a few thoughts on "changing britain"
Last weekend I attended an event at the fantastic Northern College, just outside Barnsley.
It was described as a political summer school with the title Changing Britain.
Over two days against a surreal backdrop of an old manor house, and mock castle defended by actual Redcoats and threatened by marrauding Jacobites (I know!), a group of around 50 trade unionists and a few community activists discussed ideas for the kind of Britain we wanted to see, and what we would need to do to get there.
There were 9 panel speakers (all men, and mostly middle aged - but I digress) from the TUC, Unite, UK Uncut, Boycott Workfare, and the Morning Star, as well as David Malone a documentary maker and writer who specialises in banking, debt, and money.
There were several workshops and discussion fora, where we broke up into groups to brainstorm ideas, and these were pretty good. There was a lot of free flowing discussion, and some genuinely interesting ideas.
My only real criticism of the weekend which was overall useful and interesting would be the demand shared by most participants as well as the organiser that we come up with a collective plan of action by 3pm on Sunday. I'm not convinced 50 disparate people from across 8 or so unions and a couple of direct action based groups are capable of or really willing to come up with a collective approach in that short a time.
And in the end, other than a vague promise to contact and info share, it doesn't seem like we really did come up with a collective plan...
A far better outcome and one I think might happen anyway is for particpants to go away and put what they've learned and discussed into practice.
That's what I'm doing anyway, and hopefully in conjunction with some of the UNISON activists I met there.