Anwarul Khan, from the Leftist party, Transform, has put himself forward for the election of Your Party’s Central Executive Committee (CEC). He’s pushing for the party to work in a radically different way from status-quo. And he hopes all CEC candidates will have a fair chance to make their cases.

“Levelling the playing field”

The CEC nominations opened on 5 January. And while Khan told the Canary about why he’s chosen to step up, he also emphasised that it’s:

really important that whoever gets in has got in on the merits of what they have done, they have achieved, and the positive campaign that they’ve made.

The winners ideally shouldn’t, he said, just be candidates with:

access to people, money, and opportunities

As he asserted:

It’s so important, levelling the playing field. We should be espousing that ideal more than any other party. Because that’s what we’re about. We’re levelling everything so that everybody has a fair opportunity of access to resources, to justice, to healthcare, all of these things, and that includes power.

NB: The Canary is speaking to a number of CEC candidates, and we’re very happy to feature any other candidates keen to share their views.

“We have to be different”

Khan noted that while both Your Party and the Greens will naturally attract certain groups, there are others whom the Greens will struggle to speak to:

I’m in Leicestershire. I know that there are groups in the shires who traditionally would have voted Labour, but now are going to vote Reform. Greens don’t speak to them. That’s a reality. And Your Party has that potential to do so. And it has that potential only if it goes and has conversations with them, not if it stands there at the altar saying, ‘we know what’s best for you’.

While Reform has shifted attention away from the rich and powerful forces to people with little wealth or power, it has connected with people on the ground. Your Party must respond not by lecturing, but by listening. Rather than only trying to push a policy platform, it should be asking people:

What are your challenges? When you wake up in the morning, what concerns you?

That’s why, he said:

I think what we need to be doing is going back regularly to the communities, and hearing what people have to say, and then bringing it to the Central Committee.

Looking in part to the already established Greens, who are currently attracting lots of left-wing supporters, he emphasised the need to make Your Party work differently from parties that already exist, asking:

What’s the point of this party if we’re just gonna emulate all other establishment parties? We have to be different.

Focus on empowering communities

Khan insisted that Your Party needs to be:

more than just a political organisation wanting power, but a group that empowers and actually is active in the community.

He added that:

The role of the CEC should be to make sure that the membership is empowered, that the branches are empowered, to be able to make decisions.

And he said:

If we genuinely want to be a non-establishment-type party that is genuinely rooted in the community, in the membership, then we should be facilitators.

That’s the energy he promises to bring to the CEC if people vote for him. Rather than dictating to members, he vows to empower them to do the crucial work in their communities — that’s key to fostering a different way of doing politics.

Featured image courtesy of Anwarul Khan

By Ed Sykes

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