Overcoming disenfranchisement

Throughout the country there are individuals or categories of people whom the current political system fail to engage. Many of these would like to be so engaged but lack the means, whether physical (though infirmity), emotional (through lack of confidence) or geographical (because they live in rural areas, without transport or funds to link them to where things happen. Others, such as the next generation of voters announced by Ed Miliband, 16-17-year-olds-to-be, simply do not find the ways of politics disengaging. Their preferred media even for chatting with friends involve smart-phones, text and online networks.

As the Obama campaigns demonstrated, engagement between voters, rather than merely to voters, can be highly effective, if not essential - http://mprcenter.org/blog/2013/01/25/how-obama-won-the-social-media-battle-in-the-2012-presidential-campaign/ . Yet in UK this approach is still dogged by the attitudes of a generation of leaders and managers who simply do not "get" Twitter, FaceBook, SMS etc. Whichever party really grasps this nettle first and effectively will gain huge advantage over others.

We argue that Labour should urgently invest (yes, I know it cost money we do not have - but if it is more cost-effective than what else we may choose to spend on, this is no argument) in social media.

A "Big Tent" forum for progressively minded people, initially populated by inviting all Members to join, free, could at a stroke start to break down the barriers to inclusion referred to above. The ability of like-minded people in Cumbria to share ideas and experience with others in Camber, no matter that both are surrounded by Tories, can strengthen both their commitment to Labour and offer insights based on critical mass to inform Party thinking. The ability of individual members to identify each other (for all I know I may live near another Labour member; but how could I know?) and to collaborate; the ability of all to find out what is going on and where; these are the sort of things which will engage; and which an online forum can facilitate. The current top-down or even bottom-up communications systems are one-way, hierarchical and off-putting. We have submitted policy ideas on Your Britain with no feedback. We have gone to the extent of printing and sending a book of ideas to Ed M without acknowledgement. If we continue to feel that our thoughtful and serious inputs are ignored, even political anoraks like us will lose our will to engage. Where will Labour then be? Instead, it should use modern media to reach out, to allow peer-to-peer engagement and to gain some of the benefits Obama did from putting people of all kinds and anywhere at the heart of politics.