Party News (2004)

Party News the July 2004 issue of the Socialist Standard

Centenary

Over the weekend of 12/13 June the Socialist Party of Great Britain marked a hundred years of non-stop socialist activity. A highly successful political and social event on the Saturday evening in Regents College in Regents Park, London, was attended by some 140 members and sympathisers. On the Sunday those who had come from outside London for the event visited parts of the City of London and Clerkenwell area associated with the Party (such as the site of the old Printers’ Hall, Bartlett’s Passage, off Fetter Lane, where the founding meeting took place on 12 June 1904, and most of the Party’s head offices, which were situated in this area till we moved to Clapham High Street in 1951) together with other places of historical interest such as Farringdon Hall where the Labour Representation Committee was formed and the house where Keir Hardie lived next door to the one-time head office of his now defunct ILP.

Copies of the special 48-page hundredth anniversary issue of the Socialist Standard are still available (price £2 including postages, or £1 at Branch meetings).

The talks given at Regent’s College are available on CD: for details contact Head Office

Elections

Ten thousand leaflets were distributed in Britain for the June elections to the European Parliament elections, with a lesser number in Germany, France, Belgium, Holland and Italy, urging people to consider the case for socialism and, if they agreed with it, to register this by writing “World Socialism” (or “Weltsozialismus” or “Socialisme Mondial” or “Wereldsocialisme” or “Socialismo Mondiale”, as the case may be) across their ballot paper. There was a socialist candidate in the local elections standing in the Monkton Ward of South Tyneside Council. The full result for this was: Lewis (Lab) 984; Kerr (Lab) 960; Sewell (Lab) 929; Slater (LD) 756; Bennett (LD) 666; Coe (LD) 624; Cameron (C) 425; Wagstaff (Ind) 351; Bissett (Soc) 203.