Election Time Again

Not in London but over the border, in Surrey. The English County Council elections are taking place on Thursday 4 May and West London branch has decided to stand a candidate in Guildford, which is only about 20 miles from Kingston, chosen because it is a university town.

Activity so far:

Letter published in the Hounslow Chronicle (17 March )in response to one from someone in the ex-Militant Tendency signing himself "Staines and Surrey Socialist Party":

Socialists will have candidate
Paul Couchman (Your Say, March 3) says he wants to build "the Social­ist Party in Staines and Surrey" and hopes that there will be Socialist candidates in May's County Council elections.
The good news is that there will be. The bad news, for him, is that it will not be his party, ie the old Mili­tant Tendency under the usurped name of our party which has existed since 1904. We shall be standing on a straight socialist programme of the common ownership and demo­cratic control of the means of pro­duction, with production for use not profit, not for mere reforms to capi­talism as he wants.

The 10 signatories for the nomination paper were collected yesterday in the chosen electoral division of Guildford West. The Labour Party had already leafletted the ward to introduce their candidate (George Dokimakis). It seems that Corbyn's takeover of the Leadership has made no difference whatsover at local level as the leaflet's slogan is "Say NO to 4.99% Council Tax increases". Very leftwing. UKIP and the LibDems will no doubt be using that one too.

Literature stalls planned in the centre of Guildford for Saturday 15 April, Saturday 22 April and Monday 1 May.