'Get The Tories Out!' - The Positive Power Of Socialist Social Media
It's a rallying cry for many people on the left – a social media slogan that reflects real world campaigning. It's also the title of a new book detailing the power of socialist social media.
The Labour Party experienced a crushing defeat in the 2019 General Election. But instead of despair, the election has been followed by a reassertion of Socialist values, and policy ideas.
Now the views of Labour supporters, expressed recently on Twitter, have been given more permanent form in a book of essays entitled 'Get The Tories Out!', illustrated with memes from social media.
Amidst the dark days of Boris Johnson’s premiership, here are strong messages of hope. The authors analyse the reasons for Labour’s defeat, and show the way that a radical mass movement can regain the political initiative from the Tories.
The book is edited by Andrew Godsell, a Labour member throughout his adult life and a candidate in 10 elections, and author of ‘Why NOT Trust The Conservatives?
Andrew says in his introduction to the book:
“In the weeks since the Election defeat, I saw an enormous amount of positive activity on Twitter. There have been inspirational ideas about rebuilding support for the Labour Party and Socialism. Many of us strongly believe the Tories will fail to deliver on empty pledges they made to win the Election. The Conservative Party have little or no interest in the working people who lent them votes to “Get Brexit Done”.
Months before Boris Johnson came up with his slogan, we were saying “Get The Tories Out”. Actually we were often using #GTTO, one of the popular hashtags introduced by Rachael Swindon, a woman who has been a massive influence in putting the Socialist message into British social media.
The strong advocacy of continued radical Socialism in the Labour Party, as the best way to challenge and defeat the Tories, gave me an idea. I suggested, in January 2020, that we should capture some of this excellent content, in a cheap paperback, to spread our message beyond Twitter.
The response was very encouraging. Within a few hours, several people offered to contribute to the book. In the next few days, several excellent pieces were sent to me. I put a summary of the developing plan on my Blog, and pointed people towards this with a Twitter thread. Over the course of a few weeks, more pieces arrived. Meanwhile exchanges with the growing group of writers, via Twitter and email, produced new ideas for content, including some great memes to illustrate the book.
Less than a month from the original idea – here is the book!”