Non-Brits welcome

Still continuing to get the 10 signatures for Ferndale ward. We've got 6 but there's no hurry or worry. We'll get them all by the weekend.

Once thing that's noticeable from the electoral register is the number of electors with a G against their name. This means they are EU Citizens who can vote in local (but not parliamentary) elections. A couple have signed our papers. They make up over 10 percent of the electorate in this part of London. In Larkhall ward, for instance, there are 1541 out of a total electorate of 12333, or 12.5%, which is 1 in 8. No wonder UKIP don't do well in these parts. UKIP would of course disenfranchise them. Our inclination would be in the opposite direction: that all workers, wherever they come from, should have the vote ...

More anti-EU than thou

According to this, TUSC are to target UKIP in this election by exposing its leader Farage as a tax-evader. This will be because when it comes to next year's European Parliament elections they will be vying with UKIP for the anti-EU vote. For these elections TUSC transforms itself in NO2EU. They won't stand much chance of making headway against UKIP, but they will contribute to the nasty xenophobic atmosphere from which UKIP benefits. We'll probably be contesting these elections somewhere but on the basis of YES2WORLDSOCIALISM.

Meanwhile we have almost completed the distribution of our newsletter giving the socialist perspective on local issues (food banks, bedroom tax, closing playgrounds, Brixton windmill) and will now be concentrating on getting our election manifesto to people (streets stalls, letter boxes).

UKIP misses the point

More of our newsletters were distributed in the ward yesterday. More evidence this time of political activity. In fact some streets would have received our leaflet and UKIP's at the same time. A LibDem leaflet carried the same "It's a two-horse race" bar chart that they all do, even though the figures they gave showed that it's really only a one-horse race (as everyone knows)since even if all the Tory voters switched to the LibDems that would only be get them to 35% compared to Labour's 51%. The Labour leaflet was a tribute to their councillor whose untimely death provoked the by-election.

UKIP is an opportunist, populist party but don't seem to have yet learnt (as all vote-catching parties must if they are going to get anywhere) how to adapt what they say to those whose votes they are chasing. Asking people to help them "End mass immigration" wouldn't seem to find much of an echo in this part of the world. They need to take some advice from the LibDems on how to be all things to all people (bringing back smoking in pubs and abolishing parking meters might not be enough). UKIP suffered a blow this week when their flagship policy of withdawing from the EU but still having access to the Single European Market as a non-member like Norway was rejected by the employers organisation, the CBI. They want Britain to stay in, so UKIP are on the own on this one as far as the major British capitalist corporations are concerned.

In any event, whether Britain is in or out of the EU makes no fundamental difference to the majority class of wage and salary workers and their dependents. It's not the EU that is the cause of our problems, but capitalism. So the way out is not to withdraw from the EU (the problems would still continue) but to establish socialism based on the common ownership and democratic control of the means of production so that production can be geared to satisfying people's needs instead of to making a profit. If there's ever a referendum on the EU (what a waste of time) we'll be writing "WORLD SOCIALISM" across the ballot paper.

More anti-EU than thou

One of the declared aims of RMT leader Bob Crow's narrow nationalist "No2Eu" list is to "keep out the BNP". They've evidently decided that one way to do this is to out-BNP the BNP on opposition to the EU. They have declared that, if elected, Bob Crow won't take his seat. They criticise the BNP for not taking up this position:

The BNP claims to oppose the European Union but its leader, who denies the holocaust took place, can’t wait to get on the gravy train and link up with other fascist parties from Italy and France in the European parliament.

Our position is that the EU is a essentially a trading arrangement between various European states and governments which is irrelevant from a working class point of view. While we don't of course support it we don't oppose it more than we oppose capitalism in general. We don't make a single issue of opposing it and certainly don't oppose it like Bob Crow and his supporters (mainly Militant and the Morning Star) on narrow nationalist grounds. Our alternative to the EU is not an independent Britain with its own currency but world socialism and no currency.

Oh, and, yes, if elected we would take our seat.