Building the Campaign for a New Workers' Party

On 9 February, the officers of the Campaign for a New Workers' Party (CNWP) met in central London to discuss the tasks facing the campaign and the way forward over the coming months. The fight for an independent mass political voice is one of the key tasks facing working people today and, as such, the discussion at this meeting on how we build support for the CNWP was particularly important.

Greg Maughan, CNWP national treasurer

Currently, well over 3,000 people have signed up as supporters of the campaign. This is an impressive figure but is only scratching the surface of support that the CNWP could build.

The idea of a mass political alternative to the establishment parties has an echo much wider than the number of signatories that the campaign has formally achieved so far. Therefore, it was agreed at the officers' meeting to produce a new round of campaign material for supporters to use, including a new glossy version of the declaration for a new workers' party petition.

It was also agreed that the CNWP would organise fringe meetings at a number of this year's trade union conferences.

Supporters of the CNWP will be actively putting forward the idea of a political alternative and signing up new supporters to the campaign.

As well as this, it was agreed that the national conference of the campaign would take place in London on Sunday 22 June, the day after the National Shop Stewards Network conference on Saturday 21 June.

The success of the CNWP public meeting in Manchester on 29 January was also reported. At this meeting, it was agreed that local supporters of the campaign would write to all unaffiliated trade union branches urging them to stand candidates in the upcoming council elections.

They would also be invited, along with all other local trade union branches, to attend a meeting hosted by the campaign to discuss building a working-class challenge to the establishment parties at the ballot box.

Officers agreed that this was a good initiative and are calling on other regional CNWP supporters to organise similar public meetings.

Financing the campaign was also discussed. Unlike the establishment parties, the CNWP has no big business backers and is reliant on donations from ordinary working people who support the aims and ideas of the campaign.

It was agreed by the officers to push for regular donations from supporters - if you would like to give a regular donation to the CNWP, standing order forms can be downloaded at www.cnwp.org.uk.

It was also agreed to launch a raffle to run over the trade union conference period.

Over the coming months, the question of a political voice for working people will become increasingly important as more and more ask: "If the establishment's got three parties, isn't it about time we had one of our own?"