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Just when it might be thought that the electoral statement of some individual WPB candidates could not be more vacuous, there’s this one from their candidate in Kingston and Surbiton:
You have still missed the point. It’s not about how a majority of the world’s population might come to want socialism but about, if they did, whether or not mechanisms to express and implement this exist. Someone had suggested that they couldn’t.
That wasn’t the point. The point was that they all did vote for the same — capitalism — so why on principle couldn’t they vote for a different same — socialism. But you are such a Party pooper that you can only see the negative side of things.
This year a large percentage of the world’s population will have voted in elections — the EU, the USA, India and Russia, not just here. Why is it inconceivable that they could have all returned a majority in favour of socialism? They didn’t of course but the mechanism to do this in a comparatively short period of time already exists.
Actually, the other left of Labour candidate standing in Southgate and Wood Green, Geoff Moseley of the Workers Party, doesn’t sound so bad as the Trotskyist.
What Trotskyist would argue;
“If we want Parliament to act in the best interests of all, we’re going to have to do it ourselves, and
the mechanism for peaceful revolution has been staring us in the face for generations: Democracy.
It wasn’t handed to us on a plate; it’s a right our ancestors fought hundreds of years to get. And it’s not God-given either: it has only existed for about three hundred of the last ten thousand years.
The modern version has been with us for less than a century.
So, we don’t have to take up arms. No one will be killed. There will be no executions. All we have to do is line up in an orderly manner, and vote. If you carry on voting the way you have – or not voting at all – the status quo will remain more or less as is: the rich will continue to exploit the poor, rich countries will carry on treating war as an offshore business, politicians will carry on representing their own best interests, and more and more life on this precious planet will suffer.”This is from his own site not the WPB’s. In fact it comes from the time he had his own registered party, Hoi Polloi, which stood in nearby Hornsey in the 2015 general election. He can may be typical of some of those who have come forward to stand for the Workers Party.
http://geoffmoseley.com/Hoi_Polloi/Never_was_so_much_owed_by_so_many.
Discussion on us on this bulletin board arising out of our leaflet in Clapham and Brixton Hill:
https://vote-2012.proboards.com/thread/18311/clapham-brixton-hill
Talking about Karl Vidol, the TUSC candidate in Southgate and Wood Green (above), a comrade who is an elector there has sent him the following email;
Dear Karl Vidol.
I am writing in response to your Election communication.
It says “VOTE SOCIALIST”, but nowhere is that term, or socialism, defined (see below). It seems to be treated as a word to describe a political flavouring, rather than a revolutionary concept. The term socialism has, unfortunately, has had many associations, most of them unpleasant, although the left usually haven’t shied away from them. You would think that if you were seeking a “socialist” vote you would offer the voters a concise definition to focus on, rather than the usual cat’s-lick-and-a-promise presented by capitalist parties.
You appear rather coy in referring to the working class, but use “working-class people” instead. The gap between rich (capitalist) class and the rest increasing is predicated on the accumulation of wealth by the capitalist class, so there’s nothing new there. The rich get richer because we—the working class—allow them to do so, not because they keep us in physical chains or deny us the vote.
Most political parties vie with each other to administer capitalism. Some, like the left, claim they are doing it in working-class interests, some are blatantly capitalist. The result is the same, unless a complete change is contemplated, capitalism will continue to roll on as usual. Of course, there may be good times, but capitalism offers no certainty. Meanwhile we are cursed with war, poverty, and worse, destitution, environmental degradation, dictatorships, and we know some of the latter the left supported in the past.
If you want to rid the world of the evils that capitalism visits upon it, then offering the working class reforms that may or may not improve their situation, and could be taken away is not the answer.
Why have you picked on Gaza for your outrage, when there are many other conflicts happening round the world?
I have never been let down by the governing parties, recognizing that their role is to run capitalism for the benefit of those who own most of the world—the capitalist class. Governments may try to persuade you that they run the country in the interests of all, but that is not their function. That doesn’t mean that some politicians may believe that they are serving the interests of all. All it means is that they have absorbed the capitalist ideology (false consciousness) that only lets you see the world as it seems, not as it is.
You say, “…a new way of running the economy to benefit the majority, not just the billionaires.” So, billionaires will still exist in your “socialist” society? This seems to be the fact, because you talk about “For real workers’ rights”, implying that the capitalist class will still be around. You also talk in national terms, but socialism can only be achieved on a worldwide basis, a world of common ownership and democratic control of the means of production, without state control. A society introduced by a majority vote of the working class, not imposed upon them by an all-knowing elite.
The only way for “every possible improvement for working-class people” is to introduce a society where the term working class would have no meaning.
“If the system can’t afford that, we need to change the system.” What change?
J. V. (Wood Green)
Apparently the hustings in Folkestone on Monday 17 attended by all 8 candidates was a sell-out;
Came across another wishy washy Workers Party candidate’s manifesto. This one from Lewisham West and Dulwich East (where I have a proxy vote for a comrade in Australia):
Note the pledges to give preference to veterans and small businesses.
He won’t be getting our comrade’s vote.
To check whether or not all WPB candidates were in effect standing as well-known local independents, I looked up that of Heiko Khoo, a long-time Hyde Park orator advocating Militant Tendency Trotskyism from his platform, who is standing for them in Putney.
His manifesto is more what you would call leftwing, but note the hints of conspiracy theories about vaccination and abolishing cash:
Another left-of-Labour candidate whose election manifesto can hardly be described as radical. This from the Workers Party candidate in Battersea in London;
Of course it is a good thing that these opportunistic reformists don’t mention socialism.
The leaflets for distribution outside the two constituencies we are contesting arrived today. 3000 or so were sent on to branches and individuals who pre-ordered. Some 400 were distributed in Battersea (which we contested in 2017). A Labour poster was spotted. These are no longer just in red but now incorporate in one corner the colours of the Union Jack, confirming that party’s even further degeneration.
Everyone i’ve given the Standard to has rejected our message.
That could have something to do with your overall approach. If you say to someone “switch off your smartphone, o dumbed down one, brush up your Latin, read this if you can understand it, it will raise your cultural level”, it is not surprising you get a negative reaction.
Voters in Clapham and Brixton Hill have been invited to contact our candidate through this:
https://voteclimate.uk/constituencies/clapham-and-brixton-hill/ppcs/e14001175-billmartin
A number have done so and are being sent this link:
https://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/climatechange/keypoints#10
You mean that the people you have talked to about socialism have expressed a “dread” of it? I don’t believe you.
