Why 'Finding The Others' matters even more following the UK Local Elections

Looking at the results of the recent local elections in the UK, it is becoming ever more apparent that we need to practise the art of 'Finding The Others 'and taking action together.

Whole communities voting for right-wing ideas that promise to fix what is broken — and we understand why. When you feel abandoned by the systems that were supposed to support you, when the high street is empty and the services are gone and nobody seems to be listening, the appeal of a simple story and a strong voice like Farage/Trump et al is real.

But when you stop to ask why, is it actually that these votes stem from something entirely human: a craving for community, for belonging, for a sense that someone, somewhere, has a plan and that you are part of it.

We don't believe that Reform, or any of the Right-Wing movements promising to 'make things great again', will deliver that. Not because the people voting for them are wrong to want safety, security, food, a roof, and healthcare — but because those promises are not designed to deliver them. They are designed to divide. When politicians and the billionaires backing them tell us our problems are caused by each other — by people who look different, think differently, came from somewhere else — they are doing so deliberately. Division keeps people from noticing where the power and the wealth are actually going.

But when we stop waiting for others to fix things, we start to realise we had the power all along. We just did not always know how to use it.

We are not the only ones thinking this

Writing in the Guardian last weekend, George Monbiot described a group in South Devon called Common Ground (featured here), led by Anthea Simmons and Anthea Lawson, that is doing something quietly remarkable. With an annual budget of under £400, volunteers set up a handwritten board on a busy street and invite people to add stickers to questions about the NHS, housing, immigration, and public services. No argument. No agenda. Just conversation — and the gradual discovery of what Monbiot calls 'a longing for kindness'. It is, he writes, an example of the kind of genuine, unhurried listening that actually shifts people, durably and meaningfully, in ways that no political leaflet ever has.

How to create the ripples

The good news is that so many communities already know how to find each other and act together. East Marsh United in Grimsby did not wait for a politician. They started with a litter pick, a few people who showed up, and a growing realisation that if anything was going to change in their neighbourhood, they would have to change it themselves. They have since launched a community share offer to create social housing across the town and now renovate wrecked houses and then manage the properties as compassionate landlords.

Coalville CAN built something similar — a community that felt abandoned when the mines closed and disconnected from Westminster's priorities, so they acted from necessity, building a hub that now employs, supports, and connects local people.

ACTionism is not here to offer another top-down solution. We want to help people remember that the power to fix things has always been in all of us — and to give people the language, the skills, and the permission to find each other and start.

Workshops in wider communities

We want to take these ideas to the communities that need them most right now, in the wake of the local elections. Can the practice of finding the others and acting together help restore trust and begin to heal the divisions that have been so deliberately fuelled?

If that resonates with you — if you have ideas to help develop these workshops, or want to nominate your community as a test space — we would love to hear from you.

We'd also recommend listening to this episode of How to Save Democracy hosted by and Omezzine Khelifa, Jon Alexander