Workers' Liberty

The Socialist Green Unity Coalition - with 39 candidates standing under our umbrella in the local government elections on 1 May - gives our full support to the teachers and lecturers striking on 24 April.

In the Hackney Central ward in London the AWL is fielding two "Socialist Unity" candidates on 4 May. Janine Booth is chair of the local Aspland and Marcon Estate Tenants’ and Residents’ Association. Charlie MacDonald works in the Jobcentre the ward.

Joint Policy declaration for the May 2006 local elections

IN THIS YEAR’S council elections a joint campaign is being mounted by several left parties and some independent socialists, to put forward an alternative to the right-wing policies of privatisation, contracting out and cuts offered by New Labour, the Tories, and the Liberal Democrats alike.

The Socialist Green Unity Coalition - an alliance including the Alliance for Green Socialism, the Alliance for Workers' Liberty, the Socialist Alliance, and the Socialist Party — has decided on a joint campaign about pensions, with leafletting, street stalls, petitioning, and public meetings.

This is the text of the basic leaflet for the campaign.

In the run-up to the 2005 election, AWL formed an alliance — the Socialist Green Unity Coalition — with the Socialist Party, the Alliance for Green Socialism, the remnants of the Socialist Alliance, and the Socialist Unity Network.

The Alliance for Workers’ Liberty met with representatives of the Socialist Party, the Alliance for Green Socialism, and the Socialist Alliance (Provisional) for a Socialist Green Unity Coalition committee meeting on 2 October.

Pete Radcliff, an AWL member, stood in Nottingham East under the banner of Socialist Unity. He got 373 votes, or 1.2% of the poll, about a third of his score in 2001. He writes about the lessons of the campaign

All comment on new possibilities after the election is mere wistfulness unless we also register just how bad the election was, and just how badly the left did.

All the left and Respect candidates' results in the 5 May 2005 General Election can be found on the Socialist Unity Network website.

By Colin Foster

Stay at home and curse at the TV? Go to the polling station and write something left-wing on your ballot paper, in the hope that you get a message across at least to the individual who counts your vote? Vote for the Lib-Dems, on the grounds that at least they criticised the Iraq war, however queasily and weakly, and gains for them will punish Blair?

At the count after the 2001 general election, Nottingham East Labour MP and government whip John Heppell gave over much of his victory speech to denouncing his socialist challenger Pete Radcliff. Not, unfortunately, that Pete Radcliff had come near to defeating Heppell and winning the seat — but Heppell was evidently aware that the socialist campaign had bitten into the core of previously committed Labour supporters, and did not know how to answer its arguments.

Send a contribution to Pete Radcliff's Socialist Unity candidacy in Nottingham East, part of the England-wide Socialist Green Unity Coalition in this General Election. Cheques to "Nottingham SGUC" via P O Box 823, London SE15 4NA, or use the AWL online donation facility here and we will forward the money to Nottingham.

Nottingham Socialist Green Unity Coalition has launched a website for Pete Radcliff's General Election campaign in Nottingham East.

In 2001 Pete Radcliff stood for the now defunct Socialist Alliance in Nottingham East. He polled over one thousand in the constituency (one of the best SA results in the country).

This time round Pete will be standing in the name of the Socialist Green Unity Coalition.

By Alan Thomas

The conference of the Socialist Alliance Democracy Platform (SADP) on 12 March was bigger than I had expected: 40–50 present over the day.

There were the usual SADP faces, people from the Alliance for Green Socialism, and a national mobilisation of ex-WRPers/Morenoites. Also Hillel Ticktin from Critique, John Bridge and a couple more from the CPGB, and the Red Party.

Meeting to plan a general election challenge in Nottingham East

Only 27% of adults think that their vote gives them a say in how the country is run, but 67% insist that they want to have a say.

Dear Off The Rails

With an election approaching rapidly, we in the RMT should take a long hard look at our political fund and decide how best to use it.

Since the 2003 Glasgow AGM, we have been able to give money to organisations other than the Labour Party. Technically the Branch can ask the Executive to approve their backing of any person, organisation or party. (Though this does not mean that it will always be approved.)

Activists in Nottingham Socialist Green Unity Coalition are circulating the following statement:

Socialist Green Unity Coalition: IN THE looming general election a joint campaign against Blair is being mounted by five left parties and some independent socialists.

The Socialist Green Unity Coalition - an alliance formed in 2005 which includes the Alliance for Workers' Liberty together with the Alliance for Green Socialism, Socialist Alliance, Socialist Party, and Socialist Unity Network - has agreed to launch a campaign on pensions in response to the Turner Commission report. Click "read more" for campaign material.