“We must seize the chance of this leadership election to renew the Labour Party from the ground up and re-engage with the communities we are elected to serve” writes Ed Balls for Labour values.

Labour now has a rare opportunity to build a new thriving base of support, enabling it to develop both an effective and inspiring governing alternative and to win the next election. The key is to understand and harness the dynamics of self-organisation and to concentrate on creating networks between and within different communities. Events, such as electoral victory, are the [...]

We have two challenges to face up to over the coming months. We need to renew our party and reconnect with the country. In the past, these goals were mutually exclusive. Renewal meant looking inwards; more time for internal meetings and less time for conversations on the door-step. This corroded the culture of our party.  Discipline was preferred to dialogue [...]

Labour people have lots of good ideas for how to make their communities better – that’s why they are passionate about politics.  Often, Labour supporters are already involved in a range of community organisations that share Labour’s values.  It’s already been suggested here that the party should involve these community organisations in policy making, but the reverse is also true.  [...]

We all know the best way to communicate is face to face. Candidates who seen in the local community do best in the long term. Leaflets are a poor substitute for two-way communication. When they’re pushed through the door furtively, they get chucked in the bin with a pizza leaflet. But in most campaigns, it is important to put something [...]

The Labour party is not the only organisation that shares Labour’s values. Across the country, there are countless community organisations that put Labour principles into practice everyday, whether helping the neediest in society or campaigning for things like better local public services, a greener environment, or the living wage. Most community activists are labour voters, however disconnected many might feel [...]

The party needs to make the most of peoples’ skills for effective community activism and election campaigning, but must also offer people a way of influencing policy making on the basis of their work, skills and volunteering networks. Unless they have already enjoyed productive contact, local parties cannot hope to know anything about the lives, professions and skills of their [...]

One way to turn Labour Values into practice would be for the Party to do more to involve the unions in our hands-on campaigning. Currently, unions give the Party financial support, and that, of course, is a big help. And some union members do come out on the doorstep. But many don’t, and often because they don’t know how to, [...]