Organising for Popular Power

(This article was included in our submission to TWT 2025 alongside 5 practical proposals for party organising, focused on workers and trade unions, renters and tenant unions, social infrastructure & culture, anti-imperialism and party branches.)

Defining social infrastructure

Social infrastructure (SI) refers to anything that nurtures more robust social relations within a community, with the purpose that all members can not only have their core material needs met, but can live full and flourishing lives, with dignity, safety and belonging. This infrastructure can refer to physical social space, such as community centres, gyms or youth clubs, or common services – such as healthcare, social care or childcare. It can also include mobile spaces such as public transport. In our socialist conception, SI must play three key roles, where the horizon must always be to realise all of these roles:

1. To improve the material conditions, first and foremost, of the working class, but for all;
2. To facilitate cultures of solidarity, dignity, joy and autonomy required for sustained popular power;
3. Through the intentional design and provision of such forms of space and support, actively build working class power to be able to take collective political action.

Building SI must include developing infrastructures that support vernacular culture, aesthetic experimentation, autonomy and dignity, especially for those who are subjected to mockery and aggression by ruling class culture. In parallel to meeting the essential needs of food and health, there should also be space that has some social purpose that is creative, intergenerational, and fun (a cinema, recording studio, gym, music, art space). We view social infrastructure as building the material agency and generating the cultures of solidarity necessary for popular power. Open every day or most days, rather than an occasional roaming ‘event’ with the point of building new cultural infrastructure into the rhythm of everyday life. SI is oriented toward facilitating new social connections and supporting existing community organising with the intention of strengthening cross-community organising. Cross-branch organising has the potential to link SI on a wider scale.

Historical analysis 

Social Infrastructure is fundamental to reproducing ourselves and our communities, and has been historically at the centre of working class efforts to resist, defend and claim power. From Working Men’s Clubs to community nurseries, trade union pubs, cultural programs, community power movements, public libraries, community cafes, adventure playgrounds, special education facilities, food coops, older people’s groups, women’s groups, law centres, community centres, city farms, and reclaimed buildings – this rich mosaic of social and physical space has been at the centre of working class power, bringing communities together without the necessity to produce or consume. These are spaces that reflect the people and neighbourhoods they were embedded in, but also those that proposed themselves as public, belonging to the community and open to the entire diversity of the people around them. 

They were also projects that were fought, won and defended by the left. Municipal power and squatting both played a historical role in establishing these spaces. Throughout the 1970’s, there were an estimated 30,000 people squatting across thousands of buildings, which allowed for the flourishing of radical social and political movements, with groups living and working in close proximity. It also provided a space for feminist initiatives, collective living, shared childcare, and women-only housing networks. 

The precariousness of squatting meant that they weren’t a viable option for many, with the pressure of them being ‘legalised’ often into housing coops, some of which still exist today, and the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 made it a criminal offence to squat in a residential building. This was at a time when housing costs were rising, blocking the possibility of finding alternative ways of housing themselves outside the market. 

There is no surprise then that when these spaces are defunded or closed, they become battlegrounds for communities to resist, galvanising a diversity of people to campaign to defend them. For many, these are vital spaces of connection that would otherwise see them isolated and lonely, especially for the most vulnerable.

When thinking of social infrastructure, we need to think clearly about what is possible, and what functions they presently serve and could serve. Privatised infrastructure run by profit-driven companies, ‘community champions’, third sector enterprises and various other state-sponsored schemes are dominated by neoliberal governance models that depoliticise these spaces and prevent self-management and collectivising tendencies. Therefore, to speak of social infrastructure and a new left project should also be about confronting how that social infrastructure is managed, what capacities it enables, what kinds of empowerment it facilitates, and who it benefits and excludes. We see social infrastructure as a space to confront a politics of resentment and individualism driven by social alienation, exploitation, and technocratic governance, and to facilitate collective liberation and exploration. 

Political positions/perspectives

Our programme of SI must be re-politicising, re-socialising, and de-commodifying. We want to build social infrastructure by claiming back, defending, and extending the organic working class multiculture. 

Crucially, our programme must meet the three thresholds mentioned above:

1. Directly improving working-class material conditions; 
2. To facilitate cultures of solidarity, dignity, joy and autonomy required for sustained popular power;
3. Building working-class capacity for collective political action. 

In the longer term, our social infrastructure should be an experimental blueprint for both renewed spaces of community and community empowerment, as well as democratic forms of public service delivery. By strengthening our social relations and capacity for community care, we can expand our capacities for solidarity and autonomy, and reduce our reliance on carceral systems, modelling alternative approaches to community safety. 

What kinds of social infrastructure should YP branches be trying to build?

We aim to build SI by defending, extending, and amplifying existing and lost tenets, spaces, and organisations that form social infrastructure. Examples of infrastructures built through:

• spaces and services that are specific to local areas/branches;
• spaces lost to decades of austerity located in the centre of communities;
• spaces of everyday entertainment, joy and friendship;
• spaces that can also host existing left infrastructure ;
• local cultural infrastructure;
• a creative oral history project;
• advice clinics;
• politicised service delivery with political education.

Why should we do this?

A programme of SI will directly improve the lives of the working class, and all people, and is key to building collective power. A SI programme will allow us to be rooted in the everyday life of our communities and to be actively engaged in building resources and infrastructure in communities. Simultaneously, through spaces of service, support, education, and culture (often a mix) – a SI programme will highlight and extend agency, and show some real love and respect to the cultural life of ordinary people. Cultivating social infrastructure builds potential capabilities for communities to be able to hold power accountable, and also support the growth of a more politicised working class, with greater fluency in identifying and analysing structures of power, and strengthening locally existing – and often innovative – approaches to community tending such that they might agitate, challenge, and ultimately seize power. Building SI will allow for the building of alternative and new visions for supporting and building communities. 

A programme of SI would create belonging, dignity, and safety, providing spaces where people could share problems to people who aren’t just listening, but are in conversation, and collectively working to turn these conversations into demands. People want to be seen and heard, and know that they are important with the power to collectively challenge and build power. Culture is a social, psychological and political resource.

A programme of SI would also expose the decline people are experiencing in the death of the high street, the foreclosure of possibility, and the depredations of poverty. Rooted in community and community-building spaces, away from conventional political party attention, it can also showcase that Your Party is responding directly to community needs.

With the backing of a party, the role and power of SI work will be different and come with pros and risks: resources, stability, ability for translation into national and international policy, scale and network, expectations that come with membership structure, explicitly political (not bound by restrictive charity or trade union law) and protected to be this.

Guiding principles 

The following are some proposed guiding principles for establishing and supporting a socialist vision for social infrastructure:

1. Commitment to political education ;
2. Commitment to building cultures of solidarity, autonomy and experimentation;
3. Centre a class politics and revolutionary struggle (recognising that a prefigurative politics can run the risk of becoming separated from large-scale transformation);
4. Structure spaces to enable contact between as diverse a range of local people as possible in terms of age, ethnicity and gender to build a class-forward community cohesion;
5. Shift resources through the party to local level, to be managed locally;
6. Experimentation rather than perfection;
7. Explicitly feminist approach – encouraging men’s involvement in tasks of social reproduction (note-taking + planning meetings, cooking meals, childcare);
8. Understanding that power is also built through increasing the care capacity of a community, e.g. growing capacity for conflict resolution, responding to mental health crises, indeed anything that might reduce reliance on carceral technologies;
9. Disability justice must be woven through any serious SI programme.

How do we think this will practically happen?

The question of social infrastructure – in its complexity – necessarily requires a plethora of different approaches. For both strategic and practical purposes, some of these will need to be sequenced, while others can happen simultaneously. The below is not prescriptive – in reality there will likely be more overlap and messiness. For purposes of clarity, however, we have split possible proposed approaches and areas of focus into:

Phase I

1. Mapping, relationship-building & developing a collective vision;
2. Securing social spaces.

Phase II

1. Culture as social infrastructure;
2. Politicised community care as social infrastructure 

Phase I

Mapping, relationship-building & developing a collective vision

• A member-led social enquiry exercise — mapping existing social infrastructure in their area (which would necessarily involve the membership collectively exploring the question of What IS social infrastructure?, alongside practical scoping of key community “assets” and assets-lost to neoliberalism and austerity);
• These can take the form of ‘local enquiries’ – with discussions over food and childcare in local spaces;
• The exercise of mapping, signposting and mutual aid enables branches to identify social demands of what we need and want — demands we can make of the party, the state, institutions, whoever. Making demands unconditionally re-politicises and antagonises shared experience of class life — we make demands of the system and don’t apologise for our need for safety, belonging, dignity—for food, housing, health and care;
• Steadily, this will allow the collective development of a vision of how to reorganise society to meet these demands. The tendency can enable the membership, communities, social movements, and the whole class to envision different forms of society and social infrastructure. This could be through collective research into shared history, locally and internationally, examining examples in our communities, and imagining new configurations. The tendency’s work could be to encourage this imagining and popularise what is discovered, to nurture and resource this process.

Securing social spaces 

• Building an approach that develops an autonomous power centre, distinct from the national party and the state, which could allow for a more radical politics. Through the mapping process, look to establish 2-3 spaces within the next 12 months, using a range of tactics.

Phase II 

Culture as social infrastructure

• A creative oral history project  – a handful of long interviews with residents could feed into our knowledge base, helping a local branch to develop programmes and policies, but also make people feel seen and heard. Everyone has a story, they are just waiting for someone to ask. This could itself be part of building a local cultural infrastructure – the interviews could become part of a film, podcast, or exhibition;
  
• Building local cultural infrastructure. While there is a case for meeting the essential needs of food and health, there are also risks to being all bread, no roses. Besides, people don’t necessarily like the volunteers at the food bank, but they do tend to like their boxing coach or the person that teaches them to play the drums. A new space shouldn’t be a meeting space or primarily aimed at welfare, but should have some social purpose that is creative, intergenerational, and fun (a cinema, recording studio, gym, music, art space). It should be open every day or most days, even if only for a few hours, rather than be an occasional roaming ‘event’. The point is to build this new cultural infrastructure into the rhythm of everyday life;
  
• YP’s social media and other communications should seek to reflect, amplify, and honour Britain’s working class multiculture. We should speak, of course, to the decline people experience in the death of the high street, the foreclosure of possibility, and the depredations of poverty. But we should also seek to highlight and extend agency, and to show some real love and respect to the cultural life of ordinary people. Culture is a social, psychological and political resource. The right understands its power to seed rage and resentment, but its binding properties have better uses. Founder of Notting Hill Carnival, Claudia Jones insisted that ‘a people’s art is the genesis of their freedom’. Carnival is just about the best party we have, so we should heed her words.

Politicised community care as social infrastructure

• Local branch-led partnership with existing grassroots
  Building on the work from the ‘Early scoping phase’ at branch level works either in implicit or explicit partnership with local, grassroots SI project (e.g. a local ethnic or faith-based group that runs a small community kitchen, a women’s centre, or does youth work already). Where this work is already clearly politicised (i.e. fulfills both elements of the definition in this brief), the work of the branch is to funnel more bodies – local members – to support this work. 
  
  Where the work is not politicised, it would involve (necessarily carefully and delicately) identifying existing groups involved in SI where there may be openings for a more ‘power-building’ approach. This would require the branch members leading this to develop a good understanding of potential SI organisations that could be ‘moved’/supported in this direction: from initial scoping, relationship-building, to developing a shared and consensual agreement to work together. Power-building approaches here might look like the branch supporting political education, skill-building (e.g. how to facilitate meetings, direct action tactics, how to build a campaign) and then directly supporting building strategic campaigns (identify issues, targets, escalations, demands, tactics).  
  
• Advice clinics x direct action casework
  Advice clinics could look like a socialist alternative to Citizen’s Advice Bureaus (a ‘people’s advice centre’). Here, the party can act as a convener of a universal front door, where people with any issues can consult and seek support – e.g. evictions, workplace issues, health issues, form-filling – by being connected with caseworkers. These caseworkers will be reps from known relevant organisations or collectives (renters unions, existing legal centres, etc). This could be done with a relatively low bar of entry – e.g. every Tuesday afternoon at the local community centre, or indeed at a GP surgery.  
  
  Critically, the approach to casework should be with the aim of building towards collective political action where possible (akin to ‘shift from service delivery to organising model of trade unions’, and ‘movement lawyering’). Where appropriate and strategic, the party may support specific direct action casework through financially resourcing these – e.g. build a particular ‘campaign’ around a set of cases with demands holding a strategic target to account. 
  
  As a variation, this could also be designed with a particular SI ‘hook’ such as a health clinic or community pantry, but where other case workers are also there, and ideally could be passed over to by the ‘hook’. 
  
  Imagine a low-stakes health clinic where people can come for blood pressure/diabetes checks, a health advice clinic (where folk can speak to a health worker – e.g. a GP – about how best to navigate the NHS). They might come in with breathing problems that relate to their mouldy housing, or stress and anxiety related to their bad working conditions, and the health worker could not only connect them to the appropriate case worker (eg. a rep from a renters union), but also connecting them with others facing similar issues (e.g. on the same estate/same landlord/same workplace) – ideally where there can be some kind of collective political action built. 
  
• Directly run politicised service delivery with political education
  
  This is more traditional service delivery/mutual aid, but with a clear stream of political education. This may either be through regular drop-in spaces (e.g. breakfast clubs, childcare sessions, community meals) or larger events (sports days, festivities). Pol Ed activities at these can be focused on local people’s histories, building knowledge of systems (and levers) of power, who control the media, studying examples of successful present/historical people’s campaigns, etc. This follows models such as those set out by the Black Panthers and the Young Lords. 

What are the immediate next steps?

1. Start the processes of mapping and planning for securing spaces within (proto)branches as soon as possible;
2. From the founding conference, establish:
   1. What kinds of resources will be allocated for social infrastructure?
   2. What kinds of democratic mechanisms will there be for this branch infrastructure to shape the direction of the party?
3. Build towards demands and collective vision, sharpening these to focus on what might be most strategic at the level of any given branch;
4. Establish cross-branch collaboration (including guiding documents etc.)

Key questions for discussion

• Relationship to the state: How will social infrastructure – in the forms it has been discussed and proposed as part of the Your Party programme above – relate to the state? How do these initiatives pattern with existing – if threadbare – offerings of the current state? What measures – both structurally and from a framing perspective – can we take to ensure we don’t play into a notion of ‘Big Society’? 
• Localised nature of social infrastructure: Social infrastructure is a highly localised topic. What goes for Hackney will not go for Hartlepool – capitalism is exploiting and alienating people in different ways in different parts of Britain – e.g. gentrification versus decline and de-population. How can we attend to this while maintaining cross-regional collaboration? 
• More expansive understandings of social infrastructure: Are there any new or alternative areas of social infrastructure in the making that haven’t been considered within the proposal that would be important and worthwhile pursuing?

Relationship to other areas of socialist programming: How might we actively weave together the process of nurturing forms of social infrastructure for popular power with other streams of work? This might look like working with trade union branches to establish workers’ centres, for example.