By Clare Brown
The new community campaign unit to ‘empower the people’ and ‘further invigorate’ the Labour Party in 2018 follows the major successes of the party last year as it achieved 554,000 members and now stands as the biggest political party in Western Europe. There is no doubt the recent youthquake has boosted Corbyn’s support and image as a potential Prime Minister.
The new community campaign unit to ‘empower the people’ and ‘further invigorate’ the Labour Party in 2018 follows the major successes of the party last year as it achieved 554,000 members and now stands as the biggest political party in Western Europe. There is no doubt the recent youthquake has boosted Corbyn’s support and image as a potential Prime Minister.
Since winning party leadership in late 2015, Corbyn has significantly improved the image of the Labour Party. The jump in membership figures means Corbyn now has more support than Blair’s party of 405,000 in 1997 which went on to form the largest government of any single party with 418 MPs. 1997 turned out to be the worst year for the Conservative party’s performance with just 165 seats. Corbyn will be hoping that the surge in popularity will allow him to achieve similar success in the next general election - which could be as early as this year.
The new unit will target seaside towns and traditional Labour heartlands where the party has lost support in recent years. It intends to build on Corbyn’s belief in the power of grassroots communities to bring about change in the name of Labour by building alliances beyond the party and helping to campaign on key local issues. If, despite being in opposition, Labour can mobilise ordinary people to get involved in the campaign then the party stands a good change of being elected in the near future with a strong majority.
Back in June 2017, Corbyn announced that the Labour party was in permanent campaign mode following May’s disastrous snap election in which she proved her party was anything but strong and stable. She claimed her recent shake up of the cabinet would make it less pale, male, and stale though the result appears to be the opposite. As May continues to lose her grip on power and the Tories continue to lose touch with reality, the socialist revival within UK politics could see another strong Labour government by 2020.
In our own constituency, the Blyth Valley Labour Party has become far more active and is looking to continue campaigning all year around in order to tackle recent Conservative successes in all but one area of Cramlington. This has become especially important as the Conservatives at the Northumberland County Council have scrapped the Core Strategy put in place by the previous Labour Council. The core strategy used to enforce local issues such as housing developers building schools if necessary, at no extra cost to the taxpayer; the lack of such a plan now means developers no longer need to build anything to help the expanding community and the responsibility of doing so falls to the council.
The failures of this council so far have lead to Conservative Sajid Javid, Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, branding Northumberland County Council as ‘rogue’. In February of this year the council chose to raise council tax by 2.99%, the highest the government will permit without holding a referendum. Regeneration schemes in Cramlington and other areas as well as new building new leisure facilities has been put on hold while the Conservative area of Ponteland is set to gain £57 million for schools and leisure facilities.
The local Labour Party has an uphill struggle to regain control of the area but have decided to follow the line of the party nationally by entering permanent campaign mode.
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