Does today mark the birth of a new campaign movement in the UK? Their has long been talk of a British equivilant to MoveOn in the US or GetUp in Australia. This afternoon I received my first e-mail from 38degrees, which is trying to follow the same path and mobilise people to act together to take actions on the issues that matter. Having assembled a team of advisors and staff from some of the most effective progressive campaign groups in the UK, you feel that this might be the one that succeeds.
The first action that 38degrees have asked people to take is to allow people to recall MPs, its a smart choice, big enough to feel that is an appropriate response to the situation, but achievable enough to actually possibly happen (as opposed to asking for electoral reform), its a timely issue and one which will resonate with people beyond those who traditionally take action. Its also something that already has seen some support from newspapers and politicians. It’s not clear from the action what they’ll do with the petition, but I’m sure they’ll report back in the coming weeks.
It remains to be seen if 38degrees will have the same impact that MoveOn and GetUp did. I hope it does, but the UK is a crowded campaigning marketplace with lots of organisations offering similar products and campaign methods, so they could struggle to differentiate from others.