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The Tory candidate manifests himself:
He claims:
“There are four varieties of socialism on offer. If you don’t like any of them, if you don’t believe in socialism, you can vote for me.”
Actually, there is only one candidate who states both on the ballot paper and on their leaflets that they are standing for socialism. The other three he mentions are just offering tweaks to the existing capitalist system.
It would be more accurate to say that there are six varieties of capitalism on offer. So if you want capitalism you’re spoilt for choice. Vote for one of them.
But if you want socialism — the common ownership and democratic control of the means of life with production directly to meet people’s needs, not for profit — there is only one candidate standing for this.
There is also this:
https://finimize.com/content/china-unearths-massive-gold-find-worth-billions#
Of course that gold in the ground is not worth that much. In fact it’s not worth anything. That’s only its notional value if it had been mined and processed (and that its appearance on the market wouldn’t reduce the price of gold) but the geo-strategic point at the end is valid.
Another leftwing endorsement of Jackson Caines, from “the Collective”, a group that wants to form yet another left-of-Labour political party.
https://x.com/wearecollectiv_/status/1858922247479849211
More on “the Collective” here:
https://www.thecanary.co/uk/analysis/2024/09/16/jeremy-corbyn-collective/
When the vacancy occurred we decided to contest the by-election as we had stood in the ward on three previous occasions. Little did we realise that the by-election would attract national attention.
We have even been accused by some of Caines’s supporters of splitting the anti-Labour vote — by the same sort of people who in years gone by used to accuse us of splitting the Labour vote.
Yesterday the remaining part of the Girdlestone estate was leafletted as well as commuters leaving Upper Holloway overground station.
Re the Durham Miners Gala, wouldn’t it be better to organise the debate against a Labourite rather than a Tory? Otherwise we would just be providing entertainment for the anti-Tory participants. It’s the Labour Party we need to hit and hard.
Stand outside businesses, stations, ect with placards challenging this current system in smart ways that will get people to notice, come talk to us or visit our site. Stuff like that.
But it seems that’s what noone wants to do and I don’t for the life of me understand why.Nobody here has suggested we shouldn’t do that. It’s the general strike idea that has been questioned.
Personally I prefer leafletting protest marches and door to door during elections or regular street stalls. But there is no objection in principle to members doing what you suggest here. Put it to your branch and see what they think or to South wales branch. They do something every Saturday.
The SWP intervene. Guess who they are supporting.
You’ve been on some of the fortnightly anti-Gaza war protest marches and so will have seen the variety of papers and leaflets on them calling for all sorts of ways to free non-Jewish workers in Palestine from direct oppression by the Israeli state.
“Smash Israel”, “Socialist intifada”, “workers government”, etc, etc. from the various Trotskyist and Maoists groups. I was going to say I hadn’t read them all but suspected that at least one of them would have called for a general strike.
I then checked and found that I was right:
This is from the “Workers Revolutionary Party”. But it hasn’t raised their profile nor the number of votes they get when they contest elections — they get about the same as us.
We certainly do need to do more and maybe different to draw attention to the need for socialism but starting a campaign for a general strike over the Gaza war wouldn’t do this. So it’s back to the drawing board.
Is that 1000 votes figure correct?
Actually, as recently as May this year we got more than that in the Greater London Assembly elections, even over 2000 in one constituency (even if it’s because GLA constituencies are bigger than parliamentary ones).
The highest number of votes we have ever got in an election was 4050 for the European Parliament elections in 2009 in the London Region.
The highest we have got in a parliamentary election was 899 in Bethnal Green in 1959.
Apparently this thread has been noticed on the Leftist Trainspotters Facebook page (yes, there is one). A Leninist makes the following sarcastic comment:
“An exciting run down of the SPGB’s byelection campaign in Islington.
As Lenin once said, ‘Hand a few leaflets out and hope for the best.’”As if Leninists didn’t do that.
Actually it is not entirely a myth. Here’s what our candidate for a municipal election in Glasgow in May 1962 stated in his election address:
“As a candidate for the Socialist Party of Great Britain, I do not beg for your vote on any reform. If, in fact, you want some reform of the present social system, then your vote is not for the Socialist Party of Great Britain.”
And went on:
“What I stress again and again, is that in order to bring about Socialism the majority must understand it. If you understand and desire Socialism, if you are aware that Capitalism can never operate for the benefit of the working class, then you will be aware that a vote for any of our opponents is a vote for the retention of Capitalism and a vote for the Socialist Party of Great Britain candidate is a vote registering your protest against Capitalism, a vote for Socialism—the new world.”
Ironically, we’d get more publicity (and get people thinking more) if we stood outside a bank with a placard saying “Who Need Money?”
Or outside a station with one saying “Why isn’t public transport free?”
Or something like that which is directly relevant to the case for socialism.
Regarding your other idea — of a general strike in Britain to stop the bombing of civilians in Gaza — obviously socialists want that to stop too, immediately. In fact we want the whole war to stop. But in practice that is just a declaration of principle, important though it is to state where you stand.
Unfortunately, unless those who directly control the Israeli killing machine decide to do so unilaterally, only the US government could bring effective pressure on the Israeli government to do this.
So a general strike in Britain, even if it could be organised, would have no effect. Any general strike would have to be in the US but the chances of that are less than zero.
To have even the slightest chance of succeeding, a general strike (any general strike) would have to have overwhelming popular support. But in both the US and Britain voters have just elected pro-Israel governments. And as has been pointed out many times, if people won’t vote for something they are unlikely to strike for it.
So a huge effort would have to be put in to get people to change their mind. But the time and energy involved would be more effectively used to get people to realise that wars are a product of the competitive struggle for profits over sources of raw materials, trade routes, markets and investment outlets and that, therefore, the only way to stop wars breaking out is to replace capitalism by socialism. Which of course is what we are doing all the time.
We have received the following email from the Islington section of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign:
“Dear Bill
We are contacting you as part of Islington PSC (Palestine Solidarity Campaign) divestment campaign for Palestinian rights.
We submitted a petition to Islington Council in September, which will be debated at Full Council meeting on Thursday 12th December.
We are asking all candidates standing in the by-elections in Junction ward whether they would support our demands (see list below) and actively campaign to make sure they are implemented should they be elected on 28th November.
Could you please send us your reply via email by Monday 18th November 12pm?
We will publish all answers (and non answers) on our social media and group chats.
Do not hesitate to contact us for more information
Here are our demands:
Pension fund: Divest for Palestinian rights!
Disclose the pension fund’s investments in companies that enable, facilitate and profit from human rights violations or violations of international law as part of prolonged military occupations, apartheid and genocide and in bonds issued by countries involved in prolonged military occupations.
Divest from all the companies and bonds disclosed.
Provide a timescale for divestment and quarterly progress reports
Update the Investment Strategy Statement to include a commitment to divest from companies that enable, facilitate and profit from human rights violations or violations of international law and schedule regular reviews of fund holdings to identify further exclusions.
Publish statements regarding changes to the pension fund strategy and disinvestment programme.
Procurement: Boycott Barclays and other complicit suppliers!
Companies that enable, facilitate and profit from human rights violations or violations of international law to be excluded from tendering for contracts with the council.
Set up a working group to strengthen the ethical criteria of the council’s procurement procedure.
Publish regular statements regarding the progress of the group and report on its findings.
Guilene Marco, on behalf of Islington PSC”To which we replied:
“Dear Guilene
Thanks. Here is our general position on the war in Palestine.
The war in the Middle East is not, as it might seem, another example of an undying enmity between two groups – Jews and Arabs – but a fight between different capitalist factions over land, resources and strategic routes. And not just between the government of Israel and the Hamas regime in Gaza. The greater issue is who controls the oilfields in the Persian Gulf and the trade route out of it, with Israel being supported by the West to counter the threat from Iran and Iran promoting militant Islamism to undermine Israel.
There is no excuse for the horrors unleashed on innocent people by Hamas nor for Israel’s savage retaliation, killing thousands, attacking hospitals, depriving a land of food, water and power and flattening its infrastructure regardless of what may happen to the inhabitants in the short and long term. No wonder there are calls for a ceasefire to alleviate the sufferings of the people of Gaza.
It is all part of a playbook, which we see played out time and time again as governments representing their capitalist classes fail to resolve conflicts by diplomacy and resort to horrifying violence. We can only repeat the same thing we have always said when this has happened – that workers in the region have no interest in fighting one another but have a common interest in uniting with workers throughout the world to abolish capitalism and establish socialism, a world without borders where the Earth’s resources will belong to all humanity and are used to produce what people need, not profits for the few who currently own and control these resources.
If elected, I would vote on issues put before the council as decided by the members of the local branch.
For Socialism
Bill Martin, Socialist Party of Great Britain candidate, Junction ward, Islington.”Well, yes, of course socialism will be a society in which there will be no money (because it won’t be needed) and so be “a moneyless society”. I don’t see anything wrong in saying that any more than saying it will be a classless society. It doesn’t even rule out using “vouchers” under certain temporary circumstances, as in the very early days or after some disaster.
It will equally obviously be a society without markets and banks as well. These are all features of an exchange economy and exchange, as it is a transaction between separate owners, implies private ownership.
For some people, imagining how the production and distribution of useful things and services could be organised without using money can be difficult when they first hear about this. But it should be possible to explain to them that this is a consequence of the common ownership of resources and production directly to meet people’s needs, ie socialism.
I still say it is better to talk about the “disappearance” of money, etc rather than their “abolition”. The word “abolition” could suggest (even if it doesn’t have to) some political decree to ban them, whereas in fact they will disappear as a consequence of there being common ownership of resources and products. In any event, we don’t envisage their disappearance/abolition while retaining private ownership of resources.
I don’t think most of those who advocate using a voucher system instead of a circulating means of exchange also envisage markets and banks continuing, do they?
