, which is exactly how my co-director, Anthony Barnett, and I began three years ago.”
Three years ago Henry that was appropriate and admirable. But we can’t afford to wait another two or three years while we all go into our local areas and work separately to start little groups and painfully nurture them through their baby steps. By the time they become effective a lot more damage will have been done. We need to work faster and stronger by linking together across the country. The Convention’s next step is in facilitating that.
PHIL BOOTH:
Thank you for your excellent concrete suggestion about registering dissent (refusal/ non consent) with our MPs under any Information Sharing Order, and demanding said MP vote to have Clause 152 of the Coroners and Justice Bill (currently being debated in Parliament) *completely removed* from the Bill.
We can also write to our GP and register dissent to permitting our Health Records to be “shared” with any agency not directly and specifically working on our health in a medical way.
We can also make enquiries about our children to see if they have been fingerprinted, issued with any kind of ID Card, or interviewed by Connexions or any similar agency. If so demand this is dismantled, destroyed, Encourage anyone you know who has children to do this. With one exception: if under Child Protection “supervision” you cannot
affoprd to anger the bullies.
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Finally more generally how can we best go forward from the Convention’s day of opening up possibilities?
I do not think that aiming at key constitutional change (at this point) is realistic. We don’t have the clout to do it. It would take many years to achieve as a first goal, and would have to be backed by judges and at least some MPs of all parties. They aren’t going to work to change what feeds them. Constitutional change may well happen as a result of other activities building up though.
Where I think we need to build on the Convention is connecting together. That is ultimately the greatest power we have. Connecting means sharing resources. ideas, knowledge, contacts. Some of us have these and the more they are passed on the better. For some excellent ideas on how this can develop see the post-Convention blog, Cardiff sector.
John Davies gives superb analysis and recommendations – almost a recipe of ‘What Next’!
Every freedom movement I have known started from small groups. In that Anthony and Henry are dead right. But sending us off to set up groups will leave most people floundering. It takes knowledge and skill. Not so hard to learn but people do need a bit of help from those who know, to get started.
It will be important to work in connection not only with each other but in connection with other Liberty type organisations, Open Democracy, Liberty, Amnesty etc A Convention group will need to contact other organisations and offer support and ask for help.
What precisely each group does will depend on its members. One group might focus on Clause 152 of the Coroners and Justice Bill. Another on ID cards. Whatever their agreed major focus – which could be 2 or 3 things for a larger group – the group needs to be willing to help other groups doing other things. Otherwise we’re not working together. Small
favours exchanged, members going to support another project or action, strengthens us all.
ONE The very first step is to get connected with 1) local people around the Convention 2) local people with other liberty based organisations and 3) less local people you feel are like you in affinity with you who might be useful and you might be useful to them.
TWO Through telephoning and email get together. Online meeting is definitely an option – MSN and Inbit Messenger are both free and can support group meetings. Inbit messenger can also handle different groups in different “rooms.” But nothing can replace really getting together.
THREE Share the yuck. Despair, disilusion, anger. This is an important stage if we are to move on. Everyone needs to be heard and respected, to remedy the way we are NOT heard and NOT respected.
FOUR From the connections, begin to identify something that most people feel strongly about. Something in common. Maybe two or three things. As specific as possible. Some members may need to put their pet concerns on the “second place” list but this should be with strict reassurances from others that once a bit of confidence and experience is going these issues will move to first place. It’s just that first activities are best about things held as widely in common as possible.
FIVE Now work out something definite and practical the group can do together about these key issues it shares. This might be something EVERYONE does – like writing to an MP, putting information notices up in the library or elsewhere locally; watching for news items where members can write comments onj liberty issues. Small steps like these first.
SIX Once the group has learned to carry out small projects like this effectively bigger things become poassible. Like visiting your town hall to speak to one of the committees or writing to a Parliamentary committee. Or do a public action, witnessing and talking with people about what’s wrong.
SEVEN Keep doing steps 3 4 and 5 – sharing disillusion and anger is raw liberty fuel. Identifying those secondary aims and picking up on them is important not to forget so as not to lose members. The more practice at doing definite things the better.
Then of course there’s the connections to other organisations to check every couple of weeks to see what they are doing. Networking is never lonely and rarely boring!
To start this off I am well placed by experience to support people who want to start groups. I also have a big comfortable building with meeting rooms right near the M4 and mainline stations (train/ bus). I can help and support anyone in Wales or Bristol directly around starting up groups, both for early steps and problems arising More distantly I can help with simple online software, and practical advice/ personal support.
I’m on the networking section here as Shan Morgain. See Crowdvine top right column on this page. Join it and contact me or others if you like. Alternatively email me on Shan*A*shansweb*.co.*uk leaving out the * asterisks and replacing A with @
Thank you very much for this practical post, clear advice and a generous offer. I hope we can all live up to it.
Anthony thank you in return. I should I think have spoken more positively about what you said, especially “we are powerful together – and if you don’t feel this to be so, perhaps it is because this is how they want you to feel. ” I very much agree there.
I have also quoted you a number of times when you were talking about transforming political process, going beyond party politics.
I did not include in my post above perhaps the most important point tut tut. I tapped your hand in a friendly way saying that it is not enough for us all to go off and get together locally or in affinity non-locally. Then I gave an outline on how to do that.
CONVENTION AS A SUPPORT NETWORK + PR FOR GROUPS
The vital missing part is how the Convention could be a support network for small groups and other organisations looking at local or specific issues. A Convention team is essential I think to publicise a list of groups to join – publicising a group is one of the hardest things to do and you already have this site and a media presence. If people can move from here to action groups listed that alone would justify the whole Convention project.
CONVENTION LINKING RESOURCES
If it went further the Convention could help link different groups and activists to each others’ resources. A good speaker is a resource e.g. to go round U3A meetings. A writer is a resource. Website designers are a resource and website owners are resources. a meeting where a group invites nonmembers from other areas is a resource. Lawyers are a VITAL resource. Nonviolent campaigners are a resource. Contacts with sympathetic MPs are resources. All these can be shared around to benefit each tiny group.
* * * A CONVENTION MONITOR * * *
On the Cardiff blog there is an excellent suggestion to run a monitoring brief.
The Convention made a great start on this in the lead up to Feb 28, listing those MPs who have voted against anti-liberty measures. This needs to continue and be updated continually.
There also needs to be a blacklist of MPs who haven’t voted against anti-liberty stuff so we can target them.
The combination could easily give MPs an automatic “Liberty rating” 4 star 3 star 2 star 1 star (for thanks) and failure star (for targeting).
Any new legislation that threatens us needs to be listed alongside the MPs monitor so the Convention Monitor becomes a coordination of targets and allies.
Finally a list of promises made by the Conservatives over the last year or two would be important. Then if they get in we can hold up the list and tick it off if they keep a promise, highlight it in yellow if it’s a good one to quote in a current issue, or highlight in grey if they ignore/ “forget” an item.
Promises by ALL parties in the lead up to the election could be summarised and treated similarly.
This could all be designed on one compact page:
First column for past track for MPs as the Convention did already: this could give them an automatic Liberty rating of stars, or failure symbol..
Second column for Opposition promises in the past, linking to a fuller text page to use for quotes in letters, news comments, articles.
Third column for the main 3 parties’ election promises, also linking to full text for quoting back at them.
Header text in column 2 and 3 to be clickable to highlight as GREY = Failed to keep promise / Yellow = Done, Red = currently especially relevant and active as issue. This last would apply now to Clause 152 of the Coroners and Justice Bill for example.
If anyone is contemplating raising the public profile of liberty issues by engaging in peaceful protest or non-violent direct action, you need to do some research first. Try a google search on “rights when arrested”, specifying sites from the UK. The first three are from urban75, The Site, and Liberty. They are all HIGHLY recommended.
All these sites contain a plethora of information, and the navigation around them can be complex. I would suggest the following, as ways in: On the page the urban75 site opens, use the link at the bottom of the left-hand menu to go to their legal homepage. On the Liberty site, use the bottom item on the menu; “The right of peaceful protest.”
Study up on this stuff until you have at least a basic familiarity!
And just as an afterthought, these three sites (and others) do show we still have some rights left, the State has not stripped them all away; and by far the best way to defend a right is to exercise it.
‘Every freedom movement I have known started from small groups. In that Anthony and Henry are dead right. But sending us off to set up
groups will leave most people floundering. It takes knowledge and skill. Not so hard to learn but people do need a bit of help from those who know, to get started. ‘
I agree with this but in many respects the basis for a ‘civil liberty’ network already exists.
All activist groups be they pro-Palestinian, Greenpeace, the Ramblers, Stop the War Coalition, groups for the fox, or against the fox, as well as dozens of groups involved in very local pressure groups, have a vested interest in preserving their right to campaign. We should try to get them involved.
NO2ID and Unlock Democracy both pledged to everyone at the Convention (and beyond) that we would help establish and support local groups. NO2ID already has an extensive network of groups across the country, there may well be one in a town or city near you – check http://www.no2id.net/localGroups/ to find out.
NO2ID provides support and assistance in fighting the database state in your area – campaign materials, information, advice, and *most importantly* we hook you up with other group coordinators (in your region, as well as online) for you to share experiences and ideas, to find out what works and what doesn’t, and to be connected with others who are also building groups and campaigning across the UK.
The important thing is to maintain a practical focus – actually *do* stuff. Success breeds success.
Getting together to meet is a first step – most of NO2ID’s groups start from no more than 3 or 4 people deciding to meet in a pub or somewhere else convenient. From this first meeting, you can discover your initial strengths and experiences – play to them.
Even after a first meeting, there are things you can do immediately – e.g. start writing letters to the letters page of your local papers, write to or even arrange to meet with you local MP (make sure you inform yourselves properly first, and choose one specific issue to talk about – right now, I’d suggest Clause 152 of the Coroners and Justice Bill). After a successful meeting, we usually assign a new group its own NO2ID e-mail address to give you a more ‘official’ presence for the local media and folks who want to get in touch.
*** If you want to campaign with NO2ID, get in touch (send an e-mail to Matty on local.groups@no2id.net) letting us know you want to meet up with others to start a new group – we will try to hook you up with people in your area who have also expressed an interest. ***
As more people realise there is activity in their area, the group will grow and you will be able to do more and different activities – stalls, press releases, photo-opportunities, public meetings, lobbying your Council, networking with other organisations, etc.
We’re not re-inventing the wheel here, and I won’t say that it isn’t hard work at times – but NO2ID is effective because tens of thousands of people have already got involved. Why don’t you?
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Just one example: last week I spoke at a public meeting held by NO2ID’s Brighton group, which I helped start back in 2004 just as NO2ID was setting up as a campaign.
NO2ID Brighton has had several fantastic coordinators over the past five years, one of whom moved North a while back and is now our Yorkshire and Humber regional coordinator (Hi, James!). They have held other public meetings in past years where hundreds have attended. Alice, Brighton’s current coordinator, tells me that Brighton alone now has over 3,000 people on its local mailing list.
The core group of volunteers hold regular stalls and public meetings, lobby not only their MPs but the city council, and handle local media – including a recent TV head-to-head with a local pro-ID MP. They’re just now ramping up for another push against the non-consensual uploading of people’s medical records to the NHS ‘Spine’.
The case against the database state is disproportionately well represented in Brighton and Hove – which is the whole point of having a local group. We *still* have to educate and engage the wider public, and the best way to get involved in doing this is from the ground up, from where you live.
Polly and I are wholeheartedly in support of your freedom mission. We are one of many factions who are looking to unite in a common goal that facilitates true democracy. It’s a great start and many are listening to the ‘rumble in the jungle’…but how will you provide a platform of voice to the poor? Our rights are inextricably linked with wealth. This is a specific that can be driven through to open up democracy for all….see Citizens Income. How class representative was Saturday’s turnout? Not meant as a criticism but rather food for thought?
http://wannabepm.blogspot.com/2009/03/democracy-for-poor.html