The local press

We have to confess that coverage of our list in the local press has been disappointing. We had counted on them to help get across, in areas where the post office wasn't distributing our leaflets, the fact that we were standing and something of what we stood for.

Unfortunately, most of the local papers did not go much beyond giving a "public service" announcement of the list of all the parties and individuals standing. Some did not even do this.

Particularly disappointing were the two independent (of the big chains) papers, the Camden New Journal and Southwark News. In the first, we put in a paid ad putting our case but there was no editorial coverage. In the second (which had given us equal time in last year's GLA elections), we were only mentioned amongst the "also standing" while Labour, Tory, Liberals, Greens, UKIP and BNP got interviewed. We had understood that if we answered the same questions this would be in the following week's issue along with the replies of the other left-out parties. But nothing was published. So as not to waste the work that went into drafting the replies to their questions, here they are.

1. Should further enlargement of the EU be supported for countries such as Turkey and Croatia?

What intergovernmental arrangements those in charge of trying to manage capitalism make is irrelevant as far as the majority of us, who work for a wage or salary or exist on benefits, are concerned. What the Socialist Party advocates is a world without frontiers where the resources of the whole world will have become the common heritage of all humanity.

2. As the pound is currently weak, should the UK consider joining the Euro?
It makes no difference what the money we are paid in is called. As long as the capitalist system of production for profit exists there will always be economic crises, whether we are governed from London or from Brussels, or whether we are paid in pounds or euros. In socialism, the principle “from each their ability, to each their needs” would apply, making money redundant.

3. Is it fair that the UK pays more into Europe than it gets back, with funds being redistributed to eastern Europe countries?
It’s up to the big capitalist corporations and their political representatives to judge whether or not they get value for money out of their membership of the EU. These funds, like profits, originally come from the difference between the value of what we produce and what we are paid as wages and salaries. That’s what’s not fair.

4. What would you do for London as an MEP?
If elected I would be the mandated delegate of those in London who wanted to replace capitalism with socialism. Pending the emergence of the majority desire for socialism required to establish it democratically, I would use the European Parliament as a platform from which to broadcast the need for a society of common ownership, democratic control and production for use not profit.