Party Name

Proposed Name for the new party.

Remembering that the main use of the name will be to present the party to voters in an election, I considered Left Unity and The Peoples Assembly as names – see below. I propose that Community would be a better name for the movement/party for the reasons given below.

Left Unity

  1. What does this mean to anyone who does not now about left-disunity. Since MOST people think of Labour when they think of the left what does this mean to someone who now about Labour bit not details re left sects  – some form of new labour perhaps?
  2. Accuracy and credibility. We are just as likely or more likely to divide the left and increase the dis-unity than we are to unite – especially initially. The headlines will be like this. “Left unity fails as left votes swing behind labour to keep out the Tories”, “Left unity accused of splitting the anti Tory vote at a critical moment in history.” What are we actually doing to unite the left? Nothing. We are putting our flag up inviting sects members to come to us. How many meetings a week can a working person go to?
  3. What does it say to average guy about what we intend to do for peoples if we get into power.
  4. What does it say about neo-liberalism.
  5. What does it say about materialism or capitalism? 

The Peoples Assembly

  1. Clearly about ordinary people getting together for their own cause – good
  2. Reminiscent of the diggers / levellers / Gerard Winstanley and later ‘assembly halls’
  3. But its antiquity also gives it a whimsical, light-weight tone – because of its associations with utopia many will not take it seriously enough – more for demos and 6the formers not parliament.

Community

  1. Community hall / Community services / community pub / community projects: gives immediate message it’s a party for the community – that its overtly committed to the community as opposed to the individual –the many rather than the few – the majority not the elite.
  2. Simple
  3. Clear challenge to neo-liberal culture
  4. Non-political coinage as such – e.g. not socialist / democratic / liberal / communist / progressive and all the baggage ambiguity and confusion that causes EG “Social Democratic Liberal Party (SDLP)”
  5. Arise from the ashes of “left Unity” to be a broad-left-based populist and electable party.

ATB, Gerry Cavander