Northern Independence Party

[brogdale]

Yeah, I gotta say that I tried canvassing for Labour (despite not being a member) and it felt like a very poor use of time, except for the get-out-the-vote aspect, i.e. making sure the people who already like you turned out. A paid or volunteer leaflet drop might be helpful as people like to feel that you are making an effort. Alas I agree that facebook ads will probably be more effective (alas because giving more money to the monster and knowing you'll mostly be outspent by the right wing is a bit grim).

The thing is, without accurate canvassing, it's almost impossible to GOTV effectively.
Unless, of course, you're just relying on data, mosaics and digital spend.

 

[brogdale]

I'm not even sure what point there is in a GOTV operation tbh, I've participated in loads of them and at best have managed to get a couple of people who were probably going to vote anyway to go to the polling station 20 minutes early. It gives activists something to do I suppose - in fact, the camraderie building aspect of canvassing is probably quite important for maintaining local groups.

That accords with my dim, distant memories of doorstep canvassing, but now apparently there's a big emphasis on securing postal vote sign ups as the turnout rates can be 3X the turn-up rate.

 

[Wilf]

Wasn't Syriza started by a group of Greek academics?

Sloppy writing on my part. Yes, from what I remember, academics at one point and then a bunch of parties and factions with regard to another iteration of the party. So yes, not a community initiative as such. I was partly just making the point that Syriza emerged into a space that opened up on the left and in a PR system. Though it was part of a social movement which was linked with all the health clinics and the rest. Not all 'badged' as Syriza, but certainly part of an overlapping movement.

 

[Wilf]

That accords with my dim, distant memories of doorstep canvassing, but now apparently there's a big emphasis on securing postal vote sign ups as the turnout rates can be 3X the turn-up rate.

Postal votes. or Trump Schadenfreude Votes as I like to call them.

 

[mauvais]

I suspect people may well vote for some for PR, provided it was a genuinely proportional system, unlike the wet fart version the liberals sold their souls for last time. Trouble is, getting to the point where such a referendum is offered. The Tories certainly won't offer it, so it would have to be a hung Parliament with Lab + Lib + SNP getting a majority (assuming Scotland is still in the UK). It's a bold claim, but I'd say the tories have already won the 2024 election, so that scenario doesn't even become a mathematical possibility till 2029.

I'm not really thinking on these reform terms, to be honest. In one permutation I'm thinking something driven by major unrest in the one party state, not necessarily the R word but an eventual rejection of the current system that we aren't able to envisage in any detail right now. Maybe more so if and when it's just England on its own.

As to not understanding northern identity and being an 'onlooker'... I was born in Rochdale and now live in Middlesbrough, in fact I've never lived anywhere other than the North. Also, I'm not 'looking at it as absolute and literal in its aim - secession through parliamentary means'. Haven't even considered that, my comments are purely about whether NIP can re-establish any kind of social democracy without Corbyn/northern socialism.

An ideal scenario would be the NIP getting a few thousand and giving Labour pause for thought. I don't think will happen, ,tbh - Labour are a lost cause. I'd be more excited to see something like the Durham Socialist Clothing Bank moving in a political direction and perhaps putting up council candidates. That's not going to happen, for a number of reasons, not least of which is it's tied in to union support and thus Labour.

Fair enough about not understanding northern identity - perhaps the inverse, then, in that you don't recognise what's missing elsewhere. I lived in Hampshire for a decade, city and village, and there is no comparable identity. Either way - I think the bit about parliamentary means is repeated in what you say here. What would 'establish any kind of social democracy' mean? It still all sounds like win actual votes and take actual power, but what if the real outcome is to shift the discourse such that - for example - the main parties have to stop taking the north so much for granted and make some policy plays to win support for once?

 

[Favelado]

At the very least, I'm hoping that NIP can get us a separate forum on here.

 

[Brainaddict]

Best of luck to this lot. I'm not massively into parliamentary politics but if I was I would be pushing PR above everything else right now. Until that happens all new left parties are just nudges to the Labour Party at best. I suppose UKIP showed that nudges can achieve a lot but it was a strange convergence of forces and you can't reproduce successes like that easily.

 

[killer b]

At the very least, I'm hoping that NIP can get us a separate forum on here.

do you want to secede from the Midlands and the North forum?

 

[Wilf]

Best of luck to this lot. I'm not massively into parliamentary politics but if I was I would be pushing PR above everything else right now. Until that happens all new left parties are just nudges to the Labour Party at best. I suppose UKIP showed that nudges can achieve a lot but it was a strange convergence of forces and you can't reproduce successes like that easily.

This.

 

[teuchter]

At the very least, I'm hoping that NIP can get us a separate forum on here.

Perhaps at the same time my longstanding demand that it be renamed "North of England" can be satisfied, so that everyone can be clear that it does not have anything to do with the north of the UK, the north of London, or other northern portions of things which don't want to suffer reputational damage by association.

 

[Favelado]

do you want to secede from the Midlands and the North forum?

I'm happy to continue collaborating with the Mercians, as with all other neighbouring states, but feel that Northumbria must be fairly represented.

Wales (population 3.13 million) and Dulwich Hamlet (stadium capacity 3,000) each have their own forum. I think the North of England (14.93 million people) and The Midlands (population 10.72 million) should too.

 

[kebabking]

I'm happy to continue collaborating with the Mercians, as with all other neighbouring states, but feel that Northumbria must be fairly represented.

Wales (population 3.13 million) and Dulwich Hamlet (stadium capacity 3,000) each have their own forum. I think the North of England (14.93 million people) and The Midlands (population 10.72 million) should too.

Reasonable view - 25 million people, and 300 miles of landmass gets lumped into one forum. Brixton, an area you could walk across in 30 minutes, gets its own forum...

 

[Favelado]

Reasonable view - 25 million people, and 300 miles of landmass gets lumped into one forum. Brixton, an area you could walk across in 30 minutes, gets its own forum...

You're a faster walker than me.

 

[Puddy_Tat]

You seem to be the only one here reducing it to a pure sex scandal.

I think the North of England (14.93 million people) and The Midlands (population 10.72 million) should too.

yes, but how many of threads on both would be arguments about whether [insert place name] is in the north or in the midlands?

 

[Dom Traynor]

Just on canvassing. Now I'm not saying people should canvass under COVID, although phone banking might actually be welcome if done properly - as a kind of check in on people's welfare.

But - the reason big political parties with loads of experience and resources and tiny upstart parties like the Socialist Party in Coventry and IWCA in wherever try and do lots of doorstep activities is because if you don't your vote is significantly worse than if you do. So while it can feel like you're not having much impact at the time you actually are.

It's not the only thing but it's a massive must in the UK.

 

[killer b]

Doorstep activity is good, but blitz canvassing in the weeks before an election when there's not been significant doorstep activity outside election periods? I'm not so sure.

 

[killer b]

Also I think things have changed massively since parties like the IWCA were still running campaigns. There was zero canvassing done in Preston in 2017, and the vote went up for Labour by more or less the same percentage points as they did in Lancaster where we hammered the doorstep. More in fact I think - this was a pattern repeated across the country. The late groundswell of support for Labour in that election did not come from doorstep work, anymore than the thousands of hours of doorstep work Labour members put in in 2019 was able to save that one. All the action was online.

 

[Dom Traynor]

Also I think things have changed massively since parties like the IWCA were still running campaigns. There was zero canvassing done in Preston in 2017, and the vote went up for Labour by more or less the same percentage points as they did in Lancaster where we hammered the doorstep. More in fact I think - this was a pattern repeated across the country. The late groundswell of support for Labour in that election did not come from doorstep work, anymore than the thousands of hours of doorstep work Labour members put in in 2019 was able to save that one. All the action was online.

Fair enough my last UK experience is from 2016 so things may have changed.

I certainly wouldn't argue for Blitz campaigning with no steady door to door work between elections, but the two combined were essential previously (and still are in NZ).

 

[ska invita]

People joked that NIP=Anti-Semitism attacks would come
Well they've come

https://www.thejc.com/news/uk/northern-independence-party-leader-s-israel-zionist-posts-revealed-1.513655

This account is full of it - National Vice Chair of the Jewish Labour Movement

https://twitter.com/stephane_ulrich

More here from an editor of Jewishnews.co.uk

 

[Shechemite]

Antisemite or no, doesn’t he come across as a bit odd?

 

[mx wcfc]

Antisemite or no, doesn’t he come across as a bit odd?

He does, yes (the milf thing) but he's a "doctor working in the NHS during Covid, so everyone has to vote for him" appears to be Labour's approach.

 

[Shechemite]

A doctor working in the NHS

I think one of the ‘In defence of mad Bristol professor’ open letters was signed by an maudsley psychiatrist.

 

[Shechemite]

The IHRA-ers will be loving this. They seemed rattled by the Jerusalem declaration the other day.

 

[The39thStep]

 

[Shechemite]

Clash of the titans

 

[Raheem]

I've met Thelma Walker a few times, although not since she left the Labour Party. I think she's alright.

But they've put a fucking whippet in their logo. Sorry, that's me out.

 

[Sprocket.]

Clash of the titans

Folk from Yorkshire involved would make it Cash of the tight uns!

 

[killer b]

People seem really agitated about the whippet. What for?

 

[Shechemite]

They ought to calm down, calm down

 

[Sprocket.]

People seem really agitated about the whippet. What for?

At least a step up from a picture of coal in the bath.