Confronted with a newly discovered city in the Guatemalan jungle, archaeologists might initially drill a few holes to see what is under their feet rather than excavate the whole site. That was pretty much my approach to the Arise conference. Twenty sessions were held over the course of the day at up to four different sites about a five minute walk from each other. This was partly because more people had signed up to attend that the organisers had anticipated. There were about 300 registrations. Anyone with an obsessional interest in these things can find the schedule for the day here.

Fans of ecumenical left events were spoiled for choice on Saturday. You could also have opted for a Tesla takedown or the SWP / Corbyn We Demand Change event which pitched itself at anyone looking to “start turning the tide on despair”.

Socialist Worker, a publication renowned for the accuracy of its numbers, says that about 2000 people attended. There are whispers that they are looking to set up some form of new electoral formation. Given that they have never given an honest accounting of the Respect experience I am not certain that is an entirely positive prospect. On the plus side, they did have speakers from the Green Party, a peculiar absence from the Arise event given that Sinn Féin’s Pat Cullen was on the platform a couple of times and the Green Party don’t go knocking on doors telling prospective voters how they are trying to keep migrants out of the area.

It was an older crowd than I had expected, the sprinkling of younger people being outnumbered by attendees on the wrong side of sixty. I am given to understand that Socialist Action had a hand in the organising which would go some way to explaining the presence of Sinn Féin and the Nicaragua Solidarity Campaign. However, my impression was that the bulk of those present were in the orbit of the Communist Party. Certainly, I heard a couple of speakers refer to the “socialist countries” without using air quotes or saying “so-called”.  John McDonnell, Richard Burgon and Ian Byrne (whom I had never heard speak before and was very good) probably account for the reasonable number of Labour Party members who were present. Add to this a dusting of people from smaller left groups and that was the crowd. As with the Greens, none of the activist climate groups took part.

Too many of the sessions had up to four speakers. This meant that some of them were obliged to condense what they had to say a bit too much. It also prevented any real discussion. Sessions I attended only permitted questions, thus implying that the people on the top table are oracles, and the participants can’t make any points of their own. I have no idea if this was accident or design.

Arise’s function seems to be to keep an activist network alive and in touch with each other. It is following up on Saturday’s event with an online meeting this week about Labour’s plans to further impoverish people on benefits. Keeping alive these contacts is useful work. The idea of the longer term project is something of a mystery.