{"id":5107,"date":"2015-08-05T16:19:15","date_gmt":"2015-08-05T15:19:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/unitelive.org\/?p=5107"},"modified":"2015-08-06T16:06:04","modified_gmt":"2015-08-06T15:06:04","slug":"grasp-the-nettle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/?p=5107","title":{"rendered":"Grasp the nettle!"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

Unite retired members, husband and wife Bill and Margaret Moores, have participated in many Labour leadership elections over the years \u00e2\u20ac\u201c they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re both life-long trade union and Labour party members. This contest they think, however, is markedly different from previous ones.<\/p>\n

 
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u015bIt\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s been really exciting, this Labour leadership election,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 Margaret explained.<\/p>\n

 
\nBoth she and Bill have been actively working to sign up affiliate supporters among Unite\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s retired members branch.<\/p>\n

 
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u015bWe helped devise a different system with retired members, because the phoning system to sign them up wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t working at all,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 Bill said. \u00e2\u20ac\u015bI thought to myself \u00e2\u20ac\u201c how do I react to cold calls? Usually if you send me something in writing, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll respond because I have time to think about it.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 
\nAfterwards, Unite retired members were contacted via post to sign up as affiliate supporters, and the new system has been a resounding success \u00e2\u20ac\u201c of the more than 10,000 retired members in Unite, roughly 7,000 and counting have signed up to have their say in the next Labour leadership election.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Unique contest<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

 
\nBill explained why he thought this leadership contest was a unique one.<\/p>\n

 
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u015bPersonally I feel that this is the very, very first time that the members in the party have a wide open selection of candidates from the left to the centre to the right,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 Bill noted. \u00e2\u20ac\u015bBefore, they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve constantly been going for the middle ground. This time we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve got a distinct choice.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 
\nBill highlighted how excited he is that young people have been galvanised by this leadership election as never before.<\/p>\n

 
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u015bFor many young people, they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve never heard the [messages from the left] before,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 he said. \u00e2\u20ac\u015bWe can remember the 80s, but they weren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t even born yet so it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s all new to them. For so long we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been going for the middle ground, we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve completely abandoned the left. But now young people are starting to listen to it and starting to understand it.<\/p>\n

 
\nMargaret added that now she feels a sense that young people have woken up from complacency.
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u015bYoung people have always had the NHS, they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve always had workplace rights \u00e2\u20ac\u201c many don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t realise that these were brought about trade unions and taken up by the Labour party.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 
\nNow that these rights are being threatened and taken away, however, Margaret says that she feels young people are galvanised to fight back.<\/p>\n

 
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u015bFor some people, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not until they actual come up against adversity, that they really realised what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s happening,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 she said.<\/p>\n

 
\nBill argued that the upcoming Labour leadership election will mark a turning point for the future of the party.<\/p>\n

 
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u015bSpeaking for our age group, we realise that this particular election will make the decision for our children and our grandchildren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s future,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 he said.<\/p>\n

 
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u015bIf we don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t grasp this nettle now, the Labour party will be lost forever as far as we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re concerned. This is one attempt to take the party back to what the founding membership was all about, what it was all set up for in the first place.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 
\nDon\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t forget that the last day to sign up to become an affiliate supporter and vote in the Labour leadership election is next Wednesday (August 12). Find out how to sign up here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Unite retired members, husband and wife Bill and Margaret Moores, have participated in many Labour leadership elections over the years \u00e2\u20ac\u201c they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re both life-long trade union and Labour party members. This contest they think, however, is markedly different from previous ones.   \u00e2\u20ac\u015bIt\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s been really exciting, this Labour leadership election,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 Margaret explained.   Both she […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5108,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[17],"tags":[324],"wps_subtitle":"Unite\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Bill and Margaret sign up supporters ","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5107"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5107"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5107\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5109,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5107\/revisions\/5109"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5108"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5107"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5107"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5107"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}