[Campaignforrealdemocracy] campaign real democracy - actually starting to campaign!

Mon Oct 12 12:49:45 BST 2009

To Mark and James

Echo the points about local area forums - I think the key thing for me is that they are council controlled but present themselves as benign people led spaces (which they ain't) because power and control lies with the local state; but being canny about it there are, I agree links to be made with frustrated councilors - but bear in mind the party political machine, this is a dangerous game but can be exploited at time of local elections - summer 2010; Lewisham where I live and worked for a long time, is particularly opportune to this kind of pressure given it has no over all control (as a result of a local swimming pool campaign - google ladywell pool for an enlightening story of local action that saw 2 wards go Green in 2006 and Labour lose an outright majority for the first time since 1972 or similar)

I agree with building alliances with local authorities but lets talk more about what our non negotiables are because as James says there is a lot of 'charade' and sham  in what they are up to and a real desperation to exploit all and any local community action and then close the space down - apologies for being a cynic in this regard but I think the local state is inherently toxic in this regard and we can exploit its huge democratic deficit by realising they and it needs us far far more than we need them

Keen for CSC to get involved and all other hats I wear - such as London CD workers network, look forward to meeting up

Matt

Matthew Scott

CSC Director

020 7336 9461

Work mobile: 07827 258411

Website: www.communitysectorcoalition.org.uk

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________________________________
From: Mark Barrett [mailto:marknbarrett at googlemail.com]
Sent: 11 October 2009 21:07
To: campaignforrealdemocracy at lists.aktivix.org; project2012 at googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: [Campaignforrealdemocracy] campaign real democracy - actually starting to campaign!

Hi James

Thanks for the update!

>From my side of things:

Here in Southgate I am continuing to work on developing a long term partnership between residents, traders, educational establishments, human rights and humanist/faith groups, encouraging them to come together for the accessible idea of a democratically run, and community owned street market on a small but suitable patch of pavement. From there, for me it is a short skip towards real local sovereignty - which I always mention in the same context - because the right to run a street market and receive the rental income from it (rather than it going to the Council) is a form of sovereignty in itself. A community owned asset..

And so I agree 100% it's about working with people you wouldn't normally consider as allies.  So far I've got some support for the idea but I need to develop it further. Luckily I've been offered some collaboration with Southgate College, who are stationed right next to the site in question, so fingers crossed that will be a plus to the campaign's potential.

Local Area Forums, which you mention are definitely in need of democratisation and if they are like the ones up here they cover three wards. So far I've found LAFs relatively good for info gathering (altho by no means perfect) and quite frustrating in other ways. There maybe room for common cause around the issue of over centralisation - half the time it seems that both Cllrs AND residents are equally frustrated by Westminster's huge powers over and so it's hard to feel anything other than it all being a big talk shop; an  exercise in Council being seen to be doing the right thing but actually not that effective because no real powers. As with consultations it's al quite top down. If you have some allies and can present yourselves as a decent sized coalition defintely consider pushing them to sit in the democratic fashion in a circle and all - can't wait to hear how you get on!

Also there is now the possibility in London to create your own parish council althought I think that's quite a procedural obstacle course. Might be worth looking into though as PC's can raise there own revenue via taxation (ie in our case, democratically agree ie non compulsory subscription).

Other stuff moving forward:

(1) Theatre Project with Teresa Hoskyns and a number of pro-theatre people aimed at getting schools involved in the great issues via the old Greek democratic idea of Agon Theatre.. we are applying to do a show at the GLA Scoop Space and have some schools on board already

(2) Local version of 21st Century Network in Enfield to bolster the other work that's going on. Francis and I are developing 'Make Politics Matter' initiative with local schools to get them interested in political issues and community action / sovereignty and tap into their creativity and we're getting interest from schools across the Borough. Email me for more info on this!

(3) Dec 2 Real Democracy and Right to the City meeting with 21CN; speaking Matt Scott of CRD and Community Sector Coalition, Teresa Hoskyns of Queens Market defence group, Project 2012 and me. We hope to make this a launch for a Civil Society union event in 2010 around the idea of Local Sovereignty. Glad to have yr support  - register at http://www.meetup.com/21stCenturyNetwork/

(4) I would like to link the local work I am doing with the Transition Towns initiative - be grateful of someone could put me in touch with anyone suitable in North London to talk me through what's involved. Also, did you see the flier for 21st Nov I put round earlier. See attached. I think it would be good to have a CRD presence there and I'm talking to Matt about this in the context of our planned event for next year and maybe making a short presentation there.

(5) Great to hear about the Climate Camp plans!

Mark

2009/10/11 James Holland <james at dogmanet.org<mailto:james at dogmanet.org>>

Hello CRD people. I've been really quiet on this list recently because I've been actually starting to do some campaigning groundwork for building some examples of real democracy.

As the climate camp was in SE london, I have some connections in the area and there are loads of inspiring grassroots campaigns going on; I have moved into the area and have spent the last few weeks meeting with transition towns, anti gentrification campaigns, labour struggles, anti school closure groups, residents associations, community forums etc etc.

I've learned loads already including that you have to be more pragmatic about who you work with and how, and to look beyond people''s labels and affiliations. There's good people everywhere!

 I'm focusing my efforts generally on lewisham and southwark, but also on particular areas within those boroughs. both of these boroughs have council-created forums that cover a small area (1 ward or slightly larger) that  i think are good targets to try and increase their democracy (open agendas, using consensus, encouraging more people to be involved) but also gradually taking more power. the first steps are to talk to people already involved in these structures and find out what's already happening, then probably to get them to use some of their budgets to increase participation, a

I'm planning to build on the definition I sent out before which was something like - real democracy is when all the people of a community take complete and equal control for doing everything their community needs, (and no one has any power to say what other communities should do.)

I can also report that there is an idea within climate camp to arrange something for the lead up to the election to expose the charade of democracy.

james holland

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