New political formations and managing capitalism

Westminster is designed to keep new parties out so it is no surprise that smaller fringe type parties find it hard to make many inroads into building a base. This is the case with parties who may even have been around a while such as the Greens or UKIP who are not new formations as such but new to the Westminster bubble as such. Even if UKIP's two mp's now are ex Tories these are still new mp's for the party and will boost UKIP voters confidence of a good showing next year in the general election which for me still looks wide open for anyone to win. I personally can’t see any one party forming a majority government next year with both major parties labour and the Tories can barely muster 60% between them. So what about the greens and UKIP. Their support has grown with some polls putting the greens ahead of the Lib Dems in national polls. The greens will be a threat to labour going forward but also UKIP will eat into labours heartlands too as recent by elections have shown us. So quite clearly the Westminster elite is structured to keep out fringe and protest parties The way politics and elections work in England in particular as Scotland is different having STV Single transferable vote. The electoral system of first past the post is an old archaic system which is designed for the major traditional parties to remain in power and make it hard for smaller new parties to gain a foothold in parliament. It is as we might say a club for the elite and exclusive. So while we may see the Greens and UKIP wishing to manage capitalism one day forming their own government It is unlikely given our electoral system of FPTP. Likewise any future new workers party which may or may not come into existence this century will also find it hard to make much progress not just because of a general anti politics feeling out there at the moment but simply due to the way we do electoralism with mainstream politics in this country. So while I do feel it’s a waste of the lefts time building new parties and focusing on elections getting this or that party into power to manage capitalism better than the Tories or labor I can also understand why this is a dead end strategy. The greens who pose as anti capitalist are not at all anti capitalist they are to be honest socially democratic to the style of the old labour left perhaps a sort of mixture of climate change and new layers of anti austerity disaffected ex labour voters/members and allot more in between. Nowhere in the greens thinking is putting the idea of capitalism firmly in their opposition they simply wish to tax the rich more and campaign for a green economy a sort of green capitalism if you like. This for me is just as utopian as Ed Milibands responsible capitalism as while I can see a green version of capitalism it still would not deal with work and how we could begin to find ways of reducing work and the need for wage labour. I do like a lot of what the greens say however and dabbled with joining them. I think they are well meaning and say allot of good things while not going far enough on many issues. But for UKIP they see a return to isolated great British capitalism and return to an era of the white British ruling the waves again they see the EU as evil and corrupt to its core. While they may have some points on Europe on its lack of democracy I may agree with I sense that their idea of wishing to leave the EU to return to a better off distant past is going to be mistaken due to its pitfalls and how as a world now we are global and allot of countries wanting to form closer ties instead of pulling away from each other. This is also the case for the awful left nationalist no to EU which is equally stating that British austerity would be preferable to EU austerity and that the EU is just a boss's club we need to get out of. Tailing UKIP on any issue is never a good plan comrades. So whether your party is in long term decline like the Tories or labour facing challenges from the left and right or the newcomers on the block who are taking advantage of a plague on all your houses with the main 3 political parties. But I always maintain whether you’re on the left or the right you can never manage capitalism as in the end it ends up managing you. So getting into parliament on a radical ticket ends up watering you down and deradicalises you rather than the other way. It’s the structures built into the establishment which is the design model not because people entering parliament are born sell outs although many might be of course. The rise of anti political parties is not just limited to this country either in Scotland the SNP have benefited from a surge in support for Scottish independence while across Europe there are new left and right popularist parties popping up very quickly from Spain to Greece and into Eastern Europe so this is by no means a British thing but the way our elections work dictates that this process is a much slower process. None the less the centre ground of politics if there ever was such a thing is collapsing. What comes in its place will set the agenda for the next phase of capitalism. The only way we can prevent this ever expanding circle of parties wishing to manage capitalism better than the last is to end capitalism for good. Its time to organize ourselves and not rely on political parties for change. By all means pressure them for anything you can get out of them but we must look past parliament for change long term. It will be down to the working class and the working class alone to change society not a new party or new individual with popular sounding rhetoric from the left or the right.

Is the Green party a left wing party and should the left support them?

Is the Green party a left wing party and should the left support them? I like the Green party know a fair few of their members and all seem genuine to me. A fair few are what I’d even describe as socialist and left wing. But are the greens a party that the left could rally behind and more to the point are they even left wing at all? All very interesting questions. I would say personally from my experience they’re on the left without a doubt where you place them after that becomes a big debate. I’d almost compare their politics today as almost old labour style politics of public ownership and higher tax’s on the rich as a basis to go forward. I see the greens as an interesting party with lots of variety and some very forward thinking individuals including their on single MP in Caroline Lucas who I like a lot and have heard speak on a number of occasions. I think she is independent and speaks out on things she believes in and is not tied to a party line like many MP’s are. Whether you are in favour of parliamentary politics or not you cannot fail to notice the green party of late having taken control all be it in a minority fashion in Bright and Hove. Yes the ruling group fronted by the greens have passed on cuts and no amount of hand ringing can get away from this fact for me. Having been a socialist party member and previously stood for TUSC this did not go down well in the anti cuts movement when the green lead council in Brighton passed on the cuts and look to again this year too. But do we therefore right off the greens as a party and a wider movement all because of Brighton city council? Maybe if you are a dogmatic sort I suppose. I tend to look at things a bit more rationally these days in a sense. Those of us outside the party often point to the record of the Greens in Germany, where the party joined a neo-liberal coalition and voted for the Afghanistan war, and in Ireland, where they joined a right wing government and cut healthcare and benefits while saying it was OK because they were creating new cycling schemes. Against this we are told that the Green Party of England and Wales is different – the most left wing Green Party in Europe, even. Does this all stand up ? Well the Brighton council thing does not want to go away it seems and the greens will be judged on this their claims to the contrary. Of course that is not the whole story of the Green council in Brighton. As you might expect, it has been pursuing many sustainability initiatives. More significantly, it has just declared that no Brighton council tenants will be evicted if they cannot afford their rent because of the bedroom tax. And councilors have been active in supporting all sorts of other local campaigns. But when it comes to the key issue of fighting austerity, there is scarcely even a cigarette paper between the Greens’ “fairer” cuts and Labour’s. The bogeyman of Eric Pickles’ administrators coming in and making the cuts is used to justify… making the cuts. Spotting the pattern After the first Brighton budget, the Greens held a vote at their conference on whether it was the right to make the cuts. It wasn’t even close – two thirds backed the Brighton councilors. It was at this point that Joseph Healy, one of the founders of internal left wing grouping Green Left, quit the party on principle. As he noted “A few days later at the party’s national conference, despite vigorous objections from Green Left, the party voted to support the Brighton decision. Pragmatism had defeated principle, realpolitik triumphed over radicalism. While the Green Party has many good socialist members, and some radical policies, it is not a party of the left – deliberately so. It has always included different wings of the green movement. Quite a large element of the membership are devoted to an agenda of ‘cycling and recycling’, with a narrow focus simply on environmental issues. While there are many who see themselves as part of the left, they are happy to work alongside those who use the phrase “neither left nor right” with a straight face. Open expressions of leftism are widely seen as a turn-off to voters, and class is generally not thought relevant. The party just voted to put a commitment to “social justice” in its constitution, but that’s as far as it is willing to go. The consequences of this are that Green politicians’ positions can be all over the map. I l have a lot of time for the greens but are they ultimately the answer. I am not sure. I do think they have much to offer and have some very good genuine members but I’m just not sure managing the left side of capitalism is a goal worth fighting for. . Of course we’ll all work with Greens in the battles we face against austerity – and with the many people in Labour, too, who want to oppose the Tories’ destruction of everything we’ve worked for. There is too much at stake not to. But the Green Party offers no solution to the problem of working class representation, or a left alternative to the mainstream consensus. After all, if the Greens are the answer, then why are so many crying out for something new?

From green to true blue in 2 years

The Green party are on the fringes of politics and for a very good reason allot of what they say is not true and they much like the others cannot be trusted either. This has rung true every time and is no different now in Brighton city council where their administration is forcing through big cuts to jobs and services. Despite riding to power on an anti cuts message they are now going back on every promise they ever made. Sounds familiar right? As the socialist party pointed out at the time if the greens were not prepared to stand up and fight the cuts they would be forced into doing the Tories dirty work. Talking about fighting the cuts and duping workers into thinking your any alternative is shameful when you then come in and look to attack jobs and services with as much vigour as any of the other main political parties. Even Caroline Lucas a reformist in every sense has stepped back from her green council this could create big splits within the greens but we all know they are different greens when things go wrong they say that’s nothing to do with us we’re the other nicer greens not stopping to think they all bear the same name. The Green Party, in the style of other protest movements, has spent a good deal of time attacking the uniformity and failures, both real and imagined, of the political establishment. And, following the typical trajectory further, once they are in power, they have sold out further than the major political groups could be accused of. It is very similar to Animal Farm in that way. In 2009, the then Conservative-run council tried to impose a pay deal on employees which meant a cut of up to £95 per week, with the burden falling particularly heavily on low-paid cleaning staff. Rightly, trade unions disputed the plans and a negotiated settlement was reached. For a while, it seemed that the matter had been put to bed. The last people observers expected to draw up similar plans was the incoming Green administration, which claimed to be on the side of the low paid. Yesterday, the GMB union was warned by a senior council member that its plans for industrial action (after negotiations collapsed) against the slashing of its members pay would be similar to the ‘ Winter of Discontent’ partly attributable to Margaret Thatcher’s rise to power. It would appear that the party, which the member insisted was still the most trade unions friendly, wants council employees to roll over and accept savage pay reductions without any protest. Is this inconsistency as simple as ‘we like trade unions, as long as they don’t bother us’? ‘Yes, you should be able to strike, but if you do it’ll destroy you’? As the GMB said: “from Green to true blue in just two years”. Brighton like other councils needs a fighting socialist alternative. Only TUSC stand against all cuts and would unlike the greens and the labour party come to mention it fight all cuts and mobilise to take on this rotten government who is determined to make workers pay for a crisis not of their making.

Report from 16th July TUSC annual conference

a few weeks late i know but thought i'd republish the report from teh TUSC conference i attended written up by will. I hope it can help a few more people understand our aims and why we aer involved in TUSC and can hopefully get involved too.

The Conference morning session concentrated on the political context 12 months after the General Election, with Dave Nellist in the Chair. Hannah Sell (SP) argued that TUSC was establishing itself and had an important electoral role to play. Simon Hestor (SWP), the TUSC Agent in Tottenham, argued that socialists had an important role to play in the present capitalist crisis. TUSC could establish itself as a serious alternative. He was not sure TUSC should oppose Livingstone for Lord Mayor as he would be seen by the working class as the main opposition to Boris Johnson. John McInally (PCS Vice Pres) described how the PCS was balloting members on supporting anti cuts candidates. TUSC was a key element of the process that was unfolding, he argued.

A number of points were made from the floor, including:


■TUSC should contest all three aspects of the London elections – GLA, Constituency and Mayoral
■The mayoral elections enable political positions to be posted to every household via a booklet
■TUSC should build on what it has achieved so far
■It was important to campaign between elections, stressing the importance of fighting the cuts
■TUSC members should raise the issue of migrants rights in anti cuts committees, and support for migrants should be added to the TUSC policy statement
■London RMT members want to encourage left groups, TU branches and community groups to join them in building anti cuts electoral alternative that could become part of TUSC
■We need to involve service users more in the anti cuts movement
■We should move towards building a new Party and get national recognition
■The working class still votes Labour for class reasons
■The Murdoch crisis could yet force a general election
■Trade unions may want to stand candidates, not necessarily as TUSC
■We should aim to win seats despite the difficulties in doing that
■We need to grow and be open to others on the left
■Leicester Against the Cuts wrote to every candidate/party threatening to stand against any who would not oppose the cuts. They ended up standing 9 TUSC candidates as part of a broader coalition, and gained much publicity as a result.
■There is a need to expose Labour’s refusal to oppose cuts at Council level
The platform speakers summed up their positions and responded to the discussion.

The afternoon session was about building TUSC. Clive Heemskirk (SP) moved the Steering Committee proposals which reiterated the founding statement and that TUSC’s main aim was to provide an electoral title for orgaisations who wished to use it as part of a wider challenge. It went further by calling for a TUSC Conference before the end of 2011 to prepare for the 2012 Council Elections. It called for the Steering Committee to be enlarged to include a representative of independents through the TUSC Independent Socialist Network. The Steering Committee would also be able to include additional supporting political groups. It called for local TUSC Steering Committees to be established in areas TUSC would be standing candidates, and it stated clearly that these were interim arrangements and that discussions would continue on how best to organise TUSC as it developed, and this would be an agenda item at all future TUSC Conferences. Any prospective candidate would be asked to endorse TUSC’s Founding Statement and other relevant additional policy statements.

In motivating the proposals, Clive Heemskirk spoke of the need for a plan to develop TUSC. He argued for a wide electoral challenge. The national structure should remain federal, he argued, with individual trade unionists part of it as affiliation was not likely at present. TUSC was beginning to have an effect, with Milliband pulling out of the Durham Gala because Bob Crow had been invited to speak. He outlined why it was important for independent socialists to have a place on the Steering Committee. He concluded by saying TUSC was a work in progress, and at present it was particularly positive that the electoral title could be used by all socialists and anti cuts campaigners who agreed with the core policies. He was not opposed to the position being put forward by Rugby TUSC.

Pete McLaren moved the resolution from Rugby TUSC that Clive had referred to. It expressed satisfaction with TUSC’s performance in the Council elections, suggesting political foundations had been laid. Results showed there was support for socialist ideas, indicating TUSC had the potential to become a significant political force.

To build on these foundations, Rugby TUSC was suggesting that TUSC should campaign against all the attacks on the working class, including the cuts; that TUSC Branches should be built up and down the country; that candidates should be selected as part of preparing now for 2012; TUSC should work locally with anti cuts and community groups to provide a wide as possible challenge. The resolution concluded by suggesting TUSC should broaden out its structure at national level to welcome representation from local TUSC branches, trade union branches, political organisations and independents supportive of TUSC.

In motivation, Pete McLaren outlined what had been achieved in Rugby. TUSC had emerged out of Rugby Against the Cuts. This development was a result of Rugby Against the Cuts deciding to stand anti cuts candidates in all 16 wards where there was no anti cuts candidate. All retiring Councillors and prospective candidates were contacted, but none were prepared to sign the pledge against the cuts that was issued. A TUSC branch was set up, and seven candidates were selected. These included the Chair of Warwickshire FBU, the Rugby RMT Health & Safety Rep and the Warwickshire UNITE Youth Workers Secretary. In the event, Pete McLaren continued, TUSC averaged 7.2% across its 7 wards. Rugby TUSC candidate’s ratio to Labour votes was 1:4, compared to the TUSC national average of 1:10. Ten Media Releases had resulted in 12 press articles about TUSC, three radio interviews, two press letters about TUSC and two articles included on socialist blogs. There was now an active TUSC Branch with a contact list of 15 and plans laid for stalls and a Public Meeting. He then outlined the main points of the Rugby TUSC resolution, stressing that TUSC needed to build on the foundations it had laid – local branches should be set up, and they should campaign against the cuts and all attacks on the working class. TUSC should work within anti cuts committees. TUSC should also be built nationally and broaden its structures to welcome representatives of TUSC branches, TU branches, supportive political groups and independents, he argued. He concluded by stressing that the resolution did not suggest how groups and representatives could become a structural part of TUSC – this must be open for discussion. It could be a two tier structure – the SC much as now, and a National Council with reps directly elected from branches, organisations and the ISN – or it could be an enlarged SC with indirect elections – local branches elect two people to represent all branches; supportive TU branches elect two people to represent TU branches; political organisations elect two; ISN elects two, for example. He concluded by suggesting we use the TUSC Bulletin to debate the best method of achieving that level of representation.

Points made in the discussion included:

■Any organisation must be democratic, with the right to recall
■We must oppose all cuts
■The Labour Party was invisible on many anti cuts demonstrations
■We need to bring TUSC into daily struggles
■We need to stand as widely as possible and not worry about small votes
■We need to develop roots and build a national organisation with a national press strategy
■TUSC is a work in progress and its development will depend on objective circumstances
■There is a void on opposing the cuts that TUSC can fill – even the Green party, which is seen as anti cuts, has no actual strategy and, in Brighton, within the Anti Cuts Committee the Green party opposed TUSC’s ‘No Cuts’ position. Only one Green candidate supported an anti cuts pledge and, once elected, he withdrew his support!
■TUSC has huge potential. It can become professional and confident. The Bulletin already goes out to 1,500 supporters. There is more we could do to promote TUSC further – we should promote TUSC at every opportunity.
■We need to involve our supporters more
Clive Heemskirk replied to the debate. He agreed TUSC needed to develop structures, and he agreed with Pete McLaren’s motivation. Rugby was a model for others to follow, he suggested. We should stand widely. If there are TUs who want to stand candidates we should do our best to persuade them to stand as TUSC. He accepted we needed to use the national media. He again pointed at the success achieved in Rugby, and called on supporters to seize the opportunity.

Dave Nellist, from the chair, put both statements/motions to the vote. Both the Framework from the Steering Committee and the motion from Rugby were agreed without dissent as consultative/indicative votes dependent only on formal approval from the trade unions involved in the Steering Committee, in particular the RMT

Pete McLaren 18/07/11

Building a new electoral base for socialism will have to be done, but will take time, patience and ingenunity

This excellent post i found on the Trade Union and Socialist Coalition website highlights the tasks for a new socialist electoral base which does need to be built and the need for it is greater than ever i feel. I talk to people on the internet alot who feel no party truely represents them. Well TUSC is what is missing i think. A true new workers party with socialist roots and appeals. Under neath i have posted a excellent article that many may or may not find interesting. I know i certainly did.

This article comes from Will Mcmahon a TUSC representitive helping to promote its message.

Over the last decade or so many socialists living in Britain who come from a variety of different political traditions have reached the conclusion that the route for socialism has been cut-off through the Labour Party and we have to begin again by building a new socialist party.

Electoral battles are but one front in an on-going battle with the ruling-class and will for a period involve many more electoral defeats than successes. Ultimately, electoral outcomes will be governed by waves of class struggle, union strength and working class confidence. However, irrespective of the ongoing level of class struggle, working people are asked, and are asking themselves, on an almost annual basis, which party are they going to vote for?

In England, the Walsall Democratic Labour Party and the Socialist Alternative in Coventry have demonstrated that local bases for socialism can be built and sustained for a number of years. While a local vote for a local socialist is a good answer to some local political questions, most political questions in the electoral field are, in the end, answered by voting for national governmental alternatives.

The long run survival of these bases ultimately depend on a national political formation to replicate their success in other areas. The question for socialists is how do we build this national political alternative and what vote is a good enough indication that the project is making headway?

Some argue that the target of five per cent (the percentage vote needed to retain your deposit in a constituency election) is the threshold by which success and failure can be measured. This is not a view I share. Nor is this view shared by those who have built minority parties that have had an impact on national politics over the last two decades.

The tables below show how these parties have developed their presence as national force. Note the low votes that they have had to endure while they have been building their electoral machines for future challenges. Rather than taking the view that it is not worth standing if the vote is likely to be less than five per cent, they have stood ever further and wider into what sometimes seem completely hopeless areas. They have adopted this strategy for one simple reason: it has enabled them to spread and deepen their roots and consequently to develop their national organizational strength.

In less than two decades, UKIP (with a constituency mainly based on and to the right of the Conservative Party) have broadened their base by standing more and more candidates across the country. Rather than being troubled by the five per cent threshold, or even some much lower votes, (eg 0.53 per cent in seats targeted in 1992 and 1.06 per cent in 1997 when UKIP saved just one deposit out of 194 candidates) they have pressed on in the belief that their core political message has political resonance. After 20 years and five general elections UKIP have built an electoral base that has begun to alter the electoral arithmetic and are now close to a million votes.

UKIP
Year Candidates Number of Votes Seats Deposits Saved % Total Vote % Vote in Contested Seats
1992 17 4,383 0 0 0.01 0.53
1997 194 106,028 0 1 0.34 1.06
2001 428 390,563 0 6 1.48 2.16
2005 496 605,973 0 38 2.20 2.80
2010 572 920,334 0 99 3.10 3.45



The Green Party has followed a similar strategy. According to the five per cent rule, the Green Party should have stopped standing a wide numbers of candidates in elections long ago and simply concentrated on their heartlands. But they didn’t; once again, convinced that they had a national political constituency constituency, they stood widely. Note that the experiment they conducted in 1997 of standing fewer candidates was quickly abandoned.

GREEN PARTY
Year Candidates Total votes Average votes per candidate % of total vote Average % of vote per candidate Saved Deposits Number of MPs
1979 53 39,918 753 0.13 1.46 0 0
1983 109 54,299 498 0.17 1.04 0 0
1987 133 89,753 675 0.28 1.35 0 0
1992 253 170,037 672 0.51 1.27 0 0
1997 89 61,731 694 0.21 1.34 0 0
2001 145 166,477 1148 0.63 2.75 10 0
2005 182 257,758 1416 1.04 3.29 22 0
2010 310 265,187 855 0.96 1.81 6 1



Finally, look at the votes of the BNP, built on a growing economic crisis that has impacted on some of the most depressed areas abandoned by Labour in its search for the hallowed middle ground of politics:

BNP
Year Number of candidates Total votes Average votes per candidate Percentage of vote Change (percentage points) Saved deposits Number of MPs
1983 53 14,621 276 0.0 N/A 0 0
1987 2 553 277 0.0 0.0 0 0
1992 13 7,631 587 0.1 +0.1 0 0
1997 56 35,832 640 0.1 0.0 3 0
2001 33 47,129 1,428 0.2 +0.1 7 0
2005 119 192,746 1,620 0.7 +0.5 34 0
2010 338 563,743 1,668 1.9 +1.2 73 0



It took the BNP a bit longer to work out that by focusing on a few areas in the hope of maximizing a local vote the party had cut itself off from all those whom might vote for it nationally. By 2005 the penny had dropped in the Griffin bunker and by 2010, in the space of just three general elections, the BNP had gone from 47,129 votes to over half a million.

As suggested above, there are political, social and economic reasons for the rise of the fascist vote, but the determining electoral factor was that the BNP stood widely across the country so that they could collect up as many votes as possible from their core constituency and develop roots in those areas. Fortunately, the BNP’s response to almost tripling its candidates and votes between 2005 and 2010 has been to implode into internecine strife. However, the far right will regroup and continue to exploit the vacuum left by the absence of a socialist alternative in areas abandoned by Labour. The fascists understand that 1.9 percent nationally – or half a million votes, is not to be abandoned without a fight.

The tables above show that a small national party can make enough inroads to create an electoral block that begin to change the terms of the national political debate if it stands widely enough to express a level of political strength. The lesson is don’t stand in just the few seats where it is possible to get above five per cent – this will only serve to cut you off from the overwhelming majority of your core support; and don’t let low votes limit your electoral ambitions – to build a national party stand as far and wide as possible. What we all know is that building a new electoral base for socialism will have to be done – but it will take time, patience and ingenuity.

Building a political home for your core support to live in

By standing as widely as possible TUSC would be able to advertise its presence to as wide a layer of its core support as possible and invite them to join. The most reliable estimates suggest that despite the growth in their aggregate electoral vote, all three parties discussed above have quite small party memberships. UKIP has about 10,000 to 14,000 members (depending on how you count); the Greens have around 10,000 members and the BNP have between 6,000 and 8,000 members. In rough terms this means that at the last general election the Greens have one member for every 25 votes received and the BNP and UKIP one member for every 60 votes. (Labour was one member for every 50 votes).

If TUSC were to make a broad challenge at the 2012 and 2013 local elections and 2014/15 general election then merely by advertising its presence and presenting itself as a national political party it could draw more potential members into its orbit and build the platform for a core membership organization. If TUSC was ambitious and aimed for two per cent average vote in core seats in England at the next general election then, assuming TUSC actually built a membership campaign and structure alongside the election campaign, the number of people joining would increase and bring more resources and people for the future battles to come.

By core seats I am thinking of those seats that Labour won in 2010 in England (191) – although TUSC could stand much wider than that number. For example, if TUSC were to average 1000 votes across 200 constituency seats it would win 200,000 votes. To put this in perspective, TUSC and allies stood 180 candidates in about 170 council wards in 2011 and got 25,000 votes. This was, proportionally, about six times more than the 12,000 votes that TUSC got in around 500 average council wards it stood in as part of the 2010 General election. (Incidentally, even though TUSC was late off the blocks for the 2010 General Election, you will see if you revisit the tables at the start of this article, even that vote is comparable to UKIP/Greens/BNP when they first stood.)

General Election England 2011
Party Seats Seats
change Votes % %
change
Conservative 297 +92 9,908,169 39.5 +3.8
Labour 191 -87 7,042,398 28.1 -7.4
Liberal Democrat 43 -4 6,076,189 24.2 +1.3
Green 1 +1 258,954 1.0 -0.1
Speaker 1 0 22,860 0.09 -
Turnout: 25,047,355 65.5



So 200,000 votes in England is not beyond the realms of the possible if it was decided as a plan of action to stand 200 general election candidates. (The Greens stood 200 candidates, almost half in the more prosperous South East and got over a quarter of a million votes.) It is out of such results that a national party can be built. At a Labour Party votes to membership ratio (1/50) this would produce a possible membership of 4,000, or the Green party ratio (1/25) it would be 8,000.

It is for this reason that it is the aggregate vote (rather than the low vote in particular areas) makes a difference over the long run. A national presence, even on a low percentage vote, can translate into a party membership that in itself can build a local election campaign presence in areas where they did not previously exist. Rather than shun the low votes TUSC should stand widely to accumulate more of them – because they are the raw material out of which a nationwide socialist presence will be built. Put simply, in order to rally to a flag you have to be able to see it in your locality.

The aim would be to create a virtuous circle of standing widely, and out of the contacts made building a national membership and resource base, then using this national membership and resource to build a local electoral interventions to reach more people. Out of this strategy, combined with an ongoing presence in working class communities and trade union campaigns, some local strongholds would emerge and be sustained. Then rather than being embattled out posts these areas would be the advance guard of a growing nationwide electoral challenge. This is the lesson of the Green Party and, unfortunately, even UKIP and the fascists.

Electoral politics can be brutal.

The count can feel quite an uncomfortable place to be when you know that you are going to come last (as I have done twice since February this year). Especially after you have trod the streets week in and week out leafleting and knocking on doors trying to winkle out the socialist vote, when your party is new and the potential voter may not have heard of it or your candidate. As can standing next to Labour Party members who may have won, many of them councillors who have recently voted to cut local services to working class communities.

If the thought of a low vote feels like a rebuff from the class then it is perhaps worth considering the 33, 45 or 96 working class people who saw the election name ‘Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition – against the cuts’ and in the ballot box decided to vote for you or the candidate you have worked for. They were sending a message: ‘I am a trade unionist and a socialist and I agree with you’. This is the kindling of a new socialist party and alone is a reason to stand and to begin the process of building a new party that can represent the working class; but this will only be worthwhile if it done as part of a national project that those voters they might later consider joining.

In 2011 for every Sheffield, Coventry or Preston there were other TUSC votes that were just below or above one per cent. It is important to get all votes into perspective. For new small national parties this range of votes is normal, especially with small financial resources and finite numbers of people to call upon and, it has to be said, a relatively late election campaign. However, what is important about the TUSC results was not those at the top or the bottom of the range of votes, but those in the middle two quarters – the middle 50 per cent. The voting range in the middle is between 2.2 and 5.4 per cent (perhaps a welcome surprise to some of those who stood for the first time) and more than respectable for a new party standing it is first local elections. Not at all disappointing, but in fact something to build upon and comparable with other new parties in Europe who have the benefit of a much more proportional system. For example, The United Left Alliance in Ireland received a mid range vote of between 1.5 and 9.2 per cent.

We have a base – but we have yet to reach them

Between 1997 and 2010 the Labour Party lost over two million working class votes. While some of these voters decamped to other parties, the majority have simply stopped voting because they have no party to vote for. Then there are those left wing voters who do vote Labour because there is no other credible left alternative available. These are the millions that TUSC can reach but only if it has a strategy bold enough and wide enough to reach them.

Will McMahon, a member of the TUSC Independent Socialist Network 24 May 2011