Andrew Feinstein says ‘organising in our communities’ is vital to challenge UK’s money-driven politics

Speaking in Southport recently, anti-racist and anti-militarist campaigner Andrew Feinstein insisted that “organising in our communities” is vital in order to challenge the fact that “there is just too much money in our politics”.

Recently, Feinstein spoke at the launch event of Southport Community Independents, one of numerous locally-rooted and locally-focused groups that could eventually become the constituent parts of a new national party of the left. Standing in solidarity with other independent left-wingers in the 2024 election, he had challenged Labour Party leader Keir Starmer in his constituency, reducing Starmer’s majority significantly.

Feinstein: how to challenge the corrupt “reality of how our politics now works”

In his speech, Feinstein said:

my MP [Starmer] is increasing defence spending by 13 and a half billion pounds a year from 2027 (and that’ll increase even further from 2030) while everything else is getting cut – our benefits, our public transport, our health service, our education. Why is he doing that? Well, I’m sure it has nothing to do with the fact that the biggest donor to the Labour Party at this last election was an investment firm that gave them £4.4m and that is invested primarily in defence companies, whose shares have skyrocketed the moment that announcement was made, because that is the reality of how our politics now works.

And he added:

the way we are going to change it together is by doing exactly what you are doing, by organising in our communities

That’s why, he explained, he is helping to build the Camden Community Independents and the Camden Community Alliance:

We are going to ensure, as a community, that we make life easier day-to-day for ourselves. And when it comes to elections, we are going to stand against the Labour Party, the Tory party, and whatever Nigel Farage is calling his party next week. And why are we standing against them? Because they are all a part of the problem and in no way a part of the solution. Because the solutions lie with us in our communities. And in that way, we are going to make our communities better, we are going to make our country better, and we’re going to make the world better.

Community organising in the fight against apartheid in South Africa

Feinstein also linked the struggle now to his “own political history in South Africa” with the African National Congress (ANC), saying:

how we eventually succeeded, at least partially, in that struggle was by organising locally. Across South Africa, in every township and squatter settlement, we had street committees. Every single street was organised. And in communities that didn’t lend themselves to that sort of organisation, we had what we described as rolling house meetings. So I would get a friend to invite 12 other friends to come round for a meal. And one of us from the ANC would be there to talk to them. And then the people around the table who liked what they heard would go and do the same thing, and so we created wave after wave.

What were we doing? We were talking to each other. We were talking to each other about the issues that faced us as communities and what we as communities were going to do about it. For many of us in South Africa, we landed up in parliament as a surprise. None of us ever expected to be formal politicians.

And he shared an anecdote about Nelson Mandela, who told his fellow MPs:

The moment you think you are more important than the people who sent you, than the people who pay your salary, than the people you are here to represent, is the moment that you are of no value to your community.

That’s why, Feinstein insisted, political representatives should be:

people from our communities who are amongst us representing us not because they’re better than us or smarter than us, but because they are of us

We need dozens and hundreds of Southports

Feinstein praised Southport Community Independents for organising to build a new way of doing politics, and he stressed:

You are going to shine a light for the rest of the country

The reason, he said, is:

It really is so vital for communities all over the country to see this sort of organisation taking place. Because, frankly, and I’ll ask you to excuse my language, this country and the people who run it are a shitshow.

Apart from organising locally and supporting others around the country who are organising, Feinstein is currently raising funds to publish a book that exposes and challenges the:

unholy alliance of money, power, and violence [that] has been trying to convince the world that every war is the last war for peace, every civilian death is necessary collateral in the pursuit of human rights, and every weapon sold is bought to make us safe.

Bribery and impunity, he has insisted, allow the war machine to keep on raking in money at the expense of humanity, systemically undermining so-called democracies like the UK in the process. And that’s why basing the resistance in community organising, with ordinary people living locally at the forefront, is so essential.

Featured image via the Canary