Labour’s new campaigning move is nearly identical to what many Liberal Democrats talk about

Labour’s new campaigning move is nearly identical to what many Liberal Democrats talk about:

Labour hopes to encourage communities to organise around local issues and develop campaigns with a new team.

The unit – which gets up and running on Monday – will target seaside towns and traditional Labour heartlands, where the party needs to rebuild support…

The new community organising unit will work with constituency Labour parties and trade unions to try to help them build alliances beyond the party and to campaign on key local issues.

Labour says that through this approach, communities will be able to bring about changes in their local area without having to wait for an election. [BBC]

Such Labour initiatives are nothing particularly new. There was David Miliband’s Movement for Change. There was Ed Miliband’s work with Arnie Graf. Or there was the Fabian Society’s push. It’ll be worth watching closely to see if this one turns out differently.

But that final comment quoted from the BBC above reminds me of an old Liberal Party saying that elections were but the punctuation marks in community politics.

It highlights how important it is from Liberal Democrats to remember that campaigning is more than electioneering and that we need to massively change our approach to campaigning.

All the more so if Labour is looking to copy it.