To the poll

Once again the various political parties are seeking your support. Politicians of all shades have been telling you for generations how their “practical” policies will solve your problems. They will go on soliciting your votes at election after election with further “practical” policies. Promises are made and broken, targets are set and forgotten, facts and stats are selected and spun. Your masters are seeking your votes because upon their control of the political machine does their supremacy depends. You cannot take sides with any section of the capitalist class, because it is their interest to maintain this system which means luxury and idleness for them. Neither can you support those parties which, like the Labour Party, the Greens and the TUSC, are parties of compromise and reform. All candidates before you at this election, whether they be openly capitalist or not, stand for the maintenance of capitalism. Your interests, being opposed to those of the capitalists, must lead you to ally yourself with a working-class political party waging war against all the forces in opposition to our class. The Socialist Party is the only party that is striving to hasten the day when the fratricidal competition of capitalism is replaced by the fraternal co-operation of socialism.  

We make no apology for raising the issue of world socialism in this, a local election. It may be objected that such an issue hardly matters to or concern local electors and that the voter in the Brixton Hill by-election has in mind not world problems but the everyday questions of pot-holes in the roads and public services. That is true, but the more important truth is that they are not local questions at all. They are, in fact, aspects of the position of the working class the world over and in fact the problems of local government are the same as those of the national government, but only at a lower level. The measures affecting council spending are no more than the carrying out of government policy, which means capitalist policy. What happens in Lambeth depends mainly on what happens in the country and in the world. What Lambeth council can do is restricted by the workings of world capitalism. It is partly because of the recession in the world market that plans to build more houses and hospitals, to improve transport, and to reduce overcrowding in schools have had to be cut. Even though the politicians and their parties share the responsibility for keeping capitalism in being, it is no use blaming their failures on dishonesty or incompetence since it is capitalism itself that sets the limits to what they can do. We don't believe any politician can solve these problems. In fact, we believe only you and your fellow workers can solve these problems. Most politicians blame our problems on lack of money but this is not true. Money doesn't build hospitals, schools, decent housing and a healthy environment. The things that make a good community can only be created by the work of people. We have an abundance of skill and energy. If we were free from having to work for the profits of employers we would be able to work for the needs of everyone. Without the capitalist system a socialist community would easily provide for all members of the community.

It is the workers who keep capitalism going, for the benefit of the capitalists. It is time the workers by international socialist action to re-fashion human society on a socialist foundation. The only barrier to the immediate establishment of socialism is that most prefer to keep capitalism in the vain hope that it can be made to serve human interests. Capitalism is a two-class society that can work only for those who live off rent, interest and profit. Capitalism simply cannot be made to work in the interest of the working class. It is to you, our fellow workers, that we address since it is you who in the end are responsible for the continuance of capitalism and its problems. If this world is to be improved it can only be by the actions of ordinary people like yourselves. First, however, you must understand what socialism means and how it can be established. When a majority possess socialist understanding, they can use their votes to win control of political power so that the means of production belong to the community as a whole. We believe in 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 bureaucrats ever can. With democratic control  we can ensure that looking after our communities becomes a priority. We have the capacity to run our world for ourselves. We need to build a movement to effect that change. All it takes is the right ideas and a willingness to make it happen. The world will not change for the working class until they themselves change it.

 The Socialist Party is standing alone to abolish capitalism and build a society based on common ownership of wealth production and distribution and making that wealth freely available to everyone. What we want is that workers throw off the domination of the ruling class and organise and run society in their own interests instead of in the interests of their bosses. This is an idea worth arguing for, hence our participation in this election. The Socialist Party and our candidate, Danny Lambert, offer only to be a means by which you can re-make society for the common good. You may see no purpose in voting for a political party and its candidate who, if in the most unlikely circumstance, is elected, could change nothing. That's, of course, true; a socialist in the council would be able only to advocate the socialist case and perhaps on occasions assist in particular individual grievances. But have you also ever considered, however, that those who support the candidates of the big parties are also electing politicians who too can do nothing to improve the position of the working class?

Capitalism never provided security and prosperity to workers and it has never ran smoothly. There are no "better ways" of running capitalism. Socialism is the only alternative and that is the Socialist Party's sole object.