Meet the Candidates: Socialist Party of Great Britain – abolishing capitalism since 1904 (2026)

Blogger's Note:

The Socialist Party is contesting three seats in Lambeth, South London, in the 2026 Local Elections. The following article appeared on the Brixton Buzz website, which is "Brixton’s biggest and most comprehensive news, features and listings site."

LAMBETH COUNCIL / NEWS

Meet the Candidates: Socialist Party of Great Britain – abolishing capitalism since 1904

Wed 6th May, 2026 - by Phil Ross

Founded in 1904, the Socialist Party of Great Britain (SPGB) is one of Britain’s oldest socialist parties, and one of its most uncompromising. Unlike Labour or the Greens, the party does not seek to reform capitalism – it seeks to abolish it, along with the state and money itself.

The SPGB is standing three candidates in Lambeth’s 7 May council elections – Anya Krycek in Brixton North, Jacqueline Shodeke in Clapham Common & Abbeville, and Cesar Sotillo in Stockwell West & Larkhall.

Brixton Buzz put four questions to the candidates, and in keeping with the party’s non-hierarchical principles, they answered collectively:

What does the SPGB offer a resident of your ward right now, today?

We do not offer false promises that Lambeth Council can abolish poverty, solve the housing crisis, or fix underfunded public services under capitalism.

Other parties will tell you that with the right policies, the right leadership, or the right ‘progressive coalition,’ things can be made tolerable. We say: capitalism cannot be reformed into a humane system. It is a system of production for profit, and profit will always come before human need.

What we offer immediately is a vote for socialist consciousness.

Every Socialist Party (GB) vote is a declaration that you recognise the present system has failed and must be replaced. It is a signal to other workers that they are not alone in wanting something fundamentally different.

We do not promise to manage capitalism better than Labour. We promise to use any position gained to expose its limits and advocate for revolutionary change.

That said, if elected, we would vote for any measure that genuinely improves working class conditions – since we are not opposed to reforms as such.

[Jacqueline Shodeke]

The SPGB vision is a moneyless, stateless society of common ownership.

Brixton has a thriving culture of independent businesses, market traders and community enterprises.

In that world, what happens to them?

They become part of the common ownership of the means of production. Not state-owned, there will be no state. Not privately owned, there will be no money, no buying and selling.

But democratically controlled by the community of producers and consumers.

Market traders are workers. Independent business owners are typically small scale exploiters of their own labour, often struggling under the same pressures as wage workers.

In socialism, they would contribute their skills and labour directly to meeting social needs, without the constraint of profitability, rent, or competition.

Brixton Market would not disappear, it would transition to a place of free distribution, where the produce of collective labour is available to all without exchange.

The ‘thriving culture’ that people value is not dependent on capitalism and in fact is stifled by both alienation and homogenisation.

Capital constantly undermines through gentrification, rising rents, and the displacement of working-class residents. Socialism would preserve and extend that culture by removing the economic pressures that destroy it.

[Cesar Sortillo]

Where does the SPGB fit in a broader left coalition?

Nowhere. We do not join coalitions with reformist parties, including the Greens or any ‘progressive’ alliance.

Our position is not sectarianism for its own sake, it is a recognition that these organisations operate on fundamentally different principles.

The Greens, like Labour, seek to administer capitalism more humanely. They believe that with better regulation, greener technology, and more ethical consumption, the system can be made sustainable. We disagree.

Capitalism is inherently destructive, of the environment, of human wellbeing, and of any possibility of a rational society. No amount of green washing changes its basic drive for accumulation.

As for ‘working alongside’ others on specific local issues: we support any group of workers in struggle, regardless of political affiliation, for immediate defensive gains.

But we do not enter electoral pacts, shared platforms, or coalitions that imply common political objectives. Our objective is the abolition of capitalism. Theirs is its reform. These are incompatible.

[Anya Krycek]

What is your assessment of Labour’s record in Lambeth, and what would genuinely left representation look like in its place?

Labour has administered capitalism in Lambeth for decades, and the results are visible: gentrification, displacement, privatisation of housing, underfunded services, and a council that acts as a local manager for central government austerity.

They are not a failed alternative to the Tories. They are a reliable partner in managing the same system. ‘Genuinely left representation’ would not mean a more radical Labour council.

It would mean representatives who use their position to tell the truth: that local government under capitalism has no real power to change the fundamental conditions of working class life.

It would be refusing to implement cuts, refusing to collaborate with property developers, and using every platform to argue for the common ownership of the means of production.

That is what Socialist Party (GB) representation would look like.

Not better management of decline, but a clear voice for revolutionary change, starting with the recognition that the working class must organise politically, democratically, and consciously for socialism.

Anya Krycek, Brixton North Jacqueline Shodeke, Clapham Common & Abbeville Cesar Sotillo, Stockwell West & Larkhall

More Info

Socialist Party of Great Britain

Cooking the Books: Death of a currency (2025)

The Cooking the Books column from the October 2025 issue of the Socialist Standard

‘Local currency is retired to end a notable trend’ reported the Times (1 September) about the demise of the Lewes Pound, a local currency introduced 17 years ago in the Sussex town and copied in various other towns and cities in Britain.

We mentioned its launch at the time (Socialist Standard March 2009) and the extravagant claims made for the local currency by George Monbiot: ‘It by-passes greedy banks. It recharges local economies and gives local businesses an advantage over multinationals’ .

The aim was to encourage people to spend their money locally by using a currency that could only be spent and circulated in the town concerned. If people used the local currency to buy from a local shop, it was argued, it would stay in the town, but that if they used ordinary money to buy from a national supermarket the chances are that it would end up being spent elsewhere.

Local currencies didn’t replace ordinary money. In fact, they had to be backed pound for pound by an equivalent amount of ordinary money deposited in a bank. The Times refers to this in its report when it says that, now that the scheme is being wound up, ‘the backing money will be donated to four local charities’.

As we mentioned at the time:

‘The Lewes Pounds get into circulation by people buying them for ordinary pounds and are convertible back into pounds on demand. In answer to the question “What happens to the sterling pounds that are taken when people buy Lewes Pounds?” the organisers explain: “All Sterling pounds are held in a safe deposit box with a local bank, so that we can access them at any time should people wish to trade their Lewes Pounds back into Sterling”’.

So no by-passing of ‘greedy banks’. Nor any extra purchasing power introduced to boost the local economy. It was just one piece of paper being replaced by another of equal spending power. Since people wanting to use the local currency had to buy it, those doing this were likely to have been enthusiasts who would have bought things locally anyway using ordinary money; the same goes for those accepting it in change (which people couldn’t be obliged to do). It is unlikely, then, that local businesses benefited — except the scheme itself by selling Lewes Pounds to collectors. How multinationals lost out remains a mystery.

The scheme failed in the end due to the nationwide trend to pay by card rather than cash. In Brixton the organisers of the local currency there tried to get round this by introducing an electronic Brixton Pound  but this too was overtaken by smartphones with their electronic wallets, and the Brixton Pound too was wound up.

When the Brixton Pound was introduced in 2009 our South London branch commented in a leaflet distributed in the area:

‘What’s the point (apart from helping local shopkeepers)? What difference does it make what coloured pieces of paper we have to use to get the things we need to live? The real problem is that in present-day, capitalist society we have to use money at all to obtain these, and that the amount of money we have will always be rationed by what we get as wages or as benefits. That restricts and distorts our lives’ (Th£ Brixton Pound — What For?).

The sad fact is that all the enthusiasm, time and voluntary work that went into devising and running local currencies led nowhere. This particular ‘notable trend’ to do ‘something now’ to try make things better under capitalism made no difference whatsoever.

Obituary: Gwynn Thomas (2024)

Obituary from the December 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard

We are saddened to have to report the death in October of longstanding member Gwynn Thomas at the age of 85. Gwynn was born into a Welsh-speaking small farming family on the island of Anglesey (Ynys Môn). After national service in the RAF and moving to London to work in the civil service, he joined the old Paddington branch in 1964. In the course of his nearly sixty years membership Gwynn engaged in the whole range of socialist activity: selling the Socialist Standard outside tube stations, speaking at Hyde Park, indoor lecturer, writer, election candidate. He was a member of the Executive Committee and Party Treasurer for a number years and also on the Editorial Committee of the Standard for a time, as well as the Pamphlets Committee. Latterly he was the secretary of the South London branch. He was a diligent and conscientious man with a particular interest in exposing the horrors of war (and at one stage was engaged in research about political opposition to the world slaughters that occurred last century). Our condolences go to his family

Socialist Election results (1997)

Party News from the May 1997 issue of the Socialist Standard

The 5 Socialist Party candidates polled a total of 1359 votes.

The individual results were:

• Easington 503
• Glasgow Kelvin 102
• Jarrow 444
• Livingston 213
• Vauxhall 97

A Novel Approach to Socialism: Bram Stoker's Dracula (2002)

Party News from the September 2002 issue of the Socialist Standard

Bill Martin will be speaking on Bram Stoker's Dracula and capitalist anxieties of consumption

Venue: 52, Clapham High Street,

Sunday 29th September 29th 6.30pm

The Vampire has emerged in literature as a symbol of desire and lust, the leering monster illicitly stalking into the maiden's bedchamber. Why are people repelled and attracted by the vampire? This talk will place this symbol into its historic context, looking at the class and national relations behind Stoker's classic novel, and relate them to the structures of desire/consumption within that book. It will also look at developments in the image of vampires and what they tell us about the changes in capitalistic imagination since Stoker's day.

Socialist Party campaigns (2002)

Party News from the April 2002 issue of the Socialist Standard

London borough elections

South London Branch will be contesting the Clapham Town ward of Lambeth Borough Council in the local elections on 2 May. Anyone interested in helping out can contact the campaign team via Head Office.

University Challenge 2002

Twenty minutes of effort on your part is all that is needed to help with the Socialist Party’s “University Challenge” 2002 campaign. The campaign is an open invitation to student political groups/societies to hear the world socialist case at one of their meetings. This campaign has been successfully run previously and resulted in a number of very positive discussion meetings, putting the distinctive case for a world of free access in front of interested minds. So this year we want to really try and get as many meetings as possible.

Don’t be put off if you don't want to be a speaker yourself - a local speaker can be found. All we need at the moment is for you to contact your local college or university (via their general telephone enquiries) and get the address for the student association or main society’s body.

The Campaigns Department has produced a range of standard letters to be sent out to different types of interested student groups (Third World First, Labour Students, Greens etc). These can be obtained in Word 6.0 format from gardner__brian@hotmail.com. You can amend the letter for it to be returned to yourself, or to Head Office whichever suits you.

Party News: Local Election results (2022)

Party News from the June 2022 issue of the Socialist Standard

We made no apology for raising the nature of the present world economic system – capitalism – in a local election. Local councils have to run things inside the framework of capitalism and that restricts what they can do. They are also restricted in that most of their money comes from central government.

The priority under capitalism is profit-making. Having to respect this priority means that what the central government can make available for local social services and amenities takes second place. That’s why they are never as good as they should be, in spite of the efforts and promises of the other parties. Capitalism simply cannot be made to work for the benefit of all. Only a society based on the common ownership and democratic control of productive resources can do that.

The results in the two wards we contested were:

Lambeth, Clapham East ward (2 members): Leigh (Lab) 1,127; Collins (Lab) 1,073; Hattersley (Green) 411; Williams (LD) 224; Freeman (Con) 215; Hindson (Con) 193; Cranney (TUSC) 38; Lambert (Socialist) 31.

Tunbridge Wells, Pantiles & St Mark’s ward: Barras (LD) 1386; Delman (Con) 715; Hurst (Green) 132; Blackmore (Lab) 130; Kennedy (Socialist) 11.

May Council Election Statements (2022)

Party News from the April 2022 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Socialist Party is standing two candidates in May’s local elections, one in Clapham East ward of Lambeth Borough Council and one in the Pantiles & St. Marks Ward of Tunbridge Wells Borough Council. Here are the election statements.

End Capitalism

The other candidates in this election don’t want change. Instead they will be wittering on about how they propose to fix the faulty system we live under – capitalism – so it’s maybe a tiny bit better for you and yours. But every politician says this. In every party. In every election. And they never really fix anything.

The reason they can’t fix capitalism’s problems is because capitalism IS the problem.

Why? Because it only works for the tiny minority who own most of the wealth.

Capitalism has revolutionised our science and technology so that we can now produce enough for everybody worldwide. That means we could make everything free if we take the world back from the rich and run it collectively as a communally owned resource.

What’s causing poverty, inequality, wars and global warming is that we have a 21st century planet being trashed by an obsolete 19th century economic system that puts profits before meeting needs.

The natural and industrial resources of our planet Earth are the common heritage of all humans.

Universal free access would be simpler, faster, and smarter. And it’s an upgrade the world badly needs, so show your support by voting for the Socialist Party (World Socialist Movement) candidate, Danny Lambert.

Offers to help in the campaign: 02076223811 or text 07922025764.

Fit for Purpose? Or fit for Change?

Democracy can seem abstract when your ability to make changes to your community feels limited to choosing between a small number of political parties every few years. And how can any winning party really represent the needs of all 119,000 residents in Tunbridge Wells borough?

Party politics will always get in the way of local residents being able to make changes that help build a better community for all. The main parties are limited by decisions and views made centrally, and conflict between them distracts from the need to work for improvements that benefit the greatest number of people. Two councillors this year alone have resigned from their parties for failures in both local administration and at the very top of government. Whether Liberal Democrat or Tory, it is not the party but the political system they wish to maintain which causes these issues. We must strive to create a political system that ensures all members of society are listened to and can contribute. And this must start at the very grass roots of politics, not the top.

In Tunbridge Wells, there has been a disturbing number of cases of women’s drinks being spiked in bars and clubs. This problem won’t be resolved until every woman is safe and secure while out at night. We should ask what leads some people to violent and antisocial behaviour, and aim for a culture which treats everyone with respect.

Community projects which work to safeguard and support our community never have enough funding, part of a wider problem of neglected public services which has led to problems such as the lack of NHS dental care. Capitalist society is shaped by money, with most wealth ending up with the elite and the majority left to cope with dwindling resources and high prices.

The Green Party would have you believe capitalism can be managed to mitigate the effects of industry on the environment. Locally, efforts to maintain and protect our green spaces, stop developments outside of brownfield sites, reduce traffic, and efficiently renovate properties are constrained by the economic system. The main parties merely attempt treatment of the symptoms; we propose treating the cause by advocating for a socialist society built to satisfy everyone’s needs, and those of the planet.

Shannon Kennedy, the Socialist Party candidate, Pantiles & St. Marks Ward.

Offers to help: Phone or text 07971 XXXXXX

Obituary: Cyril Evans (2010)

Obituary from the March 2010 issue of the Socialist Standard

We are sad to report the death after a long illness of Comrade Cyril Evans of South London Branch.

Cyril was born in Plumstead, South East London, in 1926. In 1944 while serving as an apprentice he came in contact with the Party which during the Second World War held outdoor meetings in Beresford Square, Woolwich. Struck by the practical nature of the Party case for socialism he joined almost immediately and was active for the following decade in the Woolwich and Dartford area.

As is often the case his Party activity was interrupted by periods of economic hardship and by the need to raise a family and in 1954 he gave up his membership. Although no longer active Cyril never lost his desire to make socialists. While employed in the engineering trades and later as a teacher and later still as an osteopath he seldom lost an opportunity to argue the case for a world based on co-operation rather than competition. Several members and sympathisers have recalled his quiet, patient, and resolute presentation of the sane alternative to the madhouse of capitalism.

In the early nineties he rejoined the Party and again became active in efforts to form a branch of the Party in South East London. Cyril was an inveterate writer of letters to the press. He also wrote on a range of topics for the Socialist Standard and addressed Party meetings. His contributions to political discussions invariably contained refreshing insights and his political optimism was infectious. His enthusiasm and commitment stayed with him to the end. Just prior to his last illness he was contemplating a further article on the necessity for Socialism.

Our sincere condolences go out to his widow Pat and their family.

This writer will miss a good friend and the Party will lose an inspiring comrade who was in the opinion of those who met him a really nice guy.

Gwynn Thomas

2005 General Election: Our Candidate’s Manifesto (2005)

Party News from the May 2005 issue of the Socialist Standard

As is our usual policy, we are standing one token candidate in the general election, in the Vauxhall constituency in South London, to challenge all the pro-capitalist parties and ensure that the voice of socialism is not entirely lost amidst the recriminations of the professional politicians about how to run capitalism.

The Socialist Party is contesting this election as a part of our campaign to establish a new system of society: one based on the common ownership and democratic control of the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth by and in the interest of the whole community.

That is our sole object. By common ownership we don’t mean that everyone should have to share a toothbrush, but that in a society built upon our mutual effort, we should all benefit and have a say in how it is run.

We currently live in a system of society based on a tiny number of people owning the productive wealth of our world, organised and run by a handful of bosses for their benefit. Their profits come first, our needs come second.

In Vauxhall nearly half of all workers are employed in  administering business as compared with only a quarter in social services and looking after ourselves (derived from 2001 Census).

It seems we’re so busy taking care of business that we don’t have time to take care of ourselves.

Because of this we have endless problems of poverty, poor services and all the issues politicians love to

spend time telling you they can solve, if only given the chance.

We don’t believe any politician can solve these problems, as long as the flawed basis of our society remains intact. In fact, we believe only you and your fellow workers can solve these problems.

We believe that it will take a revolution in how we organise our lives, a fundamental change. We want to see a society based on the fact that you know how to run your lives, know your needs and have the skills and capacity to organise with your fellows to satisfy them.

You know yourselves and your lives better than a handful of bosses ever can. With democratic control of production we can ensure that looking after our communities becomes a priority, rather than something we do in our spare time.

We all share fundamental needs, for food, clothing, housing and culture, and we have the capacity to ensure access to these for all, without exception.

If you agree with this aim, then we ask you to get in touch with us, get involved and join in our campaign to bring about this change in society.

Together, we have the capacity to run our world for ourselves. We need to build a movement to effect that change, by organising deliberately to take control of the political offices which rule our lives, and bring them into our collective democratic control.

Our candidate makes no promises, offers no pat solutions, only to be the means by which you can remake society for the common good.

Danny Lambert

The Socialist Party Candidate

Party News (2008)

Party News from the April 2008 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Socialist Party will be contesting one seat in the elections to the Greater London Assembly on Thursday 1 May, the same day as the election for the mayor of London. The seat is Lambeth & Southwark and our candidate will be Danny Lambert. This is the constituency in which our Head Office is situated. Members and sympathisers who wish to help distribute our election leaflets, please contact the Election Dept at 52 Clapham High St, London SW4 7UN or phone 0207 622 3811 or email spgb@worldsocialism.org

Election News (2005)

Party News from the March 2005 issue of the Socialist Standard

By the time you read this the general election campaign might be officially under way. As announced, the Socialist Party is standing a candidate in the Vauxhall constituency in South London. Our Head Office, which is in the constituency, is serving as the campaign rooms. If you want to help get the socialist message across against the Gang of Three (Labour, Liberal, Tory: Same Old Futile Story) and their apprentices in the Green Party (and other would-be managers of capitalism such as RESPECT and VANITAS), phone 0207 622 3811 or call in at 52 Clapham High St, SW4 (nearest tube: Clapham North).

If you are connected to the internet you can also follow the campaign on a daily basis by visiting the site of our campaign blog "Vaux Populi" at http://spgb.blogspot.com

Talk about Socialism (2005)

From the July 2005 issue of the Socialist Standard

Party News

Our recent general election campaign in Vauxhall gave us the chance to talk to more people than usual.  There was a well-attended hustings meeting at which our candidate and five of the others put their party’s case and answered questions from the audience.  On most days we had a literature stall outside our Head Office where we handed out leaflets and spoke to passers-by. We also went to other busy spots such as Brixton and outside tube stations. Sixty thousand copies of the candidate’s election address were distributed free by Royal Mail.

If we can be said to have had a slogan for our campaign it was “Vote for yourself – for a change!”  Of course it takes more than a slogan to persuade people to change their minds.  Capitalism teaches consumers to buy brands of political parties like they buy soap powder.  So our refreshing message was that our candidate wasn’t going to do anything for them.  If they wanted to have their problems solved they would have to do it for themselves.

We had less than two thousand pounds to finance our attempt to increase support for socialism.  The supporters of capitalism have countless millions to convince us that theirs is the only game in town.  You don’t have to be an active supporter of capitalism – or even know what it is – to allow it to go on.  Passive, resigned, unthinking acceptance will do nicely. 

Anti-capitalism may be a start, but it’s certainly not a finish.  Real change means we have to be consciously working for something, not simply against something.  So we talk to people about socialism and invite them to tell us whether they think it would mean a better life and society than we have now.

Today things are produced only if someone can see a profit in doing so – no profit, no product.  Today there are labour markets:  we have to find a job to get money or rely on a meagre state handout – or starve.  We are told we must support a hugely wasteful and destructive war industry (“defence”) to kill or maim men, women and children in other countries with whom we have no quarrel.

What we said in one of our leaflets applies not just at elections but also between elections.  We need a new way of running society based on:

1. The common ownership of all resources by the whole community, not just a rich minority.
2. Democratic control of the community by everyone, without distinction of age, race or sex, instead of rule by unelected company directors or state bureaucrats.
3. Production purely to meet people’s needs, not profit.
4. Free and equal access to all goods and services – an end to the market and to money.

No one we spoke to thought that what we were proposing is undesirable, not a good idea, worse than what we have now.  Instead we were told it had been tried and didn’t work, or that for some reason it would never work.  That reason usually turned out to be some variant of our old friend “human nature”.  People are “naturally” lazy – if they can get away with not working they will do so.  People are “naturally” greedy – if they can have things without paying for them they will grab the lot.  People are “naturally” aggressive – without the punitive sanctions of law and order there will be chaos.

Funny how all these nasty features of a supposedly unalterable human nature always apply to other people.  When challenged, the amateur experts on human nature never admit to showing those features themselves.

Most work in capitalism is unpleasant or boring because it is in the service of making money rather than something useful.  Despite being pitted against each other for jobs generously “provided” by employers, workers do co-operate – nothing would be produced if they didn’t.  It isn’t that the world’s poor are greedy – considering the plenty that technology and human ingenuity are capable of producing, they aren’t greedy enough!

There is a saying that talk is cheap, and in a sense it is.  It costs nothing to talk yourself out of supporting capitalism and into helping to build a practical socialist alternative.  And it costs nothing to talk others into following your excellent example.

The result of the election in Vauxhall was: Hoey (Lab) 19,744; Anglin (LD) 9,767; Heckels (Con) 5,405; Summers (Green) 1,705; McWhirter (UKIP) 271; Lambert (Socialist) 240; Polenceus (English Democrat) 221.

We also stood a candidate in the county council elections held the same day, in the Deneside ward in Durham, where the result was: Nugent (Lab) 1921; Nicholson (Con) 361; Colborn (Socialist) 288.

Socialists in the election (2010)

From the June 2010 issue of the Socialist Standard

In the general election the Socialist Party stood one candidate, if only to show that we hold that a socialist-minded wage and salary working class can use the ballot box in the course of establishing socialism. Elsewhere we advocated a write-in vote for “World Socialism”.

The constituency, Vauxhall, just south of the Thames in central London, is one we had contested a number of times before. We had expected our opponents to be only the ordinary capitalist parties – Labour, Tory, LibDems and Greens – but in the event there were also candidates from the Christian Party (an attempt to introduce the US “Christian Right” here), the English Democrats (who want a separate parliament for England), the Animal Protection Party (hunt saboteurs challenging the sitting Labour MP, Kate Hoey, who is chair of the pro-hunting Countryside Alliance), and Workers Power (a breakaway Trotskyist group).

We met most of these candidates in three well-attended hustings, the last one in a church near the Oval attracting up to 200 people. The Post Office distributed 56,000 of our manifestos to households in the constituency.

As the Green Party candidate said he was an ‘ecosocialist’, this meant that there were three candidates saying they stood for socialism. This provided a case study of the difference between our and their approaches. The Green Party is not of course a socialist party and does not claim to be, even if individual members such as their candidate in Vauxhall do. Basically, the Green Party stands for a return to small-scale capitalism. Their election address made the same sort of promises as the main capitalist parties, only even less realistic – a minimum wage of £8.10 an hour, a non-means tested pension of £170 a week, a million new jobs installing free insulation in “every single home” and (of course) “protect our NHS”.

The Trotskyist candidate made even wilder promises (seemingly on the basis of take what the openly capitalist parties are offering and multiply by three), such as:

“Create three million new jobs – tax the rich to fund a huge programme of public works.

£9 an hour minimum wage for all.

Six weeks paid holiday as a minimum for all workers.

Cancel mortgage interest for working people.

Scrap council tax – for a local wealth tax.

Jobs for all, funded by taxing the rich and taking over the banks

Benefits to be at level of minimum wage.

Stop fare rises – slash bus and tube prices – make it free by taxing the rich.

For pensions tied to average male earnings.

Automatic and total payment [for pensioners] of all utility bills - gas, electricity, telephone and internet connection.

(from The Anticapitalist Manifesto for Vauxhall)

All of this assumes the continued existence of the rich who are to be taxed – and so the continuation of capitalism as a society where there are rich people, whose income comes from the exploitation of workers.

We, on the other hand, argued that, as capitalism was the cause of the problems, the only way to lastingly solve them was to replace capitalism and its production for profit and wages system with socialism, a society of common ownership, democratic control, production solely for use, and distribution according to the principle ‘from each their ability, to each their needs’. We didn’t advocate any reforms to capitalism, just socialism.

As a German group put it in a comment on the election they sent to us:

“Even fringe left-wing parties like Respect bow to the dictates of ‘realism’ and respect private property through their demands of ‘taxation on the big corporations and the wealthy to fund public services’ – a demand which requires big corporations to make the kind of profits which can then be taxed” (See Here).

Precisely. So, all the measures in the Trotskyist manifesto were supposed to be implemented under capitalism. Ridiculous. We doubt whether even their proposers believed this possible. In the event nobody else did either. True, we didn’t do much better but the point is: when Trotskyists with their programme of “transitional” reforms are getting the same sort of vote as us who are advocating only socialism, what’s the point of advocating reforms and not socialism? You might as well advocate taking over the bakery (and the wheatfields) rather than bigger and better crumbs.

The result was: Hoey (Labour) 21,498; Pidgeon (LD) 10,847; Chambers (Con) 9,301; Healey (Green) 708; Navarro (English Democrats) 289; Martin (Christian) 200; Lambert (Soc) 143, Drinkall (Workers Power) 109; Kapetanos (Animal Protection) 96.