What happened? Why did it happen? What do we do now?

New Socialist will launch on Monday June 12th with our election special which will address these questions. We invite contributions on the following themes/questions, as well as other topics that may be relevant.

• What happened? How do we evaluate the result?
• Did it represent an advance or setback for the left, or how do we understand a mixed picture?
• What does the election reveal about the balance of political forces in the UK and within the Labour Party? What sections of the electorate were decisive in the result? Why did it happen?
• What was the significance of the campaign, the manifesto and the actions of individual figures? How well or badly did we mobilise and organise?
• What challenges and problems did we face that we couldn’t overcome?
• What do we do now? What are the strategic paths for the left both within Labour and society as a whole after the election result?
• How do we organise for socialism under the new government? How to we deal with the balance of political forces that the election has revealed?

We are particularly interested in analysis of results and campaigns in specific regions and of the grassroots experiences.

These experiences will be collected to provide a general picture of the campaign so we’re keen to receive accounts, of any length, of the performance and behaviour of candidates, of what was successful and unsuccessful organisationally, or of how voters responded to political figures and aspects of Labour’s programme. If necessary we will publish these anonymously.