THE left needs to stop talking and start acting. I’m sick of folk, including myself, pontificating about what we would like to see done differently, yet failing to materialise any tangible benefits to our communities.

Recently, myself and other members of the Edinburgh branch of the Communist Party of Britain, Young Communist League and local residents conducted a litter pick and weeding around the Dumbiedykes housing scheme.

Over a period of three weeks we took what was an extremely materially neglected and politically ignored part of the city and helped it act in its own defence to make it more liveable for the residents, all while focusing on council inaction. Was the action we took fully revolutionary? Absolutely not. But was it effective? Absolutely.

The action reached beyond just “politics fans” into a living community, shoulder to shoulder, with tools in hand.

Contrast that to the near-constant static protests or policy pickets that offer nothing but issue specific analysis that is often absent of the wider class context necessary to get to the root of any particular issue. You will have ever-diminishing circles of the same few activists and their hangers-on who are in a performance of being perceived as correct.

I’m not against static protests per se, nor am I trying to denigrate the activist class — I fit within that description myself. What I’m attempting is some criticism/self-criticism. We need to stop with think pieces and policy statements and need to act in direct defence of our communities.

Everyone knows that bombing children is wrong. What can we do about it? Well, trying to appeal to decision-makers by standing outside empty offices of a Saturday morning is probably not going to do it. But perhaps organising within campaigns that have the capacity for some genuine tangible change in your locality are the way forward.

For the Palestine movement I would recommend getting involved in the Time to Divest campaign that seeks to get the Lothian Pension Fund to divest from companies actively facilitating the ongoing genocide. That’s something that Edinburgh workers could do. Genuinely. But Edinburgh workers cannot affect the foreign policy of America, our functional rulers.

This can be applied to almost every movement in Britain today. We lose the trees for the woods. We can talk all day about the big picture, but to clear a forest takes approaching and felling the first tree, the one closest you.

Whether it’s employment rights, wages, rent increases, the environment, data centres, utilities — whatever — you need to do actual action to force a resolution to a contradiction. A Substack will not topple a corrupt council. A petition will not clean our rivers. We need to get out there and do what we need to see done differently and lead the working class in analysis, yes, but firstly action. Why would they listen to us if we can’t demonstrate our ability to lay hands on a problem and solve it?

We have been made artificially helpless by a system that says that everything is under control, yet fails to mention that it is us that are under control and by the pursuit of artificial isolation and capital accumulation.

Before you even ask the question of whether you should have to, you think you’ll get “in trouble” for doing something. We need to listen to our own slogans. Let I remind the left to ask the question: “Whose streets? Our streets!”