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CORBYNISM started as a movement from below, when a pretty mixed group of left wingers at the base of the Labour Party turned Corbyn’s run for Labour leadership from a symbolic gesture into a winning movement.
Corbynism is still strongest when it has energy from the grassroots. Which is why I want to draw attention to an event related to the national “The World Transformed” conference, that has been giving an educational and intellectual edge to Corbynism since 2016.
On Saturday (June 8) Southampton will host a local version of the conference, Southampton Transformed: southamptontransformed.co.uk.
Some of the best speakers on the left will be coming to the event, including John McDonnell, Dawn Foster and Grace Blakeley. It’s a festival of ideas, not just a rally – I’m personally keen on author Owen Hatherley’s walking tour of Southampton’s brutalist architecture (we’ve got loads).
However, as Southampton Transformed organiser Tom Williams argues, in a thoughtful essay for the New Socialist, the importance of conferences like this is not the “stars” on the platform – even though these are a strong bunch — it’s about the rank and file educating themselves, so the can “build new solidarities” and “repair old ones.”
The most important people are those not on the platform. If we want a movement from below, we have to exercise our minds in a collaborative way, rather than compete to be sound the most “clever.”
Tickets are pretty cheap, and Southampton has good rail links throughout south-east England, so I’d recommend this event to anyone and everyone. Southampton Transformed takes place at “The 1865,” a new venue which is also bringing some pretty good shows to Southampton — so if you want to see the future Chancellor of the Exchequer on the same stage that is also hosting the Fat White Family, Fontaines DC and John Cooper Clarke, now’s your chance.
The 1865 venue is in fact the old Southampton Dockers Club, revived with a generous application of white paint and a new audience, which also seems an appropriate venue for a new socialist conference.
