The Evil Lessers

Socialist Party members will not be voting for the lesser evil in this coming election. Working people must reject the “lesser evil” argument for there is no such thing when the choice is between cholera and typhus. The “lesser evil” fallacy serves to keep the working class chained to the political system and its two party duo-poly. The working class can use elections as part of its struggle for socialism. By not voting working people will register their rejection of Big Business political proxies. The office of government is the highest in the land, and is therefore controlled most tightly by the capitalist class.

It is inevitable that the left will tell workers to vote for Corbyn’s Labour Party as the lesser evil against Johnson’s Tories. The “lesser of two evils” line is exactly what the name implies – choosing the lesser evil within the existing social system. It says that since the problem is urgent, the immediate choice is between the lesser of two evils. For those who pick the lesser evil is progressive, they think it is progressive. The tactic of “the lesser evil” hasn’t worked.

The Socialist Party seeks to eradicate the basic causes for war, poverty, racism, national chauvinism and environmental destruction, which it knows are the products of capitalism. No matter what the outcome of the election, no matter who wins, with the continued existence of capitalism, none of these things will be abolished. We are for world socialism as the only way to abolish the evils of the exchange economy, the profits system. The choice is yours. A vote for a small socialist party with just two candidates? A vote of confidence in it and of confidence in a revolutionary tomorrow. A vote in the form of solidarity with its principles. Anyone who participates in this election campaign and doesn’t tell these truths about the Labour Party, along with similar truths about the Tories or nationalists, doesn’t deserve to be called a socialist. There is only one party running in the present general election that reflects the sentiments of class-conscious workers. It is the Socialist Party.

 The Socialist Party is and always has been an uncompromising opponent of capitalism. The Socialist Party bases its idea on working class self-emancipation which means that working people can build the power they need to change the world only through self-mobilisation and self-organisation. We want the working class to become conscious of itself and its power in society, to understand that political consciousness begins with recognition of the fundamental class division. Success in the class struggle demands working-class independence from all capitalist parties. The Socialist Party will use the present electoral campaigns to promote socialist consciousness among workers.