‘Winning hearts and minds’

Unite will join the Centre for Labour and Social Studies (CLASS) on Saturday (November 17) at its ‘Boot Camp’ event to explore ways to best to communicate the Left’s approach to the most pressing issues of our time,  from public investment to welfare, climate change, housing and more.

Unite assistant general secretary Gail Cartmail will be chairing a panel at the event in which guests will set out the wider vision of the Left from a number of perspectives.

A dozen workshops throughout the day will hone in on specific issues and how best to frame them. One workshop on austerity for example, will outline how austerity has been one of the biggest lies sold to the British public in modern times through simple and misleading ideas such as equating a household budget to the wider economy. Participants will discuss how they can effectively tell the story of the economy and public investment in a clear and compelling way.

Other workshops include discussions on the far-right, climate change, trade unions and organising for change, housing, public investment, immigration, public ownership and the failures of privatisation, defending the NHS and more.

Each workshop will be led by a leading academic, a communications expert and a person who will discuss the impact of a specific policy to provide participants with new and easily communicated arguments for change.

Speakers at the CLASS Boot Camp event include Guardian columnist and environmental campaigner, George Monbiot, Labour MPs David Lammy, Dawn Butler and Barry Gardiner, comedian Francesca Martinez, Momentum founder Jon Lansman, economist Ha-Joon Chang, Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC) campaigner Andy Greene, climate change expert Julie Anne-Richards, NHS campaigner Dr Ameen Kamlana and more.

Trade union leaders including Unite AGS Gail Cartmail, BFAWU Bakers Union general secretary Ronnie Draper and GMB organiser Nadine Houghton will also speak at the event, which will be held at the Mary Ward House Conference Centre in central London from 9.30am to 4.30pm on Saturday, November 17.

Cartmail explained the importance of the CLASS Boot Camp ahead the event.

“As trade unionists, Unite members know what’s important – good union jobs on union rates, decent work and that working-class solidarity, community and strong public services from cradle to grave are at the heart of creating a better world,” she said.

“In a deeply divided society, whose fault lines were laid bare in the EU referendum and in the more recent rise of the far right, we know that winning hearts and minds will be central to our ambition to make our ideals a reality,” Cartmail added.

“Communicating our ideas effectively is the challenge and it’s a challenge that we must embrace if we want to bring about real change. Tomorrow’s CLASS Boot Camp event is an important way to do just that.”

Some tickets are still available (ÂŁ7 – ÂŁ20) but CLASS is now offering a special FREE entry deal for Unite members. Email: lester.holloway@classonline.org.uk before 10pm tonight (Friday, November 16). The full programme is available on www.classbootcamp.com