Netroots UK: Anatomy of a Movement

The world is upside down. Tim Montgomerie is gently mocking himself, to appreciative laughter, in a room full of the same left-wing bloggers who daily accuse him of spreading lies on Twitter. Meanwhile, Polly Toynbee and Laurie Penny are being roundly criticised with the same medium for being irrelevant or bourgeois-in-denial respectively. Such is the nature of the new ‘movement’, where irreverence is king and the awful old Politburo structures of the left have collapsed, leaving behind something quite remarkable: pluralism.

How have we got to this point? How have things evolved in the last few months? Allow me to analyse each of the factions present at Netroots UK, the gathering of online ‘progressives’ – an umbrella term encompassing leftists and left-liberals – hosted earlier this week by the TUC.

THE TRIBES

Unions

The TUC are starting to understand how a modern movement that involves the unions might look. Brendan Barber’s best moment was in praising “a unique progressive coalition”. Progressivism was not in the union lexicon until extremely recently, and his speech was well aimed and gave the impression of the unions as partners, not overbearing autocrats.

Labour

Labour are running scared. Unable to condone the protesters due to the violence that occurred, all Labour was able to muster was Stella Creasy MP, elected in May, and Tom Watson MP, who said “vote Labour” and then left. Creasy tried to play the ‘Remember how bad things were under the Tories last time’ card, telling the audience “Thirteen years ago we were part of a manifesto that tried to get rid of outside toilets in schools”. I spotted various staffers and junior politicos, who blended in well with the predominantly young demographic. They were obviously on reconaissance missions for their party, and presumably delivered bad news, as Labour bashing was one of the main themes of the day. One journalist on a national newspaper said to me “Where is Ed Miliband? He ought to be here”. When your own NUS President won’t support you, I suppose His Edship is a little much to expect.

The Americans

Media Matters for America, i3 strategies, Daily Kos and various other consultant types were present, making everyone feel unprofessional and scruffy in comparison. The emphasis was on partnership across the Atlantic, and using models that have been successful in campaigning in the US to fight for causes here, such as opposing Murdoch’s BskyB takeover and the establishment of a UK FoxNews. Ari Rabin-Havt, Executive Vice-President at Media Matters, told the assembled group “Let’s increase this transatlantic trade of ideas”, inviting activists to attend Netroots Nation, the inspiration for Netroots UK, in Milwaukee this summer. When I asked him what struck him most about working with UK activists, he said “What’s been enlightening for me is how Netroots activists in the UK and the US are focussed on the exact same issues and fighting the exact same fights. You guys in Britain are lucky you come from a much more social perspective that we don’t have. You’re fighting to save the NHS as opposed to creating an NHS.”

The conservative

A tribe of one, Tim Montgomerie spoke eloquently on blogs and the wrongheaded approach to hits that many bloggers have. “What I’m interested in is do Conservative MPs read ConservativeHome, do journalists read ConservativeHome and do activists read ConservativeHome? Are we influencing the influencers? Frankly any normal person reading about seat selection is not a normal person… Go for the issues no one else is looking at”.

He also thinks the left is far too polite when it comes to Labour. “[The left] is too partisan… criticising your own party is an important thing. I happen to think that if the blogosphere had been around in the days of Tony Blair, some of the problems that emerged with that project might not have become so embedded”.

Refreshingly focussed, Montgomerie charmed the room, especially when he said that Netroots could be the start of “something special” for the left. I exited feeling a little bit dirty.

The moderates

One of the biggest points of contention at Netroots was the vehicle by which the ‘movement’ wanted to enact change: Parliament or protest? The moderates, embodied here by Sunny Hundal, argued that radicalism equated to sticking your head firmly in the sand. “We need to build a movement here that is outside of Labour and it will be within Labour too… we need to stop saying these guys are too middle-of-the-road for me. OK fine, they don’t represent you, do your own thing, but what are you doing? How are you mobilising people, how are you forcing the right on the defensive? Right now all we’re doing is sitting there and complaining. That’s all we’re doing”.

The radicals

“We’re listening politely whilst appointed arbiters of the centre-left mow the grassroots into a neat, acceptable bourgeois lawn #netrootsuk”. She pulls no punches. Laurie Penny (later mocked for tweeting this from a presumably proletarian iPad) was highly critical of attempts to make the movement ‘respectable’ at the expense of grassroots participation and energy. In the feminism session that took place in the afternoon, one wing of the radicals came together to voice its distaste for parliamentary process, and for the perceived sexism of “shoving us all [women] in one room”. Lisa Ansell in particular seemed intent on arguing that nothing vaguely linked to mainstream politics was acceptable, and that lobbying for change through the law was futile. After all, women were given the right to vote, the right to an abortion, the right to be treated fairly in the workplace and the right to own property when married through – what’s that? Legislation you say? How unspeakably bourgeois!

The actual activists, and miscellaneous others

All the activists present who were there to learn and to educate others on their work were the real stars of the conference, plus representatives from charities, the charming Frenchman from La Tribune, marauding slebs like Johann Hari, the man who shouted to the assembled company, of Tim Montgomerie, “DON’T TRUST THAT MAN, HE SEEMS CHARMING BUT [he was shushed at this point. I would like to speculate he might have said “he is George Osborne in the disguise of a Crew Clothing advert”]. There was a real feeling of, dare I say it, solidarity amongst those who weren’t there simply to give their opinion, but for the purpose of taking something back to their micro-communities and organisations. All the ‘framing the narrative’ in the world won’t make one iota of difference if it isn’t followed up by the hard work done by people like those at 38 Degrees, False Economy, and The F Word.

Jennifer O’Mahony is a writer and journalist, currently working at The Nation magazine in New York. Her articles have been published by The Guardian and Liberal Conspiracy.

About this article

Published on 11 January, 2011
By Jennifer O'Mahony