Our London Assembly Election Campaign
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Further evidence, should it be needed, that any mention of socialism (or communism) is anathema to the overwhelming majority and unlikely to change anytime soon.
Best take a break, comrades, and try again in, say, five hundred years time when workers might be a little more receptive. Only problem, as old Moore keeps reminding us, is that the planet is likely to be uninhabited long before then.
Anathema = “something or someone that one vehemently dislikes”.
I don’t think the election results show that “the overwhelming majority” vehemently dislike socialism as a word let alone as properly understood.
Opinion polls show that an increasing number of people, particularly younger people, don’t mind the word “socialism”. Of course there are some people who have suffered under some state-capitalist dictatorship calling itself socialist who do hate the word (we met a couple in the course of our campaign).
When socialism, as a society of common ownership and democratic control with production to directly satisfy people’s needs not profit, is presented to people they don’t dislike it but don’t think that it is practicable. Which is not at all the same thing.
Well, that’s a bit shabby:
“Zoë Garbett will be joining the London Assembly today, after Siân Berry stepped aside for the councillor in Hackney and recent Mayoral candidate. ”
So, they put their mayoral candidate 4th on the list (maybe they were being hopeful), but now Berry (who will, I think be taking a crack at Brighton in the GE) has stepped down and allowed Garbett in as 4th on the list.
Here is the Weekly Worker’s take on the London elections:
“ London Assembly
The London Assembly is elected by a complex combination of a party list system plus constituency candidates. The Morning Star’s Communist Party of Britain stood in the party list element, while candidates from the Socialist Party of Great Britain and Tusc stood in constituencies. The party list element was headed by Labour (38.4%), followed by the Tories (26.2%), Greens (11.6%), Lib Dems (8.7%) and Reform UK (5.9%). The CPB ranked 13th at 0.4% (10,915 votes) – an improvement on last time, when it obtained 0.3%.
Among the constituency candidates, Labour took 10 seats, the Tories three and the Lib Dems one, with the Tories taking the ‘white flight’ areas of outer east London and the Lib Dems the outer south west, reflecting the Tory decline in Surrey. Outside the one seat the Lib Dems won, the Greens tended, though not invariably, to outpoll them. On the left, the two SPGB candidates both came in last, with just one percent of the vote.
Among the Tusc candidates, in City and East Lois Austin came in 7th (after an independent) with 4,710 (2%); April Jacqueline Ashley in Croydon and Sutton was 6th with 2,766 (0.7%); Andy Walker in Havering & Redbridge was 7th with 2,145 (1.3%); and Nancy Taaffe in North East was 6th with 5,595 (2.7%). These results show Tusc polling in the same range as the SPGB, though ahead of the CPB.”https://weeklyworker.co.uk/worker/1490/local-election-barometer/
The CPB argue that the working class need to be led to socialist understanding by being drip fed reforms and think we should con people into socialism, rather persuaded to vote directly for socialism,
The SPGB alternatively, work to persuade people vote directly for socialism without the con trick.
More people vote for the SPGB than the CPB.
Conclusion – The CPB are a bunch of really, really shit con artists
Also if all of the resources, campaigning and hard work of the CPB and the other left wing wanna be con artists, who claim to want socialism but think we need to reform our way there, put all of their efforts into actually creating socialists, perhaps we might see 4-5% of people voting directly for Socialism.
Now that would create quite a bit of publicity and certainly start to give us the opportunity to put the Socialist Case more effectively!
That’s a good point. I think I’ll send a letter to the Weekly Worker pointing this out, but in relation to TUSC rather than the CPB.
Meanwhile here is TUSC’s own take on how they did generally:
‘Best campaign since relaunch’, says TUSC results draft report
Interesting that “nearly a fifth of the candidates not members of any political party or group within the coalition.” That will mean that they will not be dyed-in-the-wool Leninists out to manipulate workers into following them as a vanguard by dangling “transitional demands” in front of them. Probably they will be ordinary trade union militants justifiably pissed off with the Labour Party.
I dare say that could be the case of some of the new members of SPRW itself. Our members who attended the SPEW meeting in Vauxhall on “Reform and Revolution” during the campaign reported that they were not allowed to give leaflet to all of the 8 present but were told that one would be sufficient. We left 2. Clearly, the leader of the meeting didn’t want the ordinary members there from investigating further what we have to say.
A letter based on BD’s comments above is published is this week’s Weekly Worker:
https://weeklyworker.co.uk/worker/1491/letters/
The letter published immediately after from a group in Manchester is interesting as it seems to be putting a similar position as us, as long, that is, as they mean by communism what we mean by socialism.
The classic Trostskyist idea is that by demanding reforms such as higher minimum wage, renationalisation of whatever is in fashion, etc. etc. it is possible to show that reforms are not possible under capitalism and that this will lead to the workers dismissing reforms and turning to revolutionary ideas.
What has always surprised me is how many of the Trot rank and file actually believe that the requested reforms are feasible and realistic! Trotskys idea that revolutionary thoughts would penetrate the rank and file reformists has actually turned out to be the opposite. The rank and file pseudo revolutionary Trotskyites have been penetrated by reform and it has gone to the centre of their being.
When we had a candidate standing in the Jarrow Constituency, a group of SPGB members were talking to some SWPers about the election. The SWPers were till adament that they would vote for and campaign for the Local Labour candidate, despite the fact that the the Labour Pary candidate was polling around the mid 60% of the total vote and the liklihood of the Tories winning was about the same as Sunderland FC winning the European Cup next year and despite the fact that they had a chance to vote for a real Socialist Candidate!
Another example I remember is being in a bar (quelle surprise), many years ago and explaining, to a very senior member of the Militant Tendency (who is now a successful playwriter) that real Socialism would mean the abolition of the wages system and of money. He genuinely said to me, “that’s a really stupid idea, that woudl never work!! Why would a barmaid chose to spend her night pouring pints to people in a pub”.
I explained to him that there would be no need, in Socialism we will just put the pumps on the other side of the bar.
I explained to him that there would be no need, in Socialism we will just put the pumps on the other side of the bar.
In your dreams!
BD – “I explained to him that there would be no need, in Socialism we will just put the pumps on the other side of the bar.”
L45 – “In your dreams!”
It works for all inclusive resorts!
“Another example I remember is being in a bar (quelle surprise), many years ago and explaining, to a very senior member of the Militant Tendency (who is now a successful playwriter) that real Socialism would mean the abolition of the wages system and of money. He genuinely said to me, “that’s a really stupid idea, that would never work!! Why would a barmaid choose to spend her night pouring pints to people in a pub”.
_________________I am not surprised BD. Trots are some of the most conservative or narrow-minded individuals I’ve come across tbh. Little wonder so many of them find it so easy to “defect” to the far Right or virulently “anti-communist” positions later on in life once they have burnt themselves out.
“. . . a very senior member of the Militant Tendency (who is now a successful playwriter)”
I have to ask . . . who is he?
I wouldn’t reveal that.
To be fair he’s a decent fella (I was going to say kid rather than fella, and then thought I’m 63 and he’s a couple of years older than me, so sadly neither of us are kids!)
I doubt you’ll have heard of him but he’s and his writing partner have produced about a dozen plays that have been quite successful.
Also I wouldn’t want to queer his pitch by outing him as an ex Militant. Although ex trots seem to be pretty much everywhere and doing well (e.g. Keir Starmer), and the SPGB forum is sadly but a small part of the interweb, shit does happen.
The members who attended the SPEW meeting on “Reform or Revolution?” in Vauxhall on 25 April report that, in answer to a question as to whether the revolution they envisaged would abolish money and private property, replied that capitalism had not yet sufficiently developed the forces of production for that.
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