Community campaigning in North Norfolk

Since the general election last year a lot of questions have been asked about “how the East was lost” by the Labour party and how it can rebuild its image in Southern and Eastern rural areas. While the central party continues to mull over ways to address this, there is a wide-consensus that individual constituencies must formulate their own game plan ahead of the next batch of local elections and the next general election.

In my constituency of North Norfolk, the party is active on a scale that has not been seen since Labour returned to power in 1997. Trust in the Liberal Democrats has hit rock bottom and young people like me have joined the party wanting to provide an alternative to the parties in power locally and nationally. We fought a positive campaign in the District Council elections in May and we became the only party fielding 48 candidates in all seats. Although we still have not gained any positions, we managed to make an impact. Former Labour voters returned from voting Lib Dem, and those who had not voted in previous elections turned out for us. The overall figures showed a 15.72% swing to the Labour party compared to elections in 2007, and that 1 in 5 was now voting Labour.

What we realised when running this campaign was that in local elections the national politics only plays a small part in voting in rural areas. We had people thoroughly disgusted by the way Nick Clegg had cosied up to David Cameron, but would still vote Lib Dem because they had a tendency to pick the already recognisable people from the community to represent them. We realised that we needed to demonstrate how our candidates have the people’s interests at heart and that they will work for the residents if they are voted in. So in the same month we also worked to make sure our party was being represented on town and parish council level too. This meant that, although we had no elected representatives on district level, we had started building up a network of local councillors that can show Labour here is a progressive party that is setting a local agenda as well as a national agenda.

Throughout North Norfolk we now have these party representatives attending regular meetings, talking to the local community, and trying to gather cross-party support to improve the welfare of the people living in our towns and villages. These people have not contributed their time just to help the party move forward in the next set of local elections in 2013, but they are there because they feel they can make a difference and have the passion to do so.

Many constituencies in rural areas in this part of the country may question how they can make an impact on local politics without having district or county councillors on their side. We have discovered the importance of using enthusiastic party members at parish and town council level can be a great springboard for leading us on to greater things. While the boundary reviews prevents us from choosing a PPC for 2015 for the foreseeable future, and with the next set of local elections not until 2013, I feel this grassroots movement is a great way to demonstrate how Labour is back in business and ready to work.

Jono Read is vice-chairman of a Norfolk CLP but writes in a personal capacity.