Thread by @AyoCaesar

The biggest problem facing the left in the media isn’t rightwing bias: its a complete lack of understanding of, or even curiousity about, the politics of movements.

For the most part movements are conceived as either a) lots of people wearing similar t shirts b) shared use of slogans, or c) the howling of unruly mobs.

Mass political participation outside of the ballot box is viewed with suspicion, if not outright hostility. The idea that building power outside of parliaments could be a good thing is completely alien, if it’s imagined at all.

If your only measure (or indeed, conception) of political engagement is interactions on social media then *of course* the image you’ll have of activists is going to be of relentlessly aggressive, swivel-eyed paranoiacs.

I say that speaking as one.

But this obscures the work being done in localities and across borders. It ignores workplace organising, international solidarity, direct service provision, campaigning and more.

Many critiques of the Labour Party veer from justified criticism of the handling of antisemitism complaints, to an overall castigation of leadership for encouraging mass membership and not acting as a police force, patrolling the border between people and ‘legitimate’ politics.

I don’t think expulsions are the only way to deal with racism. They’re one tool among many, and we’ve forgotten about the others - primarily, political education.