Mark Perryman offers some reflections on Enough is Enough’s latest stop on its city-to-city rally tour

Last week I went to the Enough is Enough / UCU rally in Brighton. It was big, very big. Not quite a sell-out, or at least, some no shows (always the danger when tickets are free) but almost: a 1,500 capacity venue. Impressive, and Brighton lefties: please correct me if I’m wrong – pretty rare. Last time I can remember anything approaching this size was Brighton’s 2016 #JeremyforLeader rally.

More fifty-something and sixty-something than the decent wedge of late teens/twenty-somethings that Jeremy attracted in 2016. Very, very white too.

Nevertheless, the size of audience and overall mood were both good, and a welcome effort too was reaching out to provide a platform for the city’s anti-food poverty East Brighton Food Co-operative and Brighton branch  of the renters union Acorn. A practical recognition that ‘Enough is Enough’ isn’t just about wage militancy.

The culture of the evening, however, was a tad more predictable for these sorts of events. Almost every speaker seemed to think that the louder they shouted into the microphone the better they were putting their message across. No, it doesn’t work that way; nor is sprinkling a speech with the eff word by means of emphasis just as ineffective. Loud, and sweary, the night turned into a series of call and response speeches. Uplifting for the socialist soul, mine included, but revivalism, in this case of class politics, is never going to be ‘enough’.

No music, comedy, poetry, visuals, either. Not even a merch stall (declaration of interest: my outfit Philosophy Football is offering to do the campaign T-shirt et al) to broaden and deepen the emotional attachment to the campaign – an opportunity missed.

And a political narrowness too. In Brighton the parliamentary opposition is represented by two Labour MPs and a Green Party MP. On the night it was repeatedly stated Enough is Enough isn’t tied to any political party, so was there any effort made to have the MP for Brighton Pavilion, Caroline Lucas, speak, who has repeatedly supported the RMT? Or Hove and Portslade Labour MP Peter Kyle?

No sign of either, instead only Brighton Kemptown’s MP Lloyd Russell-Moyle spoke and of course he was brilliant and the Brighton MP probably most in the audience wanted to hear. But with the one exception, when Andy Burnham spoke at Enough Enough’s Manchester rally, every impression is being given that the political support that would be welcome stretches to the  Socialist Campaign Group of Labour MPs, and that is about it.

It’s not always easy being broad but this campaign both has the potential to be, and needs to be. So far there seems to be no involvement of either Sharon Graham from Unite, nor Unison, nor GMB – a particular gap in Brighton where the union has led and won strikes in the city and Sussex – nor any of the other rail unions. No mention of any relationship (if any) with The People’s Assembly, probably a spent force now in the shadow of Enough is Enough, but they cover near-identical ground, so what’s the story? I’m not advocating a ‘democratisation fetish’: this is a campaign led and funded by the CWU and RMT but either the organisational basis should be made clearer or a broader ambition be developed.

My union, the UCU, was the joint host of the rally, providing two great speeches about the current ballot for a first nationwide university strike. But this will fail unless the union can drastically increase density of membership on every campus. This is the key lesson of the effectiveness of the RMT and CWU one-day strikes and the company by company, workplace by workplace Unite strikes: militancy is not enough to win disputes; victory begins with density of membership.

But even this is unlikely to be enough. Uplifting as the wave of militancy of the rail, postal and other unions now set to join in, it is unlike the fabled Miners Strike of 1984-85 – better examples are the Miners strikes of 1972 and ’74, which ended in victory. Those were ‘all out’ whereas these are one-off one day national strikes. Is it realistic that these can end in victory? And if not, what’s the strategy?

Some difficult questions – but despite the massed ranks of socialist paper sellers outside as we left, I don’t expect ready-made answers.  l left the hall feeling good, part of something, a movement of hope, absolutely in tune with public opinion. That’s the key: connecting to public opinion and community. Apart from when my own union is on strike, traipsing off to picket lines to show support, or revivalist rally after rally, worst of all marches through the empty streets of London to no obvious good effect: none of this is going to shift further and build that public support. It will be on the doorstep, house by house, neighbour by neighbour, street by street, neighbourhood by neighbourhood, town by town, city by city region by region, nation by nation, until we win. One night in Brighton? It can only be the beginning.

Mark Perryman is a member of Lewes CLP. His latest book Corbynism from Below is available from here