EC Meeting Papers January 2019

- Initiatives are not supported by the national party itself and there is no

central coordination or direction.

- The potential for a programme delivered at the national level is

constrained by the bureaucratic structures of the party.

- Momentum is largely focused on social media reach and organising for

campaigns (e.g. providing doorstep training in the run up to elections)

rather than on large-scale political education and transformation.

- Inspired by The World Transformed festival, political education clubs and

mini-festivals have launched alongside local Labour party and Momentum

branches in Manchester, Liverpool, London, Derby, Bristol and Bradford.

-

The trade unions

- In most major trade unions education focuses primarily on functionalist

training (e.g. case work, employee law, health and safety), rather than

transformative political education. Notable exceptions include Unite’s and

GFTU’s programmes. Where transformative education does happen it

tends to only reach a small section of the membership.

- Some smaller, independent trade unions, have developed exciting

political education initiatives that involve a large proportion of their

membership. However, these are under-resourced, un-formalised and

rely upon a small number of key organisers.

-

Political Education Organisations:

- A number of groups have been set up to deliver workshops and courses

around socialist and progressive themes. These include Talk Socialism,

Demand the Impossible, The Ella Baker School of Transformative

Organising and the People’s PPE.

- TWT has close relationships with many of these organisations and has

partnered with them to develop content in the past.

- These projects are mostly based in particular areas and have not reached

large audiences.

In summary, political education initiatives in the UK:

1. Only reach relatively small numbers of people.

3