It's time to give communities the powers they need to fulfil their potential
4 min read
The Labour government has taken important steps in shifting power from Westminster to communities. But we can and should do more.
The majority of people across the country, when polled, say they are proud of their local area.
As a nation, we are generally much more positive about our local communities than we are about our country as a whole. When strangers meet for the first time, often the first question asked is, ‘where are you from?’. We thrive on stories of community, what our hometowns are known for and how they have shaped us. Pride, trust, renewal – the issues national politics has endlessly sought to grasp – are easy to find in communities up and down the country. And yet, too often, governments have failed to recognise this, failed to take seriously what communities can offer to our politics.
Our new campaign Community Britain, launched today (25 February), seeks to change that. We want to reclaim the role of communities as a serious political and economic force, not just the feel-good afterthought politics has often made them.
To help make the case, we asked community leaders of different kinds to tell us their stories of community.
The result, Stories from Community Britain, provides just a glimpse of what communities are capable of. Stories of music venues, pubs and town halls kept open through community ownership. Community energy projects generating clean power and using profits to fund their own regeneration. Churches offering space for homelessness projects, 12-step groups, choirs, support projects for sex workers and more. Stories about the role of communities in standing up against the far-right, building national resilience in the face of global crises and fixing the increasing disconnection we feel from each other.
These communities have achieved incredible things, often in spite of politics rather than with it. Their projects are led from the ground up, winning the trust of local people because they reflect the local place. Crucially, while politics grapples with the biggest challenges we face, from climate change to the loneliness crisis, communities up and down the country are already working to solve them.
That’s why Community Britain isn’t just about celebrating what already exists. It argues that communities have the potential to achieve so much more and that if our political system was willing to take them seriously, even more could be achieved. Where governments of old have stepped back and forced communities to fill in the gaps they’ve left, preaching community empowerment but in reality leaving communities to fend for themselves, Community Britain asks the opposite. For the power of community to be unleashed, the government must step forward.
Labour has already taken important steps to shift power from Westminster into communities. The government’s commitment to a new right for communities to buy local assets will mean that the building blocks of a community – the local park, pub, library, leisure centre – can be saved from closure and owned by those who rely on them. It is a tangible example of the government taking the power it holds and putting it directly into community hands.
But there is far more we can do. Labour has the opportunity to forge a new partnership with communities, to learn from what exists and use the tools of government to strengthen and spread it. We should be setting out an ambition for what communities should look like, be the assets that should make them up or the way local people feel about their local place. The government should be thinking seriously about how to shift further power into community hands, proving to communities that politics can be a vehicle for empowerment, giving them a stake in the world around them.
The stories we are publishing today are shining lights. In the face of division and decline, these communities have fought for something better, and they’ve proven what is possible. But these stories needn’t be extraordinary, they can and should become commonplace. Now is the time for politics to step up and work with communities to make it happen.
Joe Fortune is General Secretary of the Co-operative Party.
PoliticsHome Newsletters
Get the inside track on what MPs and Peers are talking about. Sign up to The House's morning email for the latest insight and reaction from Parliamentarians, policy-makers and organisations.
