Our Euroelection campaign
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We’ve had invitation to three meetings:
Wednesday 8 May from 7pm: MEP Hustings, Anthony Mingella Theatre, Quay Arts, NEWPORT, Isle of Wight. Organised by Islnders4Europe.
Thursday 9 May 7.30pm to 9pm: Our choices in the European elections. Wesley Memorial Church, New Inn Hall St, OXFORD. Organised by Oxford Communist Corresponding Society.
Wednesday 15 May 7pm to 9pm. CHESHAM (Bucks). Details to follow.
Mike Foster will do the one in Oxford. Ideally, Dave Chesham ought to return to what must have been the town of his fathers. We are still looking for a candidate to cross over from the mainland to the Island (and back).
One of the candidates on our list, Stephen Harper, will do the one on the IOW, He just needs to get the ferry from Portsmouth.
“James, the nearest part of the South East electoral region to you is Banbury, 40 miles down the M40. A further 28 miles brings you to Oxford. We have members and sympathisers in both places. The idea would be for West Midlands branch to cover these places (leafletting, street stalls). Details haven’t yet been finalised but will be this weekend.”
Does Milton Keynes come under the South East, as part of Bucks? It’s close to my family home and I know people there, so I could be of use there too. Either way Banbury is on the line from where I live in Brum, so certainly could help there.
Also, I have spoken to a friend and Marxist who lives in between Birmingham and Burgess Hill in the South East. His main bug bear is determinism and having spoken with him about the party he has said we can count on his vote.
James
Yes Milton Keynes is within the South East Election Region. In fact, in the last Euroelections in 2014, we had Royal Mail distribute our leaflet to every household in the Milton Keynes North constituency. At the moment there is no activity planned there this time. So far what is planned in the northern part of the election region is to attend the meeting in Oxford on Thursday 9 May and the event in Burford on Saturday 11 May. Still contacting a comrade in Banbury about activity there.
Have some leaflets. Going to put some through the door. Narrowed down by council ward a couple of places to target:
Newport Pagnell South: 36.06%
Nigel Birrell (UKIP) 331
William Davies (C) 645
Paul Day (L) 502
* Douglas McCall (LD) 1,766
Wolverton: 30.45%
Jennifer Marklew (G) 447
* Norman Miles (L) 1,851
Shouket Mirza (C) 616
Chris Thompson (LD) 343
What do we reckon?
Newport Pagnell, isn’t that a service station on the M1? Sounds alright but you know the area better than the rest of us. To cover two wards you will need more leaflets of course.
Meanwhile, we have received another invitation to a hustings, again in the North of the region:
Monday 13 May 7pm-9pm. Banbury Town Hall, 1 Bridge St, Banbury OX16 5QB
Mike Foster will be our representative.
The second salvo in our campaign took place yesterday with leafletting in the Wolverton area of Milton Keynes. This week the campaign is to really get under way with leafletting and stalls in Southampton, Oxford and Oxfordshire, meetings and hustings in Oxford and the Isle of Wight, and the printing of half-a-million leaflets.
Hi,
Newport Pagnell is a town off the M1 yes. I may be able to get the train down and do some more, but I opted for Wolverton with the leaflets I had. It’s an area of MK, a “new town” with an actual industrial past in the railways.
I leafletted multiple terraced roads around a primary school (which will be the polling station), as well as some flats above shops/houdes on the high street. The old railways working mans club also received a leaflet.
James
Here’s our manifesto, 185,000 copies of which will be inserted into the South edition of the i newspaper.
That’s brilliant! Have you anything else planned?
I should hopefully be able to do some more leafletting another weekend.
We’re now just waiting for the 315,000 leaflets that will be distributed free by the Post Office to selected addresses in the region subject to their scrutiny of the text (for expletives and the like 😆 ) which is merely a formality.
Five members were out yesterday in Southampton to do a stall at the TUC May Day event there. We were surprised to hear somebody high-up in Southampton Labour Party (didn’t catch his name) say capitalism existed in both the UK and the EU, that Leave or Remain wasn’t the issue and that socialism was the answer. More or less what we say. Of course he didn’t mean the same. For him capitalism “neo-liberal capitalism” and “socialism” was a Labour government under Jeremy.
As things were quiet at the stall and there were five of us, four went out leafletting and one stayed to look after the stall. In all, we must have shifted about a 1,000. One reaction, from a polite enough Brexshitter, was that 23 May, the date of the election, was “traitors’ day”. The shape of things to come in the rest of the campaign and if there’s another referendum, as conditions begin to resemble those in the Weimar Republic in Germany after WWI (well, sort of)?
Back at the stall, one person agreed to take some of our leaflets to put in the pidgeon-holes at her student hostel. Further activity in the area is the hustings in the Isle of Wight tomorrow evening and leafletting in New Milton.
Two developments today.
The government has confirmed that the elections are definitely going ahead. Which is good news and bad news fo us. The bad news is that we won’t get our £5,000 election deposit back unless we get at least 2% of the votes cast (not just in Folkestone but across the whole region). The good news is that we now know that any money we spend on printing leaflets for free postal distribution is not going to be wasted with us ending up 315,000 dated leaflets to distribute.
The other development is that Royal Mail have approved the artwork for these leaflets which has been sent for printing. They are going to be distributed in 6 selected Westminster constituencies:
Brighton Pavilion, Oxford East, Canterbury, Dover, Folkestone & Hythe, and Maidstone & the Weald.
Here’s our election leaflet which will be distributed by the post office free of charge to 315,000 selected addresses in the above constituencies.
There are two hustings this week to which we’ve been invited:
Wednesday 8 May from 7pm: MEP Hustings, Anthony Mingella Theatre, Quay Arts, NEWPORT Isle of Wight PO30 5BD. Organised by Islanders4Europe.
Thursday 9 May 7.30pm to 9pm: Our choices in the European elections. Wesley Memorial Church, New Inn Hall St, OXFORD OX1 2DH Organised by Oxford Communist Corresponding Society.
And two street stalls this Saturday, 11 May in Burford (Oxon) and Canterbury. Follow link for details:
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