ALB
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That's up both in votes and percentage terms, from 1057 to 1324 and from 2.41 to 3.11%. She's SWP, so it looks as if they've got a bit of a mini power base in Tottenham. She was TUSC's second best result, after ex-Labour MP Dave Nellist in Coventry, with 1769 or 3.91%. All the others were under 1000 and 1.6%. In other words, in the same league as us despite their vote-catching reform programme (which, presumably, most people felt/knew wasn't deliverable any more than they thought socialism was feasible at the moment).
TUSC have now produced a list of their results with a commentary:http://www.tusc.org.uk/txt/338.pdfThe last section is headed 'Candidates not in the TUSC umbrella'. It doesn't include us (or Class War), presumably because they don't think that we'd ever agree to (they're right) but, curiously, they include the National Health Action party, a single issue, left-liberal party which did considerably better than them but which would probably never agree to shelter under their umbrella either and would be foolish if they did as that would only lose them votes.
If they planned to introduce something like the Anti-Socialist Law of 1878 in Germany that would be something to get worried about. It starts off:
Quote:Societies [Vereine] which aim at the overthrow of the existing political or social order through social-democratic, socialistic, or communistic endeavors are to be prohibited. This applies also to societies in which social-democratic, socialistic, or communistic endeavors aiming at the overthrow of the existing political or social order are manifested in a manner dangerous to the public peace, and, particularly to the harmony among the classes of the population.That would cover us explicitly.Actually, while it caused great inconvenience to the German Social Democratic movement it didn't work to suppress it and was eventually repealed in 1890, largely because they couldn't stop more and more people voting for the SPD. That's what would (hopefully) happen if they tried it on the socialist movement here at a later stage.
I would think that this is of more immediate and realistic concern for the working class:https://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/a-bf5d-The-most-vicious-assault-on-basic-labour-rights-anywhere-in-the-West#.VVhMi1KebTQAnd the Tories dare to call themselves "The Workers Party" (mind you Labour dare to call themselves "The Labour Party").
gnome wrote:I would also suggest the introduction of a limit to the number of posts an individual can make in any 24 hours.Don't agree with that. That would rule out the cut and thrust of short quickfire responses. More generally, I think we need a lighter rather than a heavier touch, allowing threads to wander a bit off the topic. Srill, I'm not volunteeering !
To expect applications to join is a bir premaure, but there have been 50 requests for an information pack and free 3-month trial subscription to the Socialist Standard.
The Weekly Worker have now published the results of all those they call "left candidates":http://www.cpgb.org.uk/may2015candidates.htmlWhat is noticeable is how well the Socialist Labour Party did compared with TUSC. Can't think why. The name perhaps? Class War got even less than us.
No, it's a meeting about the elections, formally of the Outreach Dept together with the candidates, election agents and branches involved. Obviously there will be a report to the party via the EC. Admitting religious people, changing the party name or getting involved in social activism are not on the agenda. The title of this thread is silly anyway as the future of the party is not an issue or in doubt.Those who can't attend have been invited to contribute in writing.
In preparation for the famous meeting on 23 May to carry out a post-mortem on the elections campaign, I've transcribed the various questions that were put in three 5-minute video interviews we had.Here's Andrew Neil's questions on BBC2's Daily Politics Show:
Quote:It's a bit confusing isn't it? You're the Socialist Party of Great Britain. What makes you different from the other socialist parties?Are you a bit anarchist?You're like the one on the train in Dr Zhivago just after the Bolshevik revolution who was being shipped off because the Bolsheviks didn't want anything to do with them?You are the Socialist Party of Great Britain. We've got the Socialist Labour Party, the Socialist Alliance, the Trade Union and Socialist party, Left Unity, the Scottish Socialist Party, the Alliance for Green Socialism, the Communist Party and the Socialist Workers Party. You can see the problem there? It's a bit like the scene in Monty Python's the Life of Brian, isn't it? Shouldn't you all get together and have a proper Left Marxist Alternative?In my obviously failing bid to encourage left unity here, can I just suggest that you would do better if you were a bit more [united]? It's the perennial problem of the far left. You seem to to hate each other more than you hate the Tories or the Labour Party. I suggest that it is not helped by your rulebook which says: “A member shall not belong to any other political organisation or write or speak for any other political party except in opposition, or otherwise assist any other political party.”Neil was nothing if not persistent (I didn't see the interviews he did with the other parties he mentions: was he so persistent with them on the same subject?) Compared with his the questions the other interviewers put were gifts.
Quote:For BBC News 24 and BBC Parliament channel: What do you mean by socialism?Why do you want to “abolish the wages system”?You only have 10 candidates, why would you say people should vote for you?If you were elected to parliament what would be the top policies you would implement?What's wrong with the other parties? Cherwell (Oxford student newspaper) You are not connected to the Socialist Workers Party, are you?So, this is what has been called the battle between the “impossiblists” and the “reformists”?Do you want to be an MP?What do you say to people who agree with your ideas and give you a few votes but recognise that this isn't the main focus of the Socialist Party of Great Britain? What should they do to bring about the revolution?Vin wrote:I know we laugh at this but there is a serious side to it, in fact it could be THE problem.if it is, then we'd have to drop "socialist" from our name. Which is not going to happen of course. So we'll have to face it. I agree with Bill that the best way is to pre-empt it by bringing it up first and answering the question by beginning "Yes, we're the People's Front of Judea and they're the Judean People's Front" and then answer seriously.. Anyway, an item for discussion at the post-mortem on 23 May and maybe also at ADM.
I thought this was a discussion about the future not the past !The election review meeting has now been fixed for 1pm on Saturday 23 May at Head Office.This from an account of one hustings is the sort of the thing we will/should be discussing as it is one example of how others see us and of the difficulties of putting our case across alongside the conventional politicians:
Quote:The Socialist: The contrast between the clarity, tactical calculation, local passion and pure politics of Moran and Mike Foster the Socialist candidate was almost painful. Even before he spoke Foster had created an amusing moment. The chairman announced that he had been asked to make it clear that Foster was not the candidate of the Socialist Workers Party, as he had mistakenly announced, but of the Socialist Party. The audience chuckled quietly and I'm quite sure that hundreds immediately recalled as I did the Life of Brian and his introduction to the difference between the People’s Judean Front and the People’s Front of Judea!Foster seemed to be a good guy but he was quite out of it and had nothing to say to the actual circumstances of Botley. Only the common ownership of everything would make things better, meanwhile everyone including MPs are powerless. “What would you be able to offer Oxford West and Abingdon that other candidates can’t?” he was asked by The Oxford Student (I am quoting from a printed source so that you do not think I am making it up): “I’m not standing in this election to make promises about what I would do if I was elected…. The state, and the very way that our society is put together, can’t be made to work in the interests of the vast majority of people… If you vote for the Socialist Party, you wouldn’t be voting to put me in that position, thankfully. Instead, you’d be making the point that the whole system which we live under has to be replaced.”It is not utopian to have a great vision – provided you also have an argument about how we get from here to there. But the Socialist party had nothing practical to offer. Foster works to help homeless people but he was not campaigning to help the people of Botley in any concrete way. This brought him the funniest point of the evening. When it was his turn to answer the question, with whom would he not go in to coalition?, he shrugged his shoulders with a smile as the audience laughed. He wouldn't go into coalition with anyone nor, he admitted, would any other party want to go into coalition with his.The great financial crash that started in August 2007 has thrown millions of people out of work and set back the standard of living of countless more while the super-rich get even richer. Yet this is the first time such a crisis of capitalism has not been met by even the spectre of socialism. The Occupy movement is broadly anarchist, the indignados do not define their populism in terms of left and right, the green movement has appropriated the politics of the totality from Marxism. I'm quite confident that a politics which challenges the neoliberal order will emerge. Its name will not be socialism. The futility of the Socialist Party, not to speak of the complete absence of the "world socialist movement" it proclaims, signals the historic end of this form of anti-capitalism. It was noted with a benign tolerance by the people of Botley, a further indication of its irrelevance.stuartw2112 wrote:Does Russell Brand, to keep to the subject of this thread, divide political activities into revolutionary ones to be supported and reformist ones to be rejected? Not as far as I know.Actually, he does distinguish between "reformist" and other activity. I've heard him use the term "reformist" in relation to activity in parliament, as by Caroline Lucas, to get the same sort of things as he supports by direct action outside it. Which, actually, comes nearto our definition of the term !And there's this from p. 336 of his book on Revolution. It's about a Swedish proposal to pay workers partly in shares of the company they work for:
Quote:… that's one idea, that in my view is a piece of pipsqueak reformism and not worth dying for …I believe you said you hadn't read the book.I'd just add that not all the activities Brand supports fall into the category of even our definition of "reformism".
