Our Euroelection campaign
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I haven’t received a Green Party leaflet yet. Not surprised to hear that though, she has got through the net and is now a “respectable” public figure. No surprise they milk her image.
A friend mine is an ex member, who said they would hear nothing of any reference to her life experience (not emanating from a “middle class” urban area), especially if they ran counter the party line, or the parties interpretation of “leftism”. No doubt a party for the guardian readers.
I have some leaflets left to distribute, and should have some time spare Sunday or Monday. Perhaps Banbury is the place to go, to strike while the irons hot. It’s on the Trainline from Solihull.
Banbury is ok as the Party activist there will be leafletting an area in a different district council in Oxfordshire (as he’ll be counting the votes in Banbury). So there’s no danger of double-leafletting.
Just walked past TUSC/SPEW man Dave Nellist with a stereotypical “NHS Not For Sale” stall in Coventry.
Nothing about his respective parties/coalitions mentioned on the display. No mention of the upcoming election either, wouldn’t want to nick a vote off Labour!!
Didn’t bother to stop and debate, much like I don’t with the SWP paper sellers outside Moor St. Perhaps I should start…
First report of our postal election address having been received – in Folkestone & Hythe, along with Labour and Greens.
Yesterday was also the day that the 185,000 inserts were to go into the South edition of the i paper. We know they did (even if upside down and back to front) as we received a couple of emails at Head Office. Also, confirmation from the paper bought in various parts of the South East Region. It was also in copies sold in the South West.
Well over 100 people at the hustings in Chesham (Bucks) yesterday evening. Like the others (except the one tonight at a university in Canterbury) it was organised by a pro-Remain group, seemingly with the purpose of allowing Remain supporters to decide which of the Remain party lists to vote for, with the Labour candidate (an outgoing MEP) saying that he too was a Remainer and favoured a second referendum. This made the Tories and us outsiders and may be why the Brexit Party candidate withdrew at the last moment. As Mike reported for Banbury, all six parties, including us, were given strictly equal time (as it should be).
The audience gave the Tory representative a hard time and even we were heckled for saying that Brexit wasn’t that worth getting worked up about since, if it happened, it wouldn’t make much difference to people’s everyday life (a bit provocative, I know, given the nature of the audience) as capitalism would continue. Still, it was a chance to put the case against capitalism and for socialism and our views on climate change and mass population movements.
It was chaired by a journalist from BBC Three Counties Radio who also interviewed me. Two of the counties (Beds and Herts) are outside the South East Election Region, not that that matters. Far from it, as it spreads our views wider than we anticipated. I also distributed a few leaflets door-to-door. Chesham wasn’t what I expected (a country town) as where I was leafletting there was a huge mosque, so there’ll be plenty of poor people around doing shitty local jobs rather than commuting to work in London.
Sounds like a difficult crowd, but nice one, Adam. Our view on Brexit is always going to be provocative, since the national media has done such a good job convincing the public to talk about nothing else.
Goodness me. An English Democrats leaflet has come through at an address near where I am from (East). It’s a true monstrosity
The University of Kent EU election hustings took place in Canterbury this evening, hosted by the student union. All parties fielding a full slate were invited, with seven candidates appearing – only the Brexit Party failed to send someone.
I forgot to count them, I guess about 50-70 attended, mainly students and some Party activists, it seemed (from the applause) mainly Change UK and a local pro-EU group with a leaflet urging votes for Remain.
Our candidate Andy Thomas from Folkestone appeared, along with two sitting MEPs, Labours John Howarth and Richard Ashworth, standing for Change UK after being expelled from the Tory Party.
The fact that the organisers for some reason had found it so difficult to invite us in the first place was again apparent, as the rostrum for each candidate had a notice on it with their name and Party name/logo but ours had the SPEW star logo and words ‘Socialist Party’, which by the time I saw it was too late to have changed but Andy made clear in his first remarks who we were.
Every question (but one) was (obviously) around Brexit. This made it easy for the two sides to trot out their well-rehearsed arguments, but despite this our candidate was able to use all the questions as an opportunity to advance the case for socialism.
The audience was mainly pro-Remain, and on occasion comments by both the Tory and UKIP received hostile or derisory feedback.
Here again the Labour candidate was die-hard remain (and a member of the EU parliament budget committee). Rivalry between remain candidates broke out into argument and accusation a few times, particularly between Lib Dem and Green.
At the end we leafleted the exit from the hall, having taken the best position before Change UK came out in a short-lived attempt to distribute theirs. Almost all the students gladly accepted our Q&A about socialism leaflet, and some only because it was about socialism, and a some useful discussions took place.
Students filmed the meeting and interviewed on camera our candidate after the meeting, so it may be available online in due course.
The duo of outgoing MEPs, Howarth (Labour) and Ashworth (ex-Tory, now Gang of Independent Renegades) were also at Chesham and are due to speak at Oxford this evening, so by the end of the week they will know what the Party case is even if they don’t agree with it. I clashed with them over the powers of the European Parliament. I said it wasn’t a proper law-making body as this was the Council of Ministers of the Member States. They both protested but afterwards Ashworth partially conceded that I had been right. In fact these elections should see the demise of the so-called “Change UK” party. Good riddance. One less reformist party.
Also at Chesham was the squabbling between the Greens and the LibDems. They needn’t worry. They’ll both get elected. Ashworth is the one who should be (and presumably is) worried as he’s very likely to lose his seat.
Apologies for this bourgeois politics trainspotting.
“What exactly would a Green and Lib Dem candidate squabble over?”
They’re vying with each other to get the lion’s share of the Remain vote.
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