Mayday in Oxford. We

#108376
ALB
Keymaster

Mayday in Oxford. We leafletted the starting point of the traditional trade union march at Manzil Way between 11.30 and 1pm and had a literature stall at the end in Bonn Square in the centre of Oxford from 1.30 to 3pm. Also there were the usual suspects: SWP, TUSC, CPB (Morning Star), CPGB (Weekly Worker), Socialist Resistence, RS21 (SWP fragment), Workers Fight, Revolutionary Communist Party of Britain (Marxist Leninist), International Bolshevik Tendency.The Green Party candidate in Oxford East put in an appearance and one of their councillors, in his trade union capacity, was among the speakers. Their candidate for Oxford West & Abingdon, out shopping, stopped at our stall to say hello before catching his bus. Today's Independent  has an article on his brother, a US Senator, entitled "The socialist who could cause a real stir". He is the only Senator to call himself a "socialist" though he's seeking the Democratic Party nomination to stand for President in 2016.We took the opportunity to ask who they said workers should vote for on 7 May.The CPB were distributing a leaflet headed "Despite Its Flaws Labour Remains The Best Choice" but with the proviso that this does not mean giving "the Labour Party leadership a blank cheque" and "Still less does it mean voting Labour in every constituency across Britain". "The best vote in some constituencies may well be Communist, socialist or Green. But in most it has to be Labour". After all, they are putting up a dozen of their own candidates (in safe Labour seats).The CPGB is committed to supprting TUSC as their third preference and us as their fourth (after selected leftwing Labour candidates and Left Unity as their first and second preferences). Logically this means that in Oxford West & Abingdon they should be urging a vote for us, but we didn't press the matter as we are not in the game of vote cadging. Anyway, their lit seller lived in Oxford East. He criticised us for standing against Jeremy Corbyn in Islington.The SWP support TUSC in Oxford East though they haven't done much to work for the TUSC candidate there, a member of SPEW. They did have a few of his leaflets on their stall and will presumably vote for him. In Oxford West & Abingdon one of them indicated they might vote for us (on the grounds of voting for whatever "left" candidate is standing if there's only one).Socialist Resistence seemed to be split, with some saying they were going to vote Labour and others voting Green.The RS21 member we met said he was voting Green (not TUSC)The oddest was the RCP(M-L) which was calling for a vote for the National Health Action Party in Oxford West & Abingdon. As this seemed incredible for a Maoist sect I checked on the internet and the endorsement can be found here.Never got round to asking the International Bolshevik Tendency. Their leaflet was in American, about "labor action", while the one from Workers Fight was in Fringlish.The Oxford Communist Corresponding Society were distributing leaflets urging workers to vote for us on the grounds that we like them advocate "the abolition of capitalism, money and the state, and the creation of a free, classless, socialist society". They carried placards with a picture of Karl Marx, which contrasted with those sponsored by the SWP which proclaimed "Tax the Rich", i.e leave them (and so capitalist class-divided society) in existence but tax them. As Marx might have put iI:  "Instead of the reformist slogan 'Tax the Rich' the workers ought to inscribe on their banner the revolutionary watchword 'Abolish the Rich'".