Our 2026 local election campaign in London
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Have we considered publishing/do we have a leaflet that can be posted in windows? It’s a common practice – in my local Manchester election I’ve been delivered 2 leaflets so far (Labour and Reform) in a format designed to stick them in your window. The Reform leaflet helpfully explained that you should do this to prevent other parties knocking on your door (!).
I would like to have a similar glossy poster to put in my window. I imagine an SPGB splendid leaflet posted in my window saying along the lines don’t vote for this shower, we’re the solution. I imagine this would resonate given we’re in unprecedented times when most of the electorate has given up on traditional party politics.
YFS Paula
(Not posting as moderator)Ps the forthcoming elections aren’t confined to the very local boroughs in London where we have a candidate: they’re national (Scotland and Wales and local English). I just can’t help thinking we could have anticipated these elections better and done more to promote our case. By, for example, having a glossy leaflet to put in our windows 🙂
Firstly, I totally agree with Paula. It’s a great way of seeing how many supporters we have (my local branch of the Green Party did it when I was a member). It would be nice if the posters (& the T-shirts) have a positive message on them, e.g. Produce Directly For Use; One World One People, etc.
Secondly, ‘UK Garage’ – is that: the genre of music; a mechanic’s workshop; or a little bungalow* for cars?
*I was going to write ‘house’ but realised houses have at least 2 floors.
Yes, the election committee and London branch have considered all these suggestions and acted on them. We have had posters done for the campaign though most of them naturally say “Vote Socialist”.
We also have (glossy) A4 and A3 posters about socialism in general. One is our Object. Another says “Revolution not Reform”.
There might be a few left of both these kinds of poster which we could send you (or anyone else) if you contact head office.
Also, the EC authorised a leaflet for use outside of where we are contesting suggesting that those who want socialism should write “SOCIALISM” across their ballot paper. This was advertised on spintcom. Only 2 branches asked for some, unfortunately not your branches. We still have plenty left. If you want some for distributing or posting in your window or on your front door contact head office with how many you want.
Some t-shirts are also available but production at Head Office for specific use in elections had to stop. Which is why the matter is on the agenda of Annual Conference this Saturday.
T-shifts produced elsewhere are advertised on page 18 of the current Socialist Standard. Tote bags are also available.
Secondly, ‘UK Garage’ – is that: the genre of music; a mechanic’s workshop; or a little bungalow for cars?
In this context it’s a genre of music (don’t ask me what kind) but to make it rhyme with Farage you either have to be a Toff or pronounce his name as “Faridge”.
Busy weekend in Lambeth and not just for us. On Saturday both Zack Polanski, the Green leader, and Andy Burnham, a leading contender to replace Starmer as Labour leader and prime minister, were there. Lambeth is a target council for the Greens, and the Labourites must have thought that the intervention of the Mayor of Manchester would help them retain control.
It was also the day of the our annual conference. Afterwards, delegates present in London helped complete the distribution of leaflets in Clapham Common & Abbeville.
On the Sunday we ran a stall outside Stockwell tube station where we distributed leaflets in Portuguese as well as our main election leaflet (part of Stockwell is known as “Little Portugal”).
As expected, Christian evangelists were there for a short while threatening eternal damnation in hell if you didn’t follow their precepts. One of the outgoing Labour councillors, David Oxley, passed by. His leaflet (as all Labour leaflets) attacks the Greens for voting against building more houses. But the Greens have no chance here and are not even campaigning seriously.
We have now leafletted all accessible letter boxes in the Stockwell West & Larkhall ward. Unfortunately there is quite a proportion of social and private blocks which are not normally accessible.
The campaign by the Roger Hallam’s Shake It Up candidate, on the ballot paper as an Independent, seems to be concentrating on tying posters to lampposts or sticking them on housing estate notice boards.
” Unfortunately there is quite a proportion of social and private blocks which are not normally accessible.”
Social blocks?
So-called “social housing” in blocks of flats run by the council or a housing association. Some date from the days of the old London County council. You can get into some with a “fireman’s key” (which we have).
We went to the hustings yesterday evening organised by the Brixton Neighbourhood Forum for parties standing candidates in Brixton. Represented were us, the Greens, Labour, Christian People’s Alliance, TUSC and Shake It Up (two — they pulled a fast one as both are technically “Independents”). The Tories, Reform and the LibDems sent no one (the last perhaps because of some deal with the Greens not to try hard in this part of the borough in return for the Greens not trying in another).
There were about 120 present.
The debate was organised fairly which each candidate being given exactly the same opportunity and time to answer questions. From a conventional party political point of view the main contest here is between Labour (representing by an outgoing councillor seeking reelection in Brixton Acre Ward) and one of the Greens standing in the same ward — Michael Chessum, leftwing journalist and activist, who switched from Corbyn to the Green Party. He claims to be a socialist (and confided to our candidate, who was sitting next to him, that he was a “Marxist”). Here is his arguments as to why “revolutionaries” should join the Green Party:
An amusing sketch writer report of the meeting appeared in the local online news outlet here:
What happened at the Brixton Hustings at St Mathews Community Centre – Mon 27th April
Note the mistaken link to us (since corrected) and our corrections in the Comments section.
Another hustings yesterday evening. It was organised by the SE5 Forum which covers the London SE5 postcode. Most of this is in Southwark but a small part is in Lambeth. The meeting was in fact held in Southwark, in a United Reform church.
Quite a contrast from the one in Brixton on Monday. Only about 40 there and speakers only from Labour and the Greens, one from each borough (3 of them outgoing councillors), and us. Not much animation.
Labour and Greens were literally advocating the same things, though the Southwark Labourite did bring up the Greens’ policy of decriminalising drugs as a reason not to vote for them. Our candidate described them as being involved in “sibling rivalry”, as well as pointing out that what they could do was severely limited by having to operate within a context of government cuts and the wider, profit-dominated capitalist economy.
We handed out a few leaflets. A summary of what each candidate said will be sent to SE5 Forum members.
A couple of curiosities.
1. Two of the wards we are contesting border on Wandsworth so it’s possible that some of other leaflets might have been delivered there. In any event, we found a Tory leaflet from there headed “If you want to vote anti-Labour in Wandsworth, frankly you have to vote Conservative”, explaining :
“Voters are trying to ‘send a message’ to the Labour government but also to ‘vote against Reform’ which in many cases is why the Greens are ‘so attractive’ as people can vote anti-Labour but also against Mr Farage. But in … Wandsworth … ‘that’s not true,‘explained Prof Travers.”
Not so long ago people were discussing tactical voting about how best to get the Tories out, now the discussion is how to get Labour out. But it can be doubted that anyone thinking of voting Green will vote Tory just to kick out Labour.
If the Greens win and begin to run capitalism at local level, the old saying “Labour, Tory, Same Old Story” can be replaced “Labour, Green, Same Old Scene”.
2. At a recent renters’ demonstration a group calling itself “Communist Vanguard” distributed a leaflet in which it declares that:
“Our main task is to forge the future Communist Party, the revolutionary vanguard of the working class capable of leading the fight to destroy capitalism. To guide this process, we aim to create communist cadres ….”
This is unusually frank from a Leninist organisation but it expresses the basic position of all Leninist groups like the SWP, SPEW, RCP, etc, etc. No wonder Corbyn kicked them out of His Party.
It’s why socialists are uncompromisingly opposed to all 57 varieties of Leninism. Workers need to be led by the cadres of a vanguard party just as much as they need a hole in the head.
Vote Palestine 2026 asked candidates if they would sign a pledge, the first point of which was to: “Uphold the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people.”
The BrixtonBuzz has published a list of those who agreed to sign the whole pledge:
Lambeth Vote Palestine – which candidates to vote for in your ward
Our candidate added a published comment explaining why he couldn’t:
“I did request a better wording of the pledge at the campaign launch but those running the campaign didn’t take my advice so this, regrettably, must be my answer.
I can’t help but feel those who have a vested interest in passing off national liberation wars as somehow socialist had a hand in this.Reply from Anya Krycek
Dear Vote Palestine 2026,
Thank you for your email. I must respectfully decline to sign.
As an anti Zionist Jew and socialist standing in Brixton North, I share your horror at the suffering in Gaza and the West Bank. But I cannot endorse a pledge framed around national self determination.
The nation state, whether Israeli or Palestinian, is a prison house of nationalities. It tells workers to wave flags and forget they have no motherland to defend. Israeli and Palestinian workers alike are exploited by the same global system of wage labour and capital.
National liberation is a trap. A new state means new masters under a new flag, while wage labour, property rights, and class rule stay intact. Council divestment treats symptoms, not the disease.
My goal is not another state but the abolition of the state itself: a classless, stateless, wageless, moneyless world community where people cooperate freely. Real self determination means workers recognising their shared enemy across all borders.
I stand with working people everywhere. I cannot sign a pledge that reinforces the nationalism keeping them divided.
Yours sincerely,
Anya Krycek
Socialist Party Candidate for Brixton North, Lambeth”Another candidate, Eduardo Salgado, who is standing for Shake it Up in the same ward, also commented, expressing a “Marxist-Leninist” (Maoist) point of view:
“I think historically, things happen in stages. According to Marxism-Leninism (ML), national liberation often must precede, or be strategically aligned with, workers’ liberation because imperialism makes national independence a necessary first step to create the conditions for a successful socialist revolution. Lenin viewed the national struggle in colonized or oppressed countries as a key component of the overall world socialist revolution. The core reasoning is that national liberation acts as a necessary step to “clear the decks” for direct class struggle, as it removes the foreign oppressor and allows the working class to battle its local bourgeoisie. Lenin says on this issue:
* Support the national liberation struggle against imperialism unconditionally.
* Maintain independent working-class organization and leadership within that movement.
* Use the liberation struggle to raise demands for socialist transformation (land reform, workers’ rights).”There is also a Trotskyist candidate standing in Brixton North but he has not intervened yet.
Here is our candidate’s reply to Eduardo Salgado:
The stageist model, national liberation as a necessary prelude to socialist transformation, is not merely strategically mistaken but theoretically incompatible with the abolition of capitalism. The historical record of national liberation movements demonstrates a consistent pattern: the “stage” of national liberation does not clear the decks for proletarian revolution it institutionalizes a new form of capitalist state. The foreign colonizer is replaced by a national bourgeoisie that maintains wage labour, commodity production, and extraction. The nation is not a proto political reality waiting to be liberated, but a category produced by capital itself a way of organising populations into manageable units. To prioritise national liberation is to reinforce the very abstractions; nation, citizenship, the state that capital requires to function.
“The working men have no country. We cannot take from them what they have not got.” The Communist Manifesto (1848)
The Socialist Party (GB) position is that the proletariat has no stake in which bourgeoisie administers its exploitation. Anti-imperialism that stops at the nation state leaves exploitation intact. The state form itself prevents the direct social relations that would constitute a break with capital. Socialism cannot proceed through stages it must begin immediately in the content of struggle, as the practical activity of breaking with wage labour, money, and the state. National liberation changes the flag and people in government, it does not interrupt the reproduction of capital. To make it a “necessary step” is to permanently defer the only act that could end exploitation: the immediate social transformation of society by and for the working class. We don’t seek the people’s commodity production we seek abolition of the proletariat.
Anya Brixton North SPGB candidateLink from SE5 Forum to their Instagram photos of the hustings last Wednesday:
https://www.instagram.com/p/DXwnC3Cl7bA/
When/if you get there tap the photo to see mistaken link to our website. Corrected in the comments.
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