Party News

The Socialist Party stood a list in the London Region in last month’s election to the European Parliament, so giving over 5 million electors the choice between capitalism and socialism (more than in a number of EU countries, Ireland for instance). In the event only about a third, or 1.7 million, voted. Of them 4050 were for the Socialist list. There were 18 other lists or individual candidates.

Besides the two meetings we ourselves organised, we spoke at 7 meetings organised by others and were granted the whole of 30 seconds air-time on BBC regional TV and radio (you have to contest all regions to get a Party Political Broadcast, and then you have to pay for it to be produced). 240,000 leaflets were delivered free by the post office to 4 areas (parliamentary constituencies) we selected; a further 28,000 were distributed by members. Statistics showed that there were over 20,000 looks at the on-line version of our leaflets on our website at www.worldsocialism.org/spgb.

Outside London we ran a write-in for socialism campaign, with a further 12,000 leaflets being distributed. A token number of leaflets were distributed, in the language of the country, by members and sympathisers in Italy, Spain and France. The leaflet was also available on our website in German, Dutch, Swedish, Polish, Turkish and Bengali.

The Socialist Party will be contesting Vauxhall in the coming general election, which must take place before next May, and also two wards in Lambeth in the London borough elections next May.
50 Years Ago

Race & Violence

With the recent murder of a coloured man in Notting Hill, race-prejudice has once more become a subject of public interest.   It is not possible to say at this stage whether or not Kelso Cochrane died as a result of racial hatred.

What can be said is that passions, hatred and sympathies have been aroused. A large crowd of mourners, both white and black, followed Cochrane's coffin through the streets. Many organisations have had their say about Notting-Hill; some of them, such as the Union Movement, propagating racial discrimination. There is no doubt that the Union Movement is anti-coloured, and rabidly so. It considers that this country should be reserved for Englishmen. This is a "one way only" policy however. Not so many years ago a main plank in Mosley's platform was the intensive economic development of British Africa; for the benefit of the British, of course. "Keep out the coloureds" does not mean keeping the Pinks out of South Africa, Kenya or Nyasaland. The left-wing too, have been having their little stir. They, poor souls, are in a bit of a quandary, for the Labour Government's record does not look particularly attractive. The imprisonment of Nkrumah and the banishment of Seretse Khama must make the collection of coloured people's votes a rather difficult matter. There are, too, plenty of advocates in the Labour Party for the policy of restricting or excluding immigrants. The supporters of such views, to be logical, should exclude or restrict the movement of anybody going anywhere to look for jobs.

(from front page article by F.R. Ivimey, Socialist Standard, July 1959)


Object and Declaration of Principles

This declaration is the basis of our organisation and, because it is also an important historical document dating from the formation of the party in 1904, its original language has been retained.

Object

The establishment of a system of society based upon the common ownership and democratic control of the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth by and in the interest of the whole community.


Declaration of Principles

The Socialist Party of Great Britain holds

       1. That society as at present constituted is based upon the ownership of the means of living (i.e., land, factories, railways, etc.) by the capitalist or master class, and the consequent enslavement of the working class, by whose labour alone wealth is produced.

       2. That in society, therefore, there is an antagonism of interests, manifesting itself as a class struggle between those who possess but do not produce and those who produce but do not possess.

       3. That this antagonism can be abolished only by the emancipation of the working class from the domination of the master class, by the conversion into the common property of society of the means of production and distribution, and their democratic control by the whole people.

       4. That as in the order of social evolution the working class is the last class to achieve its freedom, the emancipation of the working class will involve the emancipation of all mankind, without distinction of race or sex.

       5. That this emancipation must be the work of the working class itself.

       6. That as the machinery of government, including the armed forces of the nation, exists only to conserve the monopoly by the capitalist class of the wealth taken from the workers, the working class must organize consciously and politically for the conquest of the powers of government, national and local, in order that this machinery, including these forces, may be converted from an instrument of oppression into the agent of emancipation and the overthrow of privilege, aristocratic and plutocratic.

       7. That as all political parties are but the expression of class interests, and as the interest of the working class is diametrically opposed to the interests of all sections of all sections of the the master class, the party seeking working class emancipation must be hostile to every other party.

       8. The Socialist Party of Great Britain, therefore, enters the field of political action determined to wage war against all other political parties, whether alleged labour or avowedly capitalist, and calls upon the members of the working class of this country to muster under its banner to the end that a speedy termination may be wrought to the system which deprives them of the fruits of their labour, and that poverty may give place to comfort, privilege to equality, and slavery to freedom.
Contents
Features

  • Who’s afraid of the BNP?
    I    s a punch-up the only solution?


  • Who are the Outsiders?
    Xenophobia flourishes in Africa too, encouraged by state-building.

    •
  • Land grabs - the new colonialism
    Capitalist states have started to acquire land outside their borders again.

    •
  • Then and Now: how we live and how we used to live
    A look back at the present day from a future time when socialism has been established.


  • Was Nowhere Somewhere?
    More’s Utopia and the meaning of socialism


  • A different kind of politics
    Politics has become a dirty word, but that’s because we leave it to professional politicians.


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    50 Years Ago
    Race & Violence

    Greasy Pole
    Hogg’s ditch

    Voice from the Back







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    Socialist Standard Online edition                                         July 2009