Socialist election activity in Islington

We have stood in Islington before, but mainly in the south, in the Islington South & Finsbury constituency, three times in general elections (1979, 1983 and 1987) and in 1981 in the GLC election. Despite having a super-active branch we never did well in terms of votes or percentages (around 0.2%). This was attributed to the constituency being a marginal Labour/SDP (remember them?) one. But then we contest elections, at the moment, to publicise the case for socialism.

We did contest Islington North (into which Junction ward falls), forty years ago, in the 1973 GLC elections and got one of our best results ever in London:

Labour 7463, Con 2798, Socialist 284 (2.7%)

But no doubt this was in part due to us being the only opposition to the two main parties, but there was an unpopular Tory government in power centrally under Ted Heath.

Our percentage of 0.8% in Junction ward is in fact higher than the 0.3% we got in Vauxhall in the 2010 General Election. If we'd have got that percentage there, we'd have had 300 votes.

We'll probably be back again in the London borough elections in May next year.