‘In office Labour made cuts – in opposition they oppose them’ (2026)

From the Brixton Buzz website

LAMBETH COUNCIL / NEWS

‘In office Labour made cuts – in opposition they oppose them’: SPGB takes aim at Labour and Greens ahead of Myatt’s Fields by-election

Sun 4th October, 2026 - by Phil Ross 

The Socialist Party of Great Britain’s Anya Krycek is standing in the Myatt’s Fields by-election on 8th October – not to win office, but to platform the case for socialism and challenge what the party calls the shared failure of Labour and the Greens to offer an alternative to austerity.

In an election statement, the SPGB argues that neither party can deliver on promises to reverse cuts because “austerity is not a political choice – it’s an economic necessity under the profit-driven capitalist system.”

[Socialist Party of Great Britain office, Clapham, 31.08.26]

 

The party, the world’s oldest socialist party, founded in 1904 and based on Clapham High Street, calls for common ownership and democratic control of the means of production, arguing that “it makes no real difference whether the Greens or Labour win” because “both will manage capitalism in Lambeth, and capitalism means cuts.”

 

Krycek, who also stood in the Clapham Park by-election in July, is hosting drop-in sessions at the SPGB headquarters every Tuesday and Thursday until polling day.

Anya Krycek’s full election statement is reproduced below.

More Info

• Myatt’s Fields by-election: Thursday 8th October 2026
• Socialist Party of Great Britain: 52 Clapham High Street, SW4 7UN

The Candidates

• Sonia Winifred – Green Party. Former Knight’s Hill Labour councillor who crossed to the Greens after being suspended for refusing to vote against a ceasefire motion on Gaza. A former librarian who served as Lambeth’s Cabinet Member for Equalities and Culture.
• Chris French – Liberal Democrats. A local resident who stood in Oval in May and previously as a parliamentary candidate in Vauxhall.
• Molly Hartill – Labour and Co-operative. Hartill stood in Myatt’s Fields in May, finishing fourth with 1,108 votes. Hartill is Head of Office for Dartford MP Jim Dickson, the former long-serving Lambeth Labour councillor for Herne Hill.
• John Hindson – Conservative and Unionist Party
• Yemi Awolola – Christian Peoples Alliance

Anya Krycek’s Full Statement

The Greens and Labour can’t reverse austerity. The only hope is socialism

In the elections in May the Green Party said they wanted to ‘reverse austerity’. They didn’t say how but this promise brought them enough votes to take control of Lambeth council.

It was an empty promise. No local council has the power to do this, neither legally nor economically. Once in office, the promise became just ‘to campaign to restore funding from central government and reverse austerity.’ Not the same.

Anybody can say they ‘stand against’ austerity. And that they will lobby for more money from the government (all councils and the parties running them are doing this). But austerity is not a political choice that can be reversed.

It’s an economic necessity under the profit-driven capitalist system. Governments have no choice but to limit their spending so as not to cut into profits or worsen the conditions for profit-making. Campaigning to change this has no chance of success. The Green Party campaign will fail.

The Labour Party is no different. Labour ran Lambeth council for years and did the same thing. In opposition, Labour councillors voted against cuts and protested against them. In office, they made the cuts.

They had no choice — a council, like a government, has to balance its books within capitalism, and under capitalism that means squeezing spending on services that don’t make a profit. Labour’s answer today is no more realistic than the Greens’: tax the corporations and the rich, spend more, grow the economy.

But the profits of the corporations are the economy, as far as capitalism is concerned. Tax them heavily and investment dries up, jobs disappear, and the money to spend on public services disappears with it. Labour knows this, which is why in office it always rows back. Every Labour government and every Labour council ends up administering capitalism on capitalism’s terms — that means austerity too.

So it makes no real difference whether the Greens or Labour win the Myatts Field by-election on 8 October. Both will manage capitalism in Lambeth, and capitalism means cuts.

Making ends meet is a permanent problem for those who work for wages. That’s because the wages system itself is the problem. Workers are paid less than the value of what we produce — that difference is surplus value, the source of profit. Whether wages go up or down, whether benefits are generous or mean, the working class as a whole can never get more out of capitalism than what it takes to keep us producing for the employers.

Meanwhile technology that could lighten everyone’s load is instead used to shed jobs and speed up those who remain. Overproduction sits side by side with unmet needs — food is destroyed while people go hungry, houses stand empty while people sleep on the streets — because production is geared not to meeting human needs but to making profit and accumulating capital.

Crises, unemployment, war, poverty and environmental destruction are not accidents or bad management. They are the inevitable outcomes of a system where the means of living are owned by a minority and used to serve their interests.

What is socialism? Socialism is not nationalisation, state control, higher taxes on the rich, or what the Labour Party or the Greens call ‘socialism’. It is something fundamentally different: a society based on the common ownership and democratic control of the means of production — the land, factories, offices, transport, and all the resources used to produce and distribute wealth.

With no owners, employers or profit, there would be no wages, no money and no buying and selling. Instead, people would freely contribute according to their ability and take from the common store according to their needs.

Production would be organised democratically, by all of us, to directly meet human needs and to live in balance with the planet — not to feed the never-ending drive for profit and growth.

Such a society cannot be handed down from above, and it cannot be voted in by one party alone while the majority still accepts capitalism. It requires a majority of workers worldwide understanding socialism and organising democratically to take over the means of production. That is why the Socialist Party of Great Britain is contesting the Myatts Field by-election — not to manage capitalism, but to use the opportunity to argue the socialist case.

If you agree, don’t waste your vote on parties promising to patch up a system that can’t be patched. Vote Anya Krycek of the Socialist Party of Great Britain on 8 October, and join us in the movement to replace capitalism with a world of free access, democratic control and production for use, not profit.

Promoted by Adam Buick on behalf of Anya Krycek, at the Socialist Party, 52 Clapham High St., London SW4 7UN. Printed by same.