Monday, May 06, 2019

Vote for World Revolution

Amid an atmosphere of Brexit and xenophobia, the European Union elections are happening and the Socialist Party have candidates contesting South East England. 

They are Mandy Bruce, Ray Carr, Dave Chesham, Rob Cox, Mike Foster, Stephen Harper, Neil Kirk, Anton Pruden, Andy Thomas, Darren Williams.

Socialists make the claim that national parliaments are little more than talking-shops; full of theatrics, posturing and verbosity whose main output are inconsequential debates on the issues of the day. All the while, the fundamental business of capitalism goes inexorably on, irrespective of whatever pronouncements and edicts emanate from those self-important halls. This criticism is even truer of the European Parliament. The inability of the European capitalist class to agree on a trans-national system of governance for the Union has rendered the Parliament at Brussels more meaningless than its national counterparts. Most voters, even those with a reasonable interest in political life, would be hard-pressed to name even a couple of their MEPs and know much less about any accomplishments of the members.

It’s a pity that the opportunity that elections present, in terms of a slightly higher interest by the general public in politics, is completely wasted. The fact that people don’t engage is probably because they realise, either consciously or subconsciously, that the result of these elections makes no difference to their lives. If you have a house and job, you’ll probably continue to have both after this election. If you’re unemployed, you may or may not have a better chance of picking up a job. If you’re a billionaire, you’ll almost certainly remain very wealthy whoever wins on election day. There is an unstated realism at play; at some level the electorate know full well the pointlessness of this charade in terms of real impact on their lives.

When the Socialist Party contest elections we don’t engage in smooth and glib electioneering. We do not involve ourselves in the hiring of image consultants and spin-doctors. We openly state that our aim is the replacement of capitalism and production for profit by socialism and production to meet people’s needs and we work towards this aim. 

We in THE SOCIALIST PARTY cannot bring this society about for you, nor are we offering to. Only you can, by working together and acting for yourselves. If there is a majority of people who understand and want this change and work to bring it about then it will happen.

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