Party News (1998)

Party News from the April 1998 issue of the Socialist Standard

Annual Conference

The 94th Annual Conference of the Socialist Party will take place over Easter weekend on Friday and Saturday, 10 and 11 April from 10.15 to 18.00 on both days.

As with all our meetings, there are no closed sessions and visitors are welcome to sit in and listen to the delegates and to meet and discuss with members in the canteen or afterwards.

Local elections

Socialist Party candidates will be standing in Manchester, London, Tyneside and Bournemouth in this year’s local elections on 7 May. Further details and offers of help: South East Manchester, Central London, North East and Bournemouth branches and group respectively (see Directory on this page).

London Referendum

Also on 7 May electors in London will be voting on a government proposal for an elected mayor and an elected assembly to replace the GLC abolished by the Tories in 1988.

The Socialist Party has produced a leaflet explaining that real democracy is not possible under capitalism where some are more equal than others because they have more money and where the economic laws of the profit system work to frustrate improvements people vote for from being carried out.

London branches and members will be distributing this leaflet in April and early May. Copies for distribution can be obtained from: Election Dept, The Socialist Party. 52 Clapham High St, London SW4 7UN.

Apologies

Due to problems at our printers a couple of passages in the May Socialist Standard became incomprehensible.

The second paragraph of the editorial reply to the letter from Kimberley Ellis should have read:

“In short, we think that given the development of productive capacity since Marx made the distinction in 1875 between a 'first' (when full free access according to needs would not be possible) and a 'higher’ phase of 'communist society' (when it would), the so called higher phase con be established more or less immediately" 

Similarly, part of the third paragraph of the review of the play Junk was just that. Our apologies to both the writer and our readers.

Tolpuddle weekend (1986)

Party News from the September 1986 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Socialist Party was once again well represented at the annual Tolpuddle Martyrs' rally which took place on a Sunday in July to remember six Dorchester farm labourers who, in 1834, were sentenced to seven years' transportation to Australia for the "hideous crime" of trying to form a trade union. A weekend of events organised by the Bournemouth branch was supported by members from many parts of the country. Support was given an international flavour by a 79-year-old Australian comrade who is currently visiting the country and he seemed to thoroughly enjoy it all.

The weekend of events started out with a well supported public meeting in Bournemouth, the subject being Socialism and the Labour Movement.

On the Saturday afternoon literature was sold in Bournemouth and Southampton and when the members were reunited at a social event that evening, reports from both venues were very satisfying. So after getting together on the Saturday evening to recount our experiences we all travelled down to Tolpuddle early Sunday morning to put forward the socialist message at what is a very important event in the calendar of the working class movement.

After a slow start in selling and some difficulty in setting up the literature stall, owing to different arrangements in the organisation of the event this year, we soon began to sell all types of socialist literature and the badges started to sell particularly well.

The Socialist Party stall was probably the most impressive with a wider variety of literature than the various left wing organisations. The newer pamphlets, particularly Women and Socialism, raised a good deal of interest and sold very well. 

Events such as the Tolpuddle rally have tremendous political significance as they bring together workers involved in various struggles within capitalism and it is at gatherings such as these that workers are likely to be receptive to what to many of them are new ideas. Of course it is true that at such events there are many groups willing to direct the working class down more wrong roads and dead ends but this is all the more reason for us to be there with a clear socialist message and to attempt to change the various struggles within capitalism into one struggle to end it.

The message from the Tolpuddle weekend is clear; events that bring large numbers of workers together in a mood of unity provide us with a real opportunity to present the one real alternative

Ray Carr

Obituary: Harry Morriss (1993)

Obituary from the September 1993 issue of the Socialist Standard

We regret to report the death of Comrade Harry Morriss of our Bournemouth group at the age of 77. He was born in the area, in Christchurch, but during the war was sent to London to work at the Woolwich Arsenal in his trade of fitter. There he encountered the Party, joining the old Lewisham branch in 1945 before moving back after the war.

Later he emigrated to Australia and New Zealand and in the late 1960s and early 1970s was an active member of the Auckland branch. After his return to England he became a founding member of our Bournemouth branch. While in New Zealand he had been one of those who argued for the party to change its name to the World Socialist Party, which the SPNZ eventually did. Comrades in Britain proved more conservative: when Bournemouth branch initiated a poll of the membership on the matter in 1986, the proposition was defeated by a 3-to-l majority.

In recent years illness prevented Harry from being as active as he would have liked to have been. Our condolence's go to his wife Dorothy, a member, and the rest of his family.

Party news (1987)

Party News from the September 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard

At the Tolpuddle Martyrs' rally each July, thousands of workers gather together to remember six Dorchester farm labourers who in 1834 were sentenced to seven years transportation to Australia for trying to form a trade union. In the last five years members of The Socialist Party have been active at this event, selling literature and putting forward socialist ideas. Once again this year we stood out as the only movement arguing for the complete removal of capitalism and its replacement with socialism. As is usual the left in general presented the case, in one way or another, that we should all content ourselves with the aim of replacing one capitalist government with another.

Bournemouth Branch, the nearest to Tolpuddle. was well supported by members from Islington, Eccles, Guildford and Bristol. One member from the Bristol branch was particularly keen to help out as he first came into contact with socialist ideas at previous Tolpuddle rallies. The fact that it rained for most of the day did little to dampen interest in the ideas we were promoting and as in previous years our stall was certainly among the busiest and even managed to get itself on a local television programme, TV South.

Workers attending these type of events up and down the country and of course many who don't attend them, are looking for political ideas different from those that in the main were in evidence during the election. Many of those who previously looked to the Labour Party and its left wing allies are particularly open to a growing realisation that these parties no longer offer an alternative, tied as they are to the dogma of a vanguard leadership and state ownership.

One hundred and fifty years after those six farm labourers were transported workers still face state and employer repression for trying to organise and defend themselves. In Britain events in recent years and the kind of trade union legislation which has been passed are proof of this and in many parts of the world workers face far greater repression, including imprisonment and even death, for attempting to organise. The best way to pay a real tribute to workers like the Tolpuddle Martyrs who were involved in the early struggles of the working class movement is not just to organise annual events nor simply to take part in the same struggles over and over again. Certainly workers must organise to defend themselves within capitalism but they must also set their sights on a wider goal, namely to end the system that makes such struggles inevitable.

Ray Carr