Council election results May 2002

 

From: The Socialist 10 May 2002 | Top | Home | News | The Socialist 

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Step Up the Fight for Socialism

THE SOCIALIST Party scored two brilliant victories in the local elections in England. Dave Nellist and Ian Page were both re-elected as councillors, Dave in Coventry and Ian in Lewisham, London.

Commenting on his result in Coventry Dave said: 

"We scored a quarter of a percent more than in 1998 when we first won the seat in St Michael’s. We’ve now won four elections in a row in that ward and our votes in the other areas show we’re beginning to set down roots in all parts of the city. This is an answer to all those who tried to write us off four years ago as a flash in the pan.

"The key to our success has been the clear socialist opposition we’ve provided to privatisations and PFI, to school closures and housing demolitions. The number of surgeries we’ve organised and the involvement we’ve had in a number of new residents’ and community organisations built up over the last couple of years in St Michael’s, was also important."

Martin, a teacher involved in Ian’s campaign in Lewisham told The Socialist: 

"Ian’s victory was a remarkable success. The votes for the Socialist Party candidates, Ian and Sam Dias, were hundreds more than they previously received.

"The Socialist Party worked alongside local parents campaigning for a new school in the area and against school selection. When socialist candidates are rooted in the campaigns of the local community, voter disgust at the main parties can be translated into victories for socialist parties at the ballot box."

The Socialist Party has a proven record of fighting for the interests of working class and young people in the communities, workplaces and colleges. If you’ve had enough of New Labour Tory policies, if you want a fighting alternative to low pay, privatisation, cuts and all the problems that we face under this capitalist, profit system - join the Socialist Party and fight with us for a better future.

Full results and analysis What Do the Results Mean

 

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Kick Out the BNP

THE GAIN of three Burnley council seats by the neo-Nazi British National Party (BNP) has sent shock-waves through Britain. The BNP is an anti-working class fascist party.

A Youth Against Racism in Europe (YRE) member

Their election will encourage racist attacks and give the BNP confidence to promote violence against their other targets like the gay community, trade unionists, disabled people, Jewish people and socialists.

But most people who voted for the BNP, in Burnley and other areas of England, are not convinced neo-Nazis. They voted in protest against the mainstream parties who are all the same.

In Blair's Britain, poverty and the gap between rich and poor have increased. Public services are being shut down and sold off for private profit. New Labour’s Tory policies are a major reason why millions of people abstained or looked to smaller parties to represent them.

Socialist candidates did very well in many areas. However, sadly in some areas the neo-Nazi BNP was able to exploit this discontent.

Home secretary David Blunkett talking about schools in Britain being "swamped" by refugee children, only increased the BNP's support by making them and their racist policies look respectable.

The racist comments by Anne Winterton, now former Tory front-bench spokesperson, further underlines the racism that permeates mainstream parties. The establishment in Britain - the mainstream political parties, the media and big business - are part of the problem, not the solution to the threat of the BNP.

The BNP was defeated in the mid 1990s by a movement of tens of thousands of people. YRE and Militant Labour (the fore-runner of the Socialist Party) helped organise the demonstrations of up to 50,000 that shut down the BNP's headquarters in Welling, south east London.

We organised the campaign that put an end to the BNP's only regular public activity in Britain: their "paper sale" on Brick Lane in east London. We helped organise community defence campaigns so that local people could drive them off the streets.

We need to re-build a mass, active anti-racist movement that takes up the issues affecting working-class people and involves trade unions, community groups and socialists.

Rather than allow the BNP to divide us, we must fight together on the issues that unite us: Keep the care homes for the elderly in Burnley open. Full funding for public services for all. Free education. End poverty pay. Decent, affordable public transport. Fight privatisation and cuts.

We are campaigning for:

• The trade unions to immediately organise a national demonstration against the BNP in Burnley, calling for jobs, homes and services, not racism.
• Council workers to refuse to co-operate with BNP councillors, with full union support.
• Democratically organised and accountable community defence campaigns against racist attacks and violence.

Contact YRE: 020 8558 7947

email [email protected]

PO Box 858, London E11 1YG. 

http://yre.antifa.net

 

 

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Local Elections 2002: 

Lewisham Telegraph Hill

Highest Ever Socialist Party Votes

SOCIALIST PARTY candidates Ian Page and Sam Dias scored their highest ever votes in Telegraph Hill ward. 

Ian Page was re-elected with over 1,000 votes but Sam Dias just missed out by 43 votes. Local Education Action by Parents (LEAP) Helen Lefevre won one council seat as did the Labour Party.

Mick Suter, election agent

While this was a brilliant result for Ian it was disappointing to see Sam lose her seat. This was the first time that the Socialist Party in Lewisham had won a seat at a full council election, both Ian and Sam had previously won in by-elections. Ian received 1,065 votes the highest he has ever had in three elections. Sam nearly doubled her vote from eighteen months ago.

This shows the huge amount of respect that local people hold both of our candidates in and the campaigning work they have carried out since being elected.

Sam has vowed to continue with her campaigning despite not being reelected. Sam said "I would like to thank all those who supported me and say I will not be going away but continue to work with tenants on the Honor Oak Estate and others. I will support Ian and continue to campaign with the New School for New Cross Campaign to fight for a new school on the Telegraph Hill site."

An important development in Lewisham was the LEAP and three independent tenant candidates who stood for the first time. Parents from the New School for New Cross drew the conclusion that the Labour council was no longer listening to local people and needed to take their struggle for a new comprehensive community school onto the electoral front.

LEAP stood six candidates in four wards and Louise Irvine for Mayor. They polled between 200-450 votes in wards outside Telegraph Hill and 3,710 votes in the Mayoral election. This has forced the education issue to the top of the agenda in Lewisham.

Labour’s new mayor will have to respond to the growing discontent amongst parents. Tenants on the Pepys Estate in Deptford face the Labour Council selling off properties to the private sector. Tenants also gained good results with over 200 votes ( 12.5%).

The significance of these campaigners is that they have seen the need to stand against the traditional parties and find a voice for working class people. These developments give an idea of how a new mass working class party will be built in the future.

At the count, one Socialist Alliance member said that it was tactically wrong for the Socialist Party to support LEAP. Despite Sam Dias losing her seat, we believe it was a correct tactic. It shows the difference in approach of the Socialist Alliance and the Socialist Party towards community struggles which move on to the electoral plane.

The Socialist Party has worked very closely with the New School Campaign not attempting to dominate or control but genuinely supporting the campaign. We don’t just go along to sell our paper. We help with leafleting, attend campaign meetings, move resolutions at the council, attend lobbies and build constant support for the campaign, winning respect from the activists.

The Socialist Party recognised that while we would be building support for LEAP amongst our existing supporters, LEAP would also be building support for Ian and Sam. In fact this is one reason why Ian and Sam’s vote was so high.

When the ballot boxes were opened it was quite clear that there was an increase in support for the Socialist Party around Waller Road polling area as well as strong support on the Honor Oak estate.

The Socialist Alliance on the other hand, gained an average of only 100 votes in the seats where they stood in Lewisham. Winning genuine support means working alongside working-class people, recognising the issues and putting forward a programme that can bring about real change and win some victories on the way.

The ward had an increase of 2,000 new electors which had traditionally supported Labour. These new areas did not know the Socialist Party or the campaigns which we have been involved in.

Both these new areas had low turnouts of around 15% compared with the 30% turnouts in Waller and the Honor Oak. Telegraph Hill ward had one of the higher turnouts compared with the other Deptford wards. This is down to the campaigning of the Socialist Party over years and the New School for New Cross Campaign.

The Labour Party have very few activists and certainly no longer campaign with local people. They have lost touch with working class communities and only represent themselves and the interests of big business.

Sam and Ian and the tenants on the Honor Oak Estate had won £14 million from the council for refurbishing the estate. The Labour Party sunk to smear tactics such as blaming Sam and Ian for the mess created by private contractors.

The Labour Party who have not been seen on the estate over the last six months attempted to say the problems were down to Sam and Ian and not the lack of support from the council and the private companies trying to make as much profit as possible by cutting corners.

Election night started badly for Ian Page as Millwall lost in the last minute to Birmingham in the play-offs. He was also nearly arrested outside the count when he confronted the BNP candidate in Downham ward. Over 300 anti-Nazi protesters mainly from Goldsmith College formed a lobby to stop the BNP entering the count.

However, neither Millwall losing or the sight of the racist BNP could stop the night turning out to be a fantastic result for the Socialist Party and the advancement of socialist ideas.

Telegraph Hill Ward

Labour (1) 1132*

Ian Page (SP) 1065*

Helen Lefevre 975*

(LEAP)

Sam Dias (SP) 922

Labour (2) 904

Labour (3) 880

LibDem  457

Green 452

LibDem  309

Con  176

Con  164

Con  160

Lab average 38%

SP and LEAP average 39%

LibDem/Green average 16%

Tory average 7%

Turnout 26%

* elected

 

 

Third Biggest Party on Coventry Council

Coventry Socialist Party secured its best ever local election results. The party contested eight of Coventry’s 18 wards and received a total of 3,758 votes - 14.9% of the votes cast in those wards. 

Councillor David Nellist was re-elected with nearly 53% of the vote. The Socialist Party remains the third largest party on the city council.

New Labour lost four seats to the Tories. The Lord Mayor used his own re-election speech to attack the Socialist Party, saying that the party had chosen the seats it contested principally to damage the Labour Party and let the Tories in. "It’s a dangerous game they’re playing" he said.

But as David Nellist explains: 

"Of the four seats Labour lost, the Socialist Party stood in one and the Liberals stood in the other three. Over the last two elections Labour has lost 13 seats in nine wards (half the city).

"You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to work out that Labour needs to look to why people are deserting it in droves, rather than blaming other parties.

"I vividly remember being told when I was expelled from the Labour Party in 1992 that socialists such as myself should get out and stand under ‘our own colours’.

"Now, apparently, the party that expelled us doesn’t want us to stand even in the limited number of seats our present resources allow.

"Well, the only solution I can see that is that we’ll have to do our best to raise enough money and recruit enough support in the next few years so we’re not just limited to eight seats - we’ll try and stand in all 18."

Full results in Coventry St Michael’s

David Nellist 1417 (52.8%)

Labour 1022 (38.1%)

Tory 237 (8.8%)

 

 

Bootle election

A Magnificent Result for the Socialist Party

The Socialist Party in Bootle scored a magnificent result by polling 822 votes (32%) in Netherton and Orrell Ward, almost double the previous vote. 

We polled virtually as much in one ward as the entire left in Merseyside, including the Socialist Alliance and the Socialist Labour Party.  Workers believed that the Socialist Party were the best fighters for their interests.

Pete Glover

The ward covers a large area of disused industrial land separating communities. There are four distinct areas with different concerns and we were strongest in the area around a proposed landfill site that has been our main campaign. We outpolled New Labour in this district but it wasn’t as simple as just using our record on the landfill.

New Labour mobilised every activist they had to come into the ward. Their candidate, Dave Martin, is the leader in Sefton and they actually won control of the council from the Liberal-Democrats. We were fighting against a big regional swing to New Labour.

They put out two leaflets saying they were opposed to the landfill and organised a public meeting with the MP and the chair of Merseyside Passenger Transport.

The local catholic priest gave it out from the pulpit on who to vote for the Sunday before the election! The Bootle Times, whose editor is a supporter of New Labour, ran a front-page story in election week highlighting a ‘victory’ over a local school nursery.

St Robert Bellarmine’s, a local school, put out a newsletter that went to every child’s home two days before the polls opened. This had a picture of Dave Martin with the chair of the governors and the headteacher and congratulated "the local Labour councillor for all his hard work" – in bold type!

The neighbourhood action group, NAG, also turned out in force; New Labour supporters had taken it over weeks before, and they canvassed for a Labour vote.

New Labour supporters abused and intimidated our supporters throughout the campaign and I was subjected to death threats.

It shows how good our vote was that we achieved it in spite of all these forces ranged against us. We fought the campaign on our opposition to the proposed landfill site and organised roadblocks and demonstrations. We took up a housing campaign in another area where we outpolled New Labour.

They were horrified at the result – it puts us in a good position to win next year.

 

BNP exploit disillusionment in Burnley

"THIS IS a disaster" - that was Burnley Labour leader Stuart Caddy’s response to the BNP winning three council seats in Burnley. That feeling is echoed throughout the country.

A Youth Against Racism in Europe (YRE) member

Of course, the majority of people who voted BNP did not do so to support their entire neo-Nazi set of beliefs. But, given the onslaught of anti-BNP statements by the media and the government, as well as the work done by anti-racists and anti-fascists to answer the lies of the BNP, how did they still manage to get elected?

Firstly, the three elected BNP candidates in Burnley were able to get in because every single council seat was up for re-election. By standing one candidate per seat the BNP were able to pick up protest votes more easily from people who would also be voting for two other candidates.

In Oldham, where BNP candidates actually got higher votes than in most of the seats they stood in Burnley, they didn’t win any council seats because only one seat was up for grabs.

Secondly, they used populist propaganda cleverly, exploiting existing resentments. For example the BNP used the issue of funding, demanding more funding for "white" areas and attacking funding given to Stoneyholme - an area with a larger Asian population - to renovate the housing.

One of the main factors though was disillusionment with the record of the main parties. Burnley council’s decision to close 35 care homes for pensioners has created huge anger.

And the arguments of Blair ("house prices will fall") and Alistair Campbell ("firms won’t want to invest in Burnley") against voting BNP were frankly pathetic given the thousands of jobs lost in Burnley over the last year and the long-term decline of local services in the area.

Also, Burnley council and the police have helped the BNP enormously during the year since the riots by attempting to ban anti-racist events and witch-hunt anti-racist activists involved in campaigning against the BNP. For example the banning of the Anti-Nazi League festival last autumn and the ensuing police harassment of anti-racists who went out on the day to leaflet instead, was a victory for the BNP.

The council and police in Burnley have worked hard to try and label anti-racists and socialists "extremist" in the same breath as they spoke about the BNP. This paranoid and anti-democratic strategy played right into the BNP’s hands.

While the BNP picked up some votes from disillusioned ex-Labour supporters, it is also striking that the ward where they won most votes in Burnley — Cliviger with Worsthorne — is a middle class rural ward which usually votes strongly Tory.

Racism, particularly against the Asian communities, was definitely a factor in the election. It seems that this was stronger in the Cliviger ward, based on keeping the ward ‘white only’. Elsewhere other reasons such as funding and disillusionment with Labour were a key factor.

The racial segregation in Burnley, like many Lancashire towns, is a long-term problem created by council segregationist housing policies and the practice of having separate shifts for white and Asian workers in the mills. This was then entrenched by unemployment and cuts in services as jobs haemorrhaged from the town from the 1980s onwards.

The only way to cut across the potential for far-right groups like the BNP to grow long-term is to organise united campaigns for better funding and services for all and argue for socialist solutions to these problems, rather than the dead end of divisions and hatred that the BNP promote.

 

 

The Socialist Party is celebrating the re-election of Councillor Dave Nellist in Coventry and Councillor Ian Page in Lewisham. 

Other Socialist Party candidates also achieved some very good votes. Below we print our results from all the seats where we stood in the local elections.

 

Seat	Candidate	Vote	%
Coventry St Michaels	Cllr Dave Nellist	1417	52.80%
Lewisham	Cllr Ian Page	1065	39%
Telegraph Hill	Cllr Sam Dias	922
Sefton Orrell and Netherton	Pete Glover	822	32%
Newcastle Byker	Bill Hopwood	303	20%
Preston Brookfield	Cllr Paul Malliband	272	19.85%
Coventry Henley	Martha Young	381	14.30%
Coventry Westwood	Ella Manley	364	13.20%
Coventry Lower Stoke	Jane Ashwell	397	12.70%
Coventry Whoberley	Mark Power	450	12%
Gloucester Barton	Catherine Bailey	139	9.10%
and Tredworth	John Ewers	107
	Gary Jones	84
Coventry Binley/Willenhall	Becky Tustain	293	8.30%
Rotherham Aston	Paul Marshall	225	8.10%
Coventry Longford	Martin Reynolds	243	8%
Walthamstow Markhouse	Louise Thompson	177	7.90%
	Suzanne Muna	172
	Kevin Parslow	137
Wakefield East	Mick Griffiths	252	7.50%
Wakefield Pontefract North	John Gill	134	4.90%
Hackney Cazenove	Chris Newby	155	6.90%
Leeds Holbeck	Dave Jones	201	6.70%
Hull Southcoates South	Keith Ellis	59	5.90%
Birmingham Northfield	Louise Holdey	252	5%
Coventry Foleshill	Jim Hensman	213	5%
Hillingdon Pinkwell	Julia Leonard	114	5%
Stevenage Bedwell	Steve Glennon	116	4.70%
Sheffield Park	Terry Wykes	101	4.40%
Doncaster Thorne	Mary Jackson	137	4.20%
Southampton Bevois	Gavin Marsh	109	4%
Bristol Bedminster	Robin Clapp	107	3.70%
Huddersfield Newsome	Dylan Murphy	107	3.20%
Bristol Lockleaze	Roger Thomas	51	1.90%

 

What Do the Results Mean?

"SO MUCH has been transferred to the national level, and so much of the financial control is retained there, that being asked to vote in a local election is like being asked to select which crumbs you would prefer from the rich man’s table," commented the Guardian’s Hugo Young on election day.

Add to this the lack of difference between the main political parties, who all support cuts and privatisation, and it is not hard to understand why only one in three people bothered to vote on 2 May.

Judy Beishon

Far from stemming from apathy, not voting has a perfectly rational basis. Why vote when there is no real choice between the candidates from the three main capitalist parties and none of them will make improvements? Despite the fact that a large majority of people did not vote, the government was relieved that the turnout did not sink to a new record low, as had been predicted by pre-election opinion polls.

The small increase in turnout to 35% , from the low of 29% in the year 2000, can be attributed to several factors.

The shock waves from France following Le Pen’s success in the first round of the Presidential elections caused a layer of voters to consider the potential dangers of a high abstention level, resulting in more people voting, especially in the 68 seats contested by the BNP.

The government’s recent budget, announcing an extra £40 billion for the NHS also had a certain effect. Anger is so great at the state of the NHS that a layer of voters were prepared to reward New Labour for their injection of funds with their vote, despite the fact that millions of workers will be worse off financially as a result of imposed National Insurance increases.

As well as national reasons for the slightly increased turnout, there were also local factors such as specific local issues and the introduction of postal voting in some areas.

Five years on

DESPITE NEW Labour’s overall vote being boosted by the temporary effect of their budget, disgust at the first five years of their government was a prime factor in their net loss of 339 seats and seven councils.

The growing gap between rich and poor, the impoverishment of students, a third of children living in poverty, privatisation, transport chaos and low pay are amongst Labour’s legacy of those five years.

John Pilger spelt out the truth in the Daily Mirror when he described how Blair had gone further than Thatcher in many attacks he has carried out and had created "a culture of profit and greed unmatched in Europe". He added: "Certainly, he will be remembered, I believe, for his betrayal of the hopes of ordinary people who had the right to expect that after 18 years of the Tories he would be different".

Brown has directly presided over a large injection of money into the NHS, but this merely reverses some of the under-funding of previous years. It is purely for electoral reasons and ordinary people are bearing most of the tax burden to pay for it.

His real attitude is shown in his warning to health workers not to expect significant pay rises, and his call for "an end to the sterile debate between the public and private sectors". Much of the money he has promised to the NHS will end up in the pockets of private contractors and financiers.

He has been fortunate in presiding over a period of economic growth, but this situation is rapidly changing. Economists have poured scorn on his forcast of 2.5% growth for this year, following reports of virtual stagnation in the economy over the last two quarters.

In the US, the state of the economy has recently improved, but at a certain stage there will be a renewed worsening which will contribute to the growing problems in the British economy, disrupting Brown’s present plans.

His government has offered little enough to ordinary people so far, but much worse can come as he tries to make workers pay the price of recession.

Law and order

IN THE seven elections conducted for new mayors, Labour suffered embarrassment and ridicule. All were fought on traditional Labour ground, but Labour only managed to win three out of the seven.

In North Tyneside the position went to a Tory, in Watford to a Liberal Democrat, in Peter Mandelson’s Hartlepool to an ‘independent’ famous for dressing up as a monkey mascot and in Middlesbrough to ex-CID boss Ray Mallon, who had only been able to stand after pleading guilty to police disciplinary charges that he had strenuously denied.

These new mayors can put their success down to concerted campaigning on local issues. The vote for the latter two indicated an anti-party mood, and a degree of contempt for Labour’s introduction of mayors in the first place.

Having previously neglected the issue of crime, despite widespread concern over it, New Labour decided to fight the local elections by highlighting it. In the run-up to polling day, Home Secretary David Blunkett announced that an extra £340 million would be spent on counter-terrorism, street crime initiatives and extra prison places.

He gave support to the divisive propaganda of the ultra-right neo-fascist BNP, by saying that asylum seekers are ‘swamping’ schools and doctors surgeries and by linking aslyum seekers to crime using the example of an old lady in his constituency who he said had been mugged by three asylum seekers.

This was despite the fact that in France, National Front leader Le Pen made law and order and immigration his main election themes, exploiting revulsion at the level of crime and expressing ultra-right views on tackling it.

Incredibly, New Labour strategists criticised French Socialist Party presidential candidate Lionel Jospin for not following the example of Le Pen and Chirac by banging the drum on law and order, concluding that this was the reason why Jospin lost and determined not to make the same mistake.

In reality, Jospin lost because he refused to fight a socialist or even a left radical campaign. He stated bluntly that it would not be a campaign of this nature and instead just put forward a weaker version of right-wing policies.

In Britain, the stance of New Labour leaders like Blunkett, together with the complete failure of the government to provide decently funded local public services while at the same time, in councils, placing an intolerable council tax burden on people, contributed heavily to the gains made by the BNP, in particular to their victory in three seats in Burnley.

Tories and Lib Dems

NEW LABOUR were not alone in trying to exploit the issues of immigration and crime. The Tories gained control of Enfield council, mainly by campaigning against a 12% rise in council tax. During the campaign they claimed that the borough had too many asylum seekers.

Overall, the Tories made a net gain of only 237 seats and nine councils. This is nowhere near enough to indicate that they could do well in the next general election. Their share of the vote was only one percentage point higher than in the equivalent elections in 1998 and was four points lower than their result in 2000.

They control just a quarter of London boroughs and not a single large city in Britain. Blair has stolen the Tory agenda to such an extent that they are still floundering with no sense of purpose or direction.

The Liberal Democrats received their highest share of the vote for nine years, winning six councils. A layer of voters clearly used them as a protest vote against the other two parties in some areas. But the disillusionment that quickly sets in when they get into power and prove they are no different to the other main parties was shown in their loss of four councils, including Sheffield and Richmond, and their reduced average vote in wards across the country which they were defending.

Postal voting

"YOU CAN’T vote here" was the election day headline on posters outside Hackney’s usual polling stations. Instead the only way to vote was by post, or by taking the postal vote forms into a council office. Each voter had to fill in two forms, one to vote and one to confirm identity, the latter requiring the signature of a witness.

The voting form had to be separated into two parts by the voter and placed in separate envelopes, one for the mayoral referendum and one for the council elections. This type of ballot disenfranchised a significant layer of the electorate, as many were confused by the forms or simply saw them as an obstacle too far.

Postal ballots were not conducted in this way in other voting ‘experiments’; for example, in Stevenage, the signature of a witness was not required. A system of postal votes contributes to disengagement from elections and is open to large-scale vote-rigging.

It can also be abused on a smaller scale, for example, in Lewisham, where postal votes were an option, Socialist Party canvassers were told by some voters that they had filled in and sent off forms for everyone in their family, taking a personal decision out of the hands of others.

However, in areas where postal votes were enforced, the numbers voting tended to be higher than usual - almost double the national average in some cases, showing that this method is easier for a layer of voters.

But abolishing the right to vote at polling stations must be strongly opposed, as voting in person encourages a more active and full participation, and there are electoral officers on hand to give advice on the form, the number of votes to be cast etc.

Other methods of voting were also tried, such as telephone and internet voting, and voting at supermarkets. These do not appear to have made much difference to turnout. Internet and text messaging increased the vote in Liverpool’s Everton ward from 15.9% to 18.3%!

In Newham in London, people had to queue for 20 minutes to vote by touching a computer screen, and everyone else could see who they voted for. In any case, whatever method is adopted in future elections, changes of this nature cannot overcome the fundamental reasons that are putting people off casting their vote.

Independents and socialists

ALTHOUGH ‘INDEPENDENT’ candidates suffered an overall loss of seats, there were some notable successes where particular issues hit home. The Health Concern group in Kidderminster took five seats from Labour to gain control of Wyre Forest district council in the West Midlands.

The Independent Working Class Association won a seat in Oxford and achieved high votes in three other areas.

The Socialist Party achieved some outstanding results (see page five for more details), and is still the only socialist organisation in England and Wales with elected councillors. Dave Nellist was re-elected in Coventry with 52% of the vote in the St Michaels ward and Ian Page was re-elected in Telegraph Hill, Lewisham.

Excellent results were achieved by Socialist Party candidates elsewhere too, such as the 822 votes (32%) gained by Peter Glover in Orrell, Bootle. These prove that posing a clear and bold socialist alternative wins support, especially as they come after long-term campaigning work conducted by Socialist Party members in these areas as well as in many other towns and cities.

A Financial Times editorial, published two days after the elections, lamented the numbers who did not see a reason to vote and added: "Yet the triumph of market capitalism and liberal democracy means there are few big issues to divide nations". Our response must be that one big issue has not been swept away.

The divide described by Karl Marx over 150 years ago between the capitalist class and working class remains today, and the wealth gap is becoming ever greater.

In their articles, media commentators and careerist politicians speculate gloomily on why ordinary people have become so disengaged and alienated from existing ‘democratic’ processes.

However, they rarely recognise the simple truth: the widespread awareness amongst ordinary people that no politician from the main parties will serve their interests.

It is vital that the Socialist Party is built, and that we continue to raise the need for the building of a new mass workers’ party that can begin to challenge the capitalist parties and the profit-based system they represent.

Ordinary people will then be inspired with an alternative to which they can turn.

 

 

 

 

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Organise Against the Nazis

SOCIALIST PARTY members should move resolutions against the BNP through their trade union organisations.

RAPH PARKINSON, a member of UNISON’s national executive council has moved a similar resolution to the one below through the union’s north-west Black Members’ committee to the north west regional council, which will debate it on 11 May. 

This calls on UNISON to implement national policy and organise a demonstration in Greater Manchester as well as calling for support for members who refuse to co-operate with elected BNP councillors.

"THIS BRANCH/conference believes that the election of BNP councillors in Burnley is a major setback for workers. The vote is primarily an expression of desperation at the social conditions facing workers and the lack of any alternative from the established political parties in those areas.

The New Labour government, continuing the pro-capitalist policies of the Tories, has alienated workers and young people from politics with policies like the privatisation of and cuts in public services, the ending of council house building and repair and the de-industrialisation of major areas of Britain, leading to job cuts and poverty pay.

However recent comments by the Home Secretary, David Blunkett, for example those on schools being ‘swamped’ by asylum seekers has served to legitimise racist points of view. We condemn any move by the established politicians to legitimise racist scapegoating for social problems.

We note that in some areas where a socialist alternative to the established parties has been posed by campaigning candidates, this has prevented the development of support for neo-Nazi parties.

We condemn the inaction of the leadership of the TUC who failed to organise a mass mobilisation against the BNP since the warning in the general election when the BNP polled a total of 16,000 votes.

This conference agrees to organise a mass demonstration in the Greater Manchester area under the slogan of  ‘Jobs and Homes not Racism’ for an alternative to the pro-big business approach of the mainstream political parties."

 

 

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France – the Tasks Facing the Left

LE PEN’S crushing defeat in the second round of France’s presidential election has shown the real balance of forces in France today. Despite his success in coming second in the first round Le Pen’s forces are still in a minority.

Robert Bechert

Le Pen’s final vote was only 952,700 higher than in the 1995 Presidential contest. Despite the huge rise in turnout from two weeks ago, the far right’s vote on 5 May was only 55,400 higher than the combined vote of Le Pen and his former deputy Megret in the first round. In some areas, like Alsace, Le Pen’s vote fell.

5 May was not an endorsement of Chirac. In the first round Chirac scored 19.88% of the vote, so only 14% of the total electorate voted for him.

He is widely despised as corrupt - the Financial Times called the popular slogan "better a crook than a fascist" the "defining sentiment" of the second round campaign.

Le Pen’s entry into the second round sparked off two weeks of nearly continuous protest. The overwhelming desire was to stop Le Pen before he got any stronger. This was a lively, energetic movement from below, with school students and students setting the pace.

The French ruling class was shaken by the first round on 21 April and its massive rejection of the main two parties through which it had ruled for 20 years. Chirac and Jospin gained only 36% of the vote. Chirac lost 685,200 votes since 1995 but Jospin lost 3,900,500.

Now Chirac has been re-elected as a Gaullist-type "Fifth Republic President", a man on the top of the nation, over and above political parties. The first round showed the weakening of the Fifth Republic’s institutions, especially the presidency.

Huge pressure from the establishment, using the fear of Le Pen coming into power, even suspending publication of opinion polls, aimed to restore authority to the Fifth Republic’s institutions.

In the mid-1930s France’s ruling class debated using repressive or even fascist methods to crush the working class. Today, many bosses feared that a Le Pen victory would not only increase class conflict within France but also lose markets in the Middle East, Africa and Asia.

That’s why the ruling class joined in the massive anti-Le Pen campaign involving the main parties, the media, the trade unions, the bosses and sports stars.

But the ruling class also wanted to neuter the spontaneous protests. They feared that the mass movement would quickly lead to a more profound radicalisation.

‘Plural Left’ failure

ON 21 April the Trotskyists won 10.44%, 2,973,600 votes, nearly doubling their vote since 1995. Both the ruling class and the ‘Socialist’ and Communist Parties’ leaders feared that this vote would lead to the creation of a genuine mass anti-capitalist party.

The ruling class tried to exploit the masses’ mood for unity to defeat Le Pen and try to direct it into ‘safe’, Republican channels. They tried to mobilise support for Chirac in the second round. But Chirac had limited appeal.

The Financial Times said that "the left - can claim the bulk of the credit for mobilising the country". By the ‘left’ it meant mainly the leaders of the trade unions, Socialist Party, Greens, Communist Party etc.

But these leaders also gave the 1,300,000 strong 1 May demonstrations a ‘national’ rather than a working class, genuinely socialist character. This was part of a concerted effort to place the ‘blame’ for Le Pen’s success on those who didn’t vote or those who voted to the left of Jospin.

However, Jospin’s support collapsed because of disappointment with his ‘plural left’ government, which was elected in 1997 after the neo-liberal attacks of the first two years of Chirac’s presidency. The Jospin government was widely seen as different from New Labour in Britain, especially with the introduction of the 35-hour working week law.

But this law was used by bosses to attack working conditions and, the Financial Times commented, "provided a convenient smokescreen behind which more pragmatic policies, such as privatisation, could be introduced".

In the elections Jospin first denied being a ‘socialist’ candidate, and ended up saying he was the only candidate able to avoid events such as the general strike taking place in Italy. The ‘plural left’ cannot return even to a traditional reformist approach because of their links with the capitalists.

The ‘plural left’s failure to ‘deliver’ over five years was the reason both for dramatic fall in the support for the Socialist and Communist Parties, and the dramatic rise in the Trotskyists’ vote.

Spoilt ballots

UNFORTUNATELY THE main Trotskyist organisations in France, the LO and LCR, took no initiative between the first and second rounds. There was no attempt to mobilise their millions of voters to take the lead in a socialist fightback against Le Pen and warn against supporting Chirac.

In today’s situation Le Pen was certain to be defeated on 5 May. The LO and LCR should have used their support to argue against the idea of "national unity" against Le Pen. The LCR in fact called for a vote for Chirac. The danger is that an opportunity to lay the basis for a new, mass anti-capitalist party has, once more, been missed in France.

Nevertheless 1,758,850 went to the polls and spoilt their ballots, signalling their rejection of both Le Pen and Chirac. Gauche Revolutionnaire (the French section of the Committee for a Workers’ International - CWI, the socialist international organisation to which the Socialist Party in England and Wales is affiliated) argued for this policy, explaining that activists needed to reject the call to support Chirac. In many working class areas there were high levels of abstentions as workers refused to vote for Chirac, for example in Lille 29.26% did not vote.

Chirac has appointed Raffarin, from the pro-capitalist Liberal Democracy, as acting Prime Minister until the June parliamentary elections. Raffarin was previously a minister in the Juppé government during Chirac’s first two years in office, which launched attack after attack on working people.

If Chirac wins a parliamentary majority after his 5 May victory, that will signal a new series of attacks. Already Chirac has said he will "reform" the 35-hour week law; to make it what the bosses, not the workers, want. However in the run-up to June’s elections he is also promising immediate tax cuts.

If the "plural left" win next month’s elections then the stage will be set for a new period of "co-habitation" with Chirac, with the same results as between 1997 and 2002.

Socialist alternative

EITHER WAY, the scene is set for a further polarisation in society. Le Pen’s defeat does not mean that the far right has gone away; on the contrary it will try to gain from disillusionment with either a Chirac or a "plural left" government.

The LO and LCR must not squander the opportunity, offered by the nearly three million Trotskyist strong vote, to build a new workers’ party. They should jointly call for the formation of a new party, outline a basic socialist programme for the party and invite others from the left wing of the Communist Party (PCB) and other forces to participate.

Gauche Revolutionnaire (the French section of the CWI) will also try to reach the thousands of people that want a genuine alternative. One task Gauche Revolutionnaire has set itself is to help prepare a counter-offensive from the workers and youth to make new gains over wages, working condition etc.

The key to permanently stopping the far right is building a workers’ alternative that will seriously fight to change society. The elections and mass demonstrations show that millions are looking for an alternative.

Gauche Revolutionnaire is both actively involved in the daily struggles and arguing for a single anti-capitalist, left candidate to stand in every area in June’s parliamentary election.

This would be a concrete step towards creating a new mass workers’ party to struggle for a workers’ government that would implement a genuinely socialist programme.

 

 

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Massive Anti-Fascist Protests in France

ACCORDING TO the police about 1.3 million French people demonstrated on May Day against Le Pen and the Front National. 

The real figure was a lot higher, which makes the protests the biggest in decades. Some commentators were talking about the biggest demonstrations since May 1968 or even since the liberation of France by allied troops in 1944.

Geert Cool, LSP/MAS Belgium.

Belgian CWI members (Committee for a Workers’ International – the socialist international organisation to which the Socialist Party is affiliated) went to Amiens to assist the comrades of Gauche Révolutionnaire (GR - French CWI section) during the local May Day demonstration.

Around 7,000 people were on the streets. An official of the CGT (Communist Party-led trade union federation) said that last year only 200 demonstrated!

GR also had a lively contingent, largely made up of young people and immigrants on the 13,000 strong May Day march in Rouen.

Massive turnout in Paris

ON THE afternoon of May Day it seemed as if Paris was one big demonstration in opposition to Le Pen. This was much different to the morning demonstration by Le Pen supporters.

The Front National announced it would mobilise 100,000 to commemorate Joan of Arc (who the FN symbolically link to their fight to expel ‘foreigners’ ie immigrants, from France). However, according to the police, there were only 10,000 Le Pen supporters.

Traditionally, many right-wing skinheads from all over Europe attend, including the neo-Nazi group, "Nation", from Brussels. As the people in the streets showed their opposition to the march the thuggish stewards of the FN had to protect these groups of skinheads.

The demo in the afternoon was a completely different picture. A lot of families showed up and there was a strong feeling of solidarity in opposition to Le Pen. For the first time in years all the main trade unions, the PCF (Communist Party), the youth organisation of the PS (the social-democratic Socialist Party), and the radical Left organisations, were united in one demonstration.

People had to wait several hours to be able to demonstrate. We arrived with four buses from Amiens at 3pm, when the demo was starting. When we got to the Place de la République it was filled with people and nobody could move. The demonstrators were mainly unorganised people who brought along homemade placards or banners. Everyone was waiting patiently, some until 6.30pm, to be able to demonstrate.

Youth protest

IN THE past few days there have been continuous protests, which were mainly carried out by youth. According to a report in Libération, 66% of those between 18 and 24 years old, say they have got more involved in politics since 21 April (first round of the presidential elections).

In most towns, the school students and students spontaneously took to the streets. On May Day, the trade unions tried to make a closer link between the mainly unorganised youth and the trade unions and political activists. From the massive youth protests a real strong opposition can be built.

The radical Left, which had a very good result in the first round of the presidential elections (the ‘Trotskyist’ candidates got nearly 10.5%), is intervening in the movement but they do not seem to say how the movement can be built in the coming days and weeks. Yet continued protests in the run-up to the June parliamentary elections, combined with a united radical Left list, could have a huge political impact.

Continuing the protests

GAUCHE RÉVOLUTIONNAIRE intervened in the demonstrations, calling for the struggle to continue after 5 May, as this is the only way to really fight Le Pen and Chirac’s neo-liberal ie capitalist, politics.

However, the retreat of Ligue Communiste Revolutionnaire (LCR) towards the position of PS and PCF by calling for a vote for Chirac ("vote against Le Pen") and the refusal of Lutte Ouvrière (LO) to discuss a proposal by the LCR to have joint lists in June (the LO claims the letter of the LCR on this issue must have got lost in the post!) show that these so-called ‘Trotskyist’ organisations do not offer a way forward in the present situation.

We call for a strong united anti-capitalist list, as a first step to win over to a socialist programme those who are in opposition to the capitalist politicians, including those downtrodden workers who mistakenly voted for the FN. This could offer a political instrument for the developing youth movement and assure that the fight against capitalist reaction will not stop after 5 May.

In the struggle against Le Pen workers and youth can only rely on their own strength, and as the demonstrations on May Day showed, there is huge potential power in the actions of the workers and youth. This can lay the basis to really beat Le Pen and Chirac.

As many young people chanted on the demonstrations: "Le Pen, t’es perdu, la jeunesse est dans la rue"! ("Le Pen, you’re doomed, the youth are in the streets")