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.
No comments:
Post a Comment