Our local by-election campaign in Islington
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Something on the other Independent candidate, Dr Brian Potter of the Islington Leaseholders Association, here:
https://drbrianpotter.wordpress.com/
He is ahead of us in that he also has a message on TikTok:
Perhaps someone else here can tell us what he is saying.
One video, which I was the first person to watch.
@drbrianpotter Vote Dr Brian Potter for Junction ward, Islington ☒🗳👍 votedrpotter4junction drpotter4junction junctionx archway islington IslingtonBC votepotter4junction voteindependentpotter4junction votepotterindependent4junction FITA Whittington potter4junctionchange potter4change HoldIslingtonBCtoaccount IslingtonBC72000PoundsRepairBill VotePotter28thNovember tiktokPotter ☑️☒
council mismanagement … hold them to account … housing issues, not political … unjustified rent increases … repair bills … waste of public funds …
Doesn’t mention the SPGB at all! – or any other candidates to be fair.
Wish you hadn’t posted this film. Scrolled along from the good doctor to a chap scrutinizing a pringle through a microscope. The crisp was heaving with animal life. Pigged out on a whole tube last night!
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.”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.
The SWP intervene. Guess who they are supporting.
I sent our election address to the Islington Tribune and Islington Gazette: the latter printed it in their letters column.
In response to a challenge from the Green candidate regarding a controversial planning issue in the ward (the building of a tower of student residences on the old nurses home at Archway) I have sent teh following:
Dear Friend,
By way of reply to the Junction Ward Green Party candidate, (letters 15/11/24): our current economic and political system is geared towards promoting the interests of the few of own the world, at the expense of the many who do the work. Housing developers are geared towards making profits for their owners, not serving community needs. The planning system is tooled for supporting profit making.
As the Socialist Party candidate, I am standing solely on the basis of campaigning to create a system of society based on the common ownership and democratic control of the means and instruments of producing and distributing wealth by, and in the interests of, the whole community.
I don’t expect to win the seat, but it is an opportunity for those who agree with that aim to express support. Whatever the other candidate’s view on the Archway development, a vote for them is a vote for the continuation of a system where the power and advantage in any such dispute is with the wealthy minority.
Yours for World Socialism,
Bill Martin (Socialist Party Candidate, Junction Ward by Election 2024)
Yesterday the remaining part of the Girdlestone estate was leafletted as well as commuters leaving Upper Holloway overground station.
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.
ALB – “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.”
It appears that Leninists are as skilled in the world of humour as they are to the work of Socialism
Islington Palestine Solidarity have come good on their promise to publicise responses to their BDS questionnaire:
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.
From last Wednesday on the last 900 leaflets were distributed, bringing the total number distributed to 2950, covering every letter box in the ward not behind a gate or in a block of flats with no free entry.
So that part of our campaign is over. All we will be doing now is intervening on social media such as, if anyone wants to join in:
https://www.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1081857983939883&id=100063470743031
Junction ward by-election – Thursday 28 November 2024
byu/comrademikey inislingtonPolling date is next Thursday with the result being announced within a couple of hours of voting closing at 10pm.
The LibDem candidate puts in a belated appearance:
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