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Is that 1000 votes figure correct?
Actually, as recently as May this year we got more than that in the Greater London Assembly elections, even over 2000 in one constituency (even if it’s because GLA constituencies are bigger than parliamentary ones).
The highest number of votes we have ever got in an election was 4050 for the European Parliament elections in 2009 in the London Region.
The highest we have got in a parliamentary election was 899 in Bethnal Green in 1959.
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.
Actually it is not entirely a myth. Here’s what our candidate for a municipal election in Glasgow in May 1962 stated in his election address:
“As a candidate for the Socialist Party of Great Britain, I do not beg for your vote on any reform. If, in fact, you want some reform of the present social system, then your vote is not for the Socialist Party of Great Britain.”
And went on:
“What I stress again and again, is that in order to bring about Socialism the majority must understand it. If you understand and desire Socialism, if you are aware that Capitalism can never operate for the benefit of the working class, then you will be aware that a vote for any of our opponents is a vote for the retention of Capitalism and a vote for the Socialist Party of Great Britain candidate is a vote registering your protest against Capitalism, a vote for Socialism—the new world.”
Ironically, we’d get more publicity (and get people thinking more) if we stood outside a bank with a placard saying “Who Need Money?”
Or outside a station with one saying “Why isn’t public transport free?”
Or something like that which is directly relevant to the case for socialism.
Regarding your other idea — of a general strike in Britain to stop the bombing of civilians in Gaza — obviously socialists want that to stop too, immediately. In fact we want the whole war to stop. But in practice that is just a declaration of principle, important though it is to state where you stand.
Unfortunately, unless those who directly control the Israeli killing machine decide to do so unilaterally, only the US government could bring effective pressure on the Israeli government to do this.
So a general strike in Britain, even if it could be organised, would have no effect. Any general strike would have to be in the US but the chances of that are less than zero.
To have even the slightest chance of succeeding, a general strike (any general strike) would have to have overwhelming popular support. But in both the US and Britain voters have just elected pro-Israel governments. And as has been pointed out many times, if people won’t vote for something they are unlikely to strike for it.
So a huge effort would have to be put in to get people to change their mind. But the time and energy involved would be more effectively used to get people to realise that wars are a product of the competitive struggle for profits over sources of raw materials, trade routes, markets and investment outlets and that, therefore, the only way to stop wars breaking out is to replace capitalism by socialism. Which of course is what we are doing all the time.
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.”Well, yes, of course socialism will be a society in which there will be no money (because it won’t be needed) and so be “a moneyless society”. I don’t see anything wrong in saying that any more than saying it will be a classless society. It doesn’t even rule out using “vouchers” under certain temporary circumstances, as in the very early days or after some disaster.
It will equally obviously be a society without markets and banks as well. These are all features of an exchange economy and exchange, as it is a transaction between separate owners, implies private ownership.
For some people, imagining how the production and distribution of useful things and services could be organised without using money can be difficult when they first hear about this. But it should be possible to explain to them that this is a consequence of the common ownership of resources and production directly to meet people’s needs, ie socialism.
I still say it is better to talk about the “disappearance” of money, etc rather than their “abolition”. The word “abolition” could suggest (even if it doesn’t have to) some political decree to ban them, whereas in fact they will disappear as a consequence of there being common ownership of resources and products. In any event, we don’t envisage their disappearance/abolition while retaining private ownership of resources.
I don’t think most of those who advocate using a voucher system instead of a circulating means of exchange also envisage markets and banks continuing, do they?
Actually, we don’t actually say “abolish money” (and I’m fairly certain we don’t say this anywhere on our website) as this recent discussion here shows:
It’s something people interpret us as standing for. But we are always careful to say is that we want to establish the common ownership of productive resources so allowing production to directly satisfying people’s needs — and that, as a consequence of this, money will become redundant.
If resources are owned in common then so will what they are used to produce. The question that then arises is how to distribute what has been produced, not how to sell it.
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.
Another 600 or so leaflets distributed today, both outside Archway tube station and in streets throughout the ward. In fact, apart from those sent to local members to distribute near where they live, all the streets in the wards have now been covered. Only a part of one housing estate remains. There are now only about 300 left at Head Office which should be enough to do this next Saturday.
Much political activity outside Archway tube station and in Navigator Square (so named after the Irish navvies who built the railways in Victorian times – at one time North Islington had a large Irish population) this morning. The Corbynist candidate was there with 20 or so canvassers as was Jeremy Corbyn himself (who retired to the local station cafe when the others went canvassing). Also there were the Labour candidate and about a dozen Labour councillors. So of course were we.
We again came across both Corbynist and Labour canvassers as we were distributing leaflets door to door. We met Jackson Caines door-knocking in Despard Road. There is a pub at the end of the road called the Charlotte Despard, but this was not its original name nor was the road named after her. She was in the SDF, a suffragette, opponent the First World War, Sinn Feiner and, towards the end, Communist Party member. She knew Eleanor Marx.
Incidentally, Marx’s grave is only a short distance outside the ward.
No sign of any activity by the Greens, LibDems or Tories.
Quoted by a comrade in the US:
Always remember the data below on the 2024 election:
245 million eligible voters
76 million for Trump
73 million for Harris
2.5 million for third partyTrump got 31% of the vote.
Harris got 30% of the vote.
Millions of liberal/progressives did not vote.
This was not a Trump landslide.
It was a protest vote against Democrats (mostly inflation).Belfast Bax put the same sort of argument in his article “On Immortality” (against its possibility) in 1888:
https://www.marxists.org/archive/bax/1888/04/immortality.htm
Some 300 or so more leaflets were handed out yesterday afternoon outside Tufnell Park tube station and a nearby street.
A further 1000 had been delivered to our offices on Tuesday so we have plenty more as, for instance, for this rally to be addressed by Corbyn himself on Saturday:
https://jackson4junction.org/events
Incidentally, we were at the Tufnell Park Tavern at 6.30 yesterday but none of them turned up.
Yesterday 850 leaflets were distributed door to door in different parts of the ward.
The only evidence of other election activity were leaflets from Jackson Caines in one of the “social housing” estates. Labour can’t lose here – at the last council elections in 2022 some two-thirds of voters opted for them — so maybe other candidates aren’t putting much effort in to contesting.
Corbyn endorses Jackson Caines. So he is now an official Corbynist candidate.
