An interview with Sunny Hundal on internet campaigning

I was only involved around the periphery; being outside of London, I couldn’t join the protests, but I did record a few things like the disgraceful behaviour of Iris Robinson, a DUP parliamentarian, on the subject of parenthood. One thing was for sure; the HFE Bill affected so many areas of our lives - hybrid embryos, a father figure, saviour siblings and abortion were all up for grabs. How information was disseminated and how pressure was to be mounted on MPs would be crucial to getting the vote we wanted.
In the end, we did get the right vote and the HFE Act 2008 received royal assent in November. Not all of this can be put down to internet campaigning of course, but the very tone in which much of this was discussed online was affected by that campaign. The antics of Nadine Dorries in retaliation made the opposition look ridiculous. Support was cobbled together from the New Statesman, Comment is Free and the real-world group, Abortion Rights.
I’ve always considered that there could be lessons here for a Left New Media project, so I contacted Sunny Hundal, editor of Liberal Conspiracy, to get an interview with him on what he found significant about the whole thing. Rather than put either questions or answers in quotes, I’ve just prefixed each quote with who is speaking so keep up!
Dave: “Sunny, thanks for giving me the opportunity to quiz you on the Women’s Rights campaign that Liberal Conspiracy conducted earlier this year, during the run up to the debates on amendments to the HFE Bill. The website was headlined by campaign-related articles for quite some time as I remember. Who came up with the idea to run with it and how was this put into practice?”
Sunny: “Well, others did the research for me - most notably Unity and Tim Ireland, and there was new information constantly highlighted on the F Word blog. So we were already running the odd post on Nadine Dorries and the HFE bill as it came nearer to its readding… but then I thought why not turn it into a proper campaign with a separate website (which I worked on with Jess McCabe from the F Word blog and other publications) and also run a series of hard-hitting articles on the site which would highlight bits about Nadine Dorries.”
Dave: “Apart from saturation of the blogosphere with different stories, especially the hugely popular articles relating to the shoddy arguments and tactics of Tory MP Nadine Dorries and her ‘pro-life’ campaign, what other aspects were there to the campaign? Writing articles on Lib Con wasn’t the whole campaign, was it? Can you give me some examples of how LibCon authors got to grips with a campaign outside the blogosphere?”
Sunny: “I think the problem with these issues is that its generally difficult to build a narrative unless you put time and effort into it. So I looked at all the research various bloggers had put out there, and thought I could organise it into different themes so it would be easier to read and understand.
“So we thought we’d launch the campaign with a big bang - which included the Coalition For Choice website (that helped people get in touch with their MPs) and also the complaint to the Parliament about ND’s usage of her blog to attack other MPs.
“So every day we put stuff out there, and encouraged others to blog about it. The noise got so much that it looked like a proper campaign.
“We also tied in the New Statesman and Guardian CIF to put their names to our campaign, which gave it more credibility… and there were articles on CIF plugging it.
“Outside the blogoshere, we coordinated with Abortion Rights - sending them information and getting info from them about upcoming events and protests.”
Dave: “While we’re on the subject of the campaign in the physical world, did LibCon link up with groups such as Abortion Rights or the Women in London network? These groups were a major focus for planning the protests outside Westminster at different points in the year and Liberal Conspiracy reported on several of them; was it just that interested LibCon members had gone along or was there a concerted effort by authors to turn up and report on what was going on?”
Sunny: “We did, to a certain extent, as I say above, though we could have done more. AR were also going through their own internal issues and have always been short on resources to coordinate with others - which made it difficult. One of the things we have to persuade these groups about is the importance of coordinating and letting others know about campaigns and what they’re up to.
“Right now, only the major orgs like Amnesty International are on the ball with this sort of work. There was no coordinated effort on the website, though we had an internal email discussion going on amongst various bloggers including Laurie, Kate, Jess, Cath and others on how to coordinate editorially and who was going to what protest etc.”
Dave: “How did LibCon involve other sectors of the blogosphere? For example, I know that LibCon and the F Word launched the Coalition For Choice together (cited here in one of Laurie’s articles). Apart from ad hoc engagement by the authors and organizers of LibCon at their own pace, was there any sort of central direction of resources? How was the Coalition for Choice website paid for and who ran it?”
Sunny: “I organised CFC, and got F Word and NS/Guardian on board. I registered the domain, after agreeing with Jess, and paid for it. If you try and do these things by committee it takes years. So i took the initiative, put the blog together, put together the coalition and wrote the script so people could directly contact their MP on a model letter we had agreed on…
“I find that there usually has to be one person who centrally coordinates and pushes forward with the campaign, otherwise it doesn’t happen.”
Dave: “There has been a lot of talk, in the aftermath of Obama’s victory in the US, about the role so-called ‘netroots’ played in that, along with other Democratic Party-supporting sites such as the Daily Kos. Some of these websites have hundreds of contributors and for the first time bloggers were accorded media seats at the Nominating Conventions of the major parties. Do you think this will translate to UK politics, in light of the different campaigns waged by bloggers here, like the pro-HFE bill campaign? What elements of the US model do you think would be most successful here?”
Sunny: “I think eventually it will, though it will need some small steps and small victories for people to see how it’s possible.
“Our parliamentary structure is different so obviously it will take different shape, but I think there’s a strong culture here of interest in politics and wanting to make our politicians more accountable. So it will happen - we just have to show people the way.”
Dave: “Just to round off then, have you any general comments you think other net-organizers might benefit from, in trying to set up similar campaigns?”
Sunny: “I think original reporting is very key, and not enough people do this. Original reporting is what makes blog audiences grow, as long as its well targeted. You also have to be able to smell a potentially big story and chase it. So you can’t be too niche otherwise you don’t get wider recognition.
“In addition to the lack of a original reporting culture amongst bloggers, the other problem is the lack of coordination when they want to push on issues. I think the left still assumes that their way of thinking is prevalent everywhere, so they spend all their time fighting battles amongst themselves.
“In the US by contrast, most of the successful blogs have always focused outwards in trying to change or influence the system and building a name for themselves on the back of their content. That means audiences there have expanded faster than here. In the UK, a lot of left-wing blogging is very circular and inwardly focused.
“The other problem is a lack of strategic thinking for a medium term objective. I think if people want to get serious about blogging and online activism changing the order of politics, then they have to get strategic about it - building up the technology and content infrastructure, building coalitions with people, spotting issues that will get people fired up and involved… etc.
“I don’t think of LC as simply a blog. It is a platform… and I want to make it into a bigger platform from which people can do things that have impact. That might be publishing briefings, to influence debates, running news stories, highlighting issues that need more coverage, or funding raising for specific political objectives. You have to think big.”