Although this message is primarily concerned with the European
elections in Britain, it is also of interest to people around the
world. In fact the "fair proportional representation" proposal below
even suggests how the Green Party's Ralph Nader could win this year's
Presidential election in the USA.


The following message describes how a new formation called "Respect -
the Unity Coalition" (which operates in England and Wales; the
Scottish Socialist Party is already well established with six members
of the Scottish parliament so it rationally chose to stand under its
own banner) went from a wishy-washy vaguely left anti-war position to
proposing "a world of peace, justice and public ownership" in its
party election broadcast for the 2004 European elections.

Respect may become such a threat to the control of big business that
appalling tactics are being used to try to ensure they receive a
meagre vote.


This message was written by Steve Wallis (send an email to
socialiststeve@... or visit http://www.stevewallis.org
bearing in mind that the website has not been updated since the
summer of 2003) from the 28th to the 1st of June 2004. Steve is
Convenor of Manchester International Socialist Movement, and its
internet forum (visit http://groups.yahoo.com/group/manchesterism or
send an email to manchesterism-subscribe@yahoogroups.com) is a good
place to find Steve's more recent material.


The Socialist Workers Party (SWP) – not to be confused with the
organisation with the same name in the USA, and the main organisation
that it controls (the Stop the War Coalition) is by far the biggest
and most influential anti-war organisation in Britain. However, other
socialists have often criticised the SWP due to its habit of flitting
from one campaign to another (to its credit, it has in recent years
consistently campaigned on the war issue), indulging in lowest common
denominator politics (e.g. generally refusing to say that the war was
for oil and particularly that the only solution was for ordinary
people to rise up and overthrow Saddam Hussein and the Ba'athist
dictatorship). Additionally, the SWP's democratic structures are very
top down, conflicting with it advocating "socialism from below".

I seem to have pushed the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) in the right
direction with a couple of messages I sent out on the internet,
including to Paul Foot, the SWP's most prominent member. The first
message can be found at
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/manchesterism/message/101. Paul replied
to that message, pointing out that Respect was attracting some Muslim
leaders who opposed the war on Iraq but wouldn't join the Socialist
Alliance. I waited until I had been to a Respect meeting and then
sent a reply (to Paul as well as many other places on the internet) –
you can find that message (interspersed with Paul's comments) at:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/manchesterism/message/119.

In my recent message, I pointed out that there was hardly any
politics on the Respect leaflets and postcards I saw at the Respect
meeting I had just attended (in the Cheetham Hill area of
Manchester), and that none of the speakers mentioned socialism in
their opening speeches (despite the fact that one of them, Richard
Searle, is in the Socialist Alliance and SWP). However, I took a look
at the Respect website (www.respectcoalition.org) and their positions
look very similar to the reformist policies adopted by the Socialist
Alliance: tax the rich, a £7.40 minimum wage, public ownership of the
privatised utilities (but not other big companies), spending more on
education. Simply putting such reformist demands across fails to win
people over who realise that it is necessary to overthrow big
business (overwhelmingly or completely peacefully, as I think will
happen in Britain, but in countries like Iraq or the USA where guns
are widespread, it will probably be via a violent revolution). The
other main reason why the Socialist Alliance was unsuccessful was
that the SWP hardly ever campaigned under the Socialist Alliance
banner, generally preferring to carry SWP placards and sell copies of
Socialist Worker (vetoing the idea of a Socialist Alliance newspaper).

Lo and behold, my friend (and Socialist Party member) Ivan who lives
in the Withington area of Manchester told me about a week after I
sent out that recent message that he had just received a Respect
election leaflet containing the same sort of reformist demands that I
mentioned above!

On Tuesday this week, I attended a hustings for the European
elections organised by the Greater Manchester Coalition to Stop the
War at which candidates were to be questioned on Iraq.
Unsurprisingly, only Respect and the Green Party turned up. The Green
Party distributed some big brochures but there was not a single
Respect leaflet in sight (merely some postcards). Obviously, this was
due to distributing one leaflet in some areas of Manchester and
another leaflet in other areas - a member of the public who attended
would wonder what the hell was going on!

[There was incidentally not a single black or Asian in the audience;
Muslims may have been put off by it being held in a Christian
(Methodist) hall and/or risking showing up their politics.]

I received another sign that things were changing for the better, by
examining the hit counter at the bottom of my home page
(http://www.stevewallis.org) - anybody can find out the statistics by
clicking on a graphic below the total number of hits. I discovered
that I was getting an average of about 15 hits a day at the start of
last week, compared with my normal average of 2 or 3 (or maybe 5 or 6
when I've sent out some messages) - obviously messages with my
website address (as well as a lot of the more recent politics I've
been putting forward) have been circulating around SWP members.
Incidentally, when I went up to Glasgow before the Scottish
parliamentary elections last year - and created quite an impact
handing out leaflets with my position on Iraq (support democracy -
oppose the occupation) on one side of an A4 sheet and "Vote Scottish
Socialist Party" (pointing out that the PR vote was the important one
and why) on the other, I didn't get many hits - because I've been in
Manchester for so long the web of conspiratorial organisations is
much more developed in Manchester than Glasgow (but Glasgow is where
the revolution will start since the Scottish Socialist Party got over
15% of the vote and two members of the Scottish parliament on the
same day as the Socialist Alliance got pathetic votes in the local
elections in Manchester; hence I'll move to Glasgow soon but come
back to Manchester quite regularly). The small number of hits I have
achieved in one day (79 is the highest), even at times when I have
created a real mood in real life or on the internet, has proved that
there is a high level of censorship on the internet and only people
who are heavily involved in conspiracies (on the side of the working
class, or big business, or other vested interests such as Islamic
fundamentalism), whether being agents of conspiratorial
organisations, double-agents, or merely acting alone, can access
http://www.stevewallis.org. I have at times in the last several
months been tempted to update the site, but I have had server errors
(maybe because infiltrators in the internet have realised that
updating the site would be a mistake) because it is about 10 months
out-of-date – perhaps it is better to leave it that way since I
suspect the forces of big business look at it more frequently and it
misleads them as to how developed my ideas are. Instead, the main
destinations of my recent messages are mailing lists (at
http://groups.yahoo.com), newsgroups (at http://groups.google.com)
and some other important people, including Scottish Socialist Party
members.

An even better sign about Respect was the party election broadcast
which I saw on Thursday the 27th of May, directed by Ken Loach. It
started off with George Galloway MP (who I regard as a liability due
to him shaking Saddam Hussein's hand and saying what a great man he
is, as shown on British TV, the allegations that he is involved in
corruption, and his vetoing of the proposal that all elected MEPs
would live on a workers' wage - as the Scottish Socialist Party
insist and as Socialist Alliance members proposed) and a white
journalist, who are both Respect candidates. However, they were then
followed by a young female Asian woman who is also a candidate;
choosing her was particularly important since Islam tends to be very
male-dominated (in common with, but generally more than, other
religions – sexism is a method of divide-and-rule used by big
business to stay in power) - I pointed out that there was only one
Asian woman amongst 20-30 Asian people at the first meeting; I
haven't seen any demonstration of Muslims on the TV or in real life
that hasn't been male-dominated; and Sharia law discriminates against
women. Respect includes equality as one of its aims, but it is likely
that a considerable number of the "leading Muslims" that Paul Foot
stated have joined Respect don't really believe in that or socialism
either. A big indication that the leadership of the Muslim
Association of Britain opposes socialism is that one of their members
had an article in the Guardian last week saying you should vote
Respect, Green or Liberal Democrats depending on where you live! In
other words, if you are living in Scotland (the only part of Britain
where Respect aren't standing) vote for a party with a half-hearted
opposition to war rather than the Scottish Socialist Party, which
will lead the world socialist revolution, bringing an end to the
appalling injustices in Islamic regimes like Iran. The SWP used to
have a slogan "Neither Washington nor Moscow but international
socialism". It should now be "Neither capitalism nor Islamic
fundamentalism but international socialism" - 9/11 gave big business
the excuse to promote a new "evil empire" to replace Stalinism that
had collapsed, and try to stop people from coming to revolutionary
socialist conclusions. The key point that the young female Asian
speaker in the party election broadcast made is what Respect stands
for - and she said "a world of peace, justice and public ownership".
Brilliant! A permanent end to war! Prosecute Blair, Bush, Saddam,
Gadhaffi, the Saudi Royal Family, etc., who gave the orders, as well
as the US and UK troops implicated in torture or murder (and the
maximum one year maximum jail sentence for such offences is utterly
ridiculous).

Even if Respect does quite badly in the elections, due to its vast
improvement recently, and my plans to further influence the SWP
during its week of discussion and debate, Marxism 2004 in July, I now
think (in contrast to what I said on my website at
http://www.stevewallis.org) that trade union branches in England or
Wales should affiliate to Respect, rather than setting up a new
political party. Together with similar moves in Scotland to the
Scottish Socialist Party, other unions could join the RMT in leaving
Labour (whether they disaffiliate nationally or Labour chucks them
out due to the leadership tolerating affiliation to rival parties).
Of course, Respect needs a democratic structure with its own
branches. I propose getting rid of the "Unity Coalition" bit of the
name, which would imply that it is composed of different
organisations rather than individual people. It should also have its
own weekly newspaper, with the SWP scrapping Socialist Worker but
selling its magazines/journals internally. Maybe they should call
themselves the Socialist Worker platform of Respect rather than a
party, just as they have done in the Scottish Socialist Party.

I actually saw the Respect broadcast twice. The ITV1 broadcast was
after the 10.30pm news, but being the main channel of big business
(channels 4 and 5 also have adverts but occasionally put on some very
left-wing programmes) put a large number of adverts between the
programmes, hoping that people would switch over. The next programme
was about football, so it was clearly a cynical move. I didn't quite
catch the phrase that the Asian speaker said, so I watched it again
on BBC1, after Question Time.

I came back to my flat on the day after the broadcast and started
writing this message, the first time for a few days. I found out
that my ballot papers for the European and local elections had
arrived. On the front of the front of the envelope, in bold capital
letters, are the words "OPEN AND RETURN IMMEDIATELY - DO NOT DELAY".
I found out later that day from a neighbour that the ballot papers
for my ward (Manchester Withington) were distributed before the
broadcast went out. In other words, most people who intended to vote
would already have voted for a party that did not threaten the big
business control of society. Apart from the three main parties, the
only other broadcasts I've seen have been for the right-wing UKIP and
the Green Party - it is useful for the establishment to promote the
Greens to eat into the socialist vote). The Scottish Socialist Party
have their election broadcast on the 1st of June (as I found out from
their newspaper, the Scottish Socialist Voice, which I get on
subscription). However, in Scotland there will be ballot boxes, so
they do not have a similar problem. Perhaps the powers that be feared
that the SSP would organise mass local and national demonstrations if
they were defrauded, but thought that Respect was so heavily
infiltrated by MI5 (etc.) so they would get away with it in England
and Wales. Let's change that assumption!

IT IS VITAL THAT WE CREATE A FUSS ABOUT THIS BLATANT ELECTORAL FRAUD -
WE MAY NOT BE ABLE TO GET AS MUCH PUBLICITY IN THE MASS MEDIA AS WAS
GENERATED BY THE ELECTORAL FRAUD IN FLORIDA WHICH BROUGHT GEORGE W
BUSH TO POWER, BUT LET'S DO OUR BEST!

If you are concerned about electoral fraud in the UK (or perhaps want
to mention other examples of electoral fraud in history) then I
invite you to join the `uk-electoral-fraud' forum (visit
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/uk-electoral-fraud or email uk-
electoral-fraud-subscribe@yahoogroups.com). Unlike most of the forums
I run at yahoogroups, I am insisting that anybody who wants to browse
the archives joins the forum – this ensures that a count is displayed
on the web page giving some indication of how strongly people think
about it and how widespread messages about it are being distributed.

The previously most blatant case of electoral fraud, in terms of its
impact in the media, was at the last Presidential elections in the
USA. In Florida, many black people were prevented from voting on the
basis that they had a criminal record (and incidentally it is
appalling that even conviction for a minor offence disqualifies you
from voting) even though they didn't (and this on its own would have
defeated Bush), it was unfair that your vote doesn't count if the
machine malfunctions, ridiculous that they couldn't employ enough
counters to count quickly enough and diabolical that the Republicans
could use the courts to prevent the counting process from reaching
its conclusion. Additionally, the electoral college system is a
farce – votes in one state are worth far more than votes in another,
all votes across the USA should be regarded equally. Even without
taking into account the fraud in Florida, Gore got more votes so
should be President. Not that much would have changed; the
Republicans and Democrats are both big business parties with very
little difference in politics between them.

It is not enough to be concerned about electoral fraud - we should do
something about it. We should expose it, and the reasons for it, when
it happens, to ordinary working class people via leaflets, in letters
and press releases to the media, etc. I will start doing this today
(on the 1st of June). It may even be possible to organise some forms
of public demonstrations. But most of all, we should link up with a
related issue – to try to get a fair form of proportional
representation (and not just in parliaments which already have a form
of PR but in general and local elections too).

The only two parties standing any chance of election under the
current system in the USA are the Republicans and Democrats – both
heavily funded by big business. For a left-wing candidate like Ralph
Nader to stand a chance of getting a respectable vote (and perhaps
even winning, which might be possible bearing in mind the opposition
to the occupation that the Republicans and Democrats both support)
you need to be able to use second preferences and vote Nader (Green
Party) 1 and Kerry (Democrats) 2, so that you are not worried about
letting Bush in again by voting for Nader.

I have a choice of 11 parties and 1 independent to vote for in the
European elections. In Britain, you are only entitled to vote for one
candidate (except for local elections when more than one seat is up
for grabs, as happens to be the case this year due to boundary
changes) - you cannot give second, third, fourth, choices etc., in
case your preferred choice doesn't get enough votes to be elected.
The big business parties chose the electoral system.

It is better than "first past the post" because small parties do
stand some chance of getting in, but needing to get about 10% of the
vote in a particular region is hard without being able to put the
small parties you like first and (say) New Labour just above the
Tories and (of course) the British National Party last of all. The
big business parties know what they are doing and learn the lessons
of history - in the Republic of Ireland, you can specify additional
preferences, and a Marxist (in the Socialist Party, formerly
Militant) has been in their parliament for several years (Joe Higgins
in the Dail). Most people couldn't care two hoots for the European
parliament, and realise that MEPs have virtually no power. They are
contemptuous of the lack of democracy in the EU. All the real power
is held by the ministers of individual governments, the central bank
and the other big business institutions and companies. When the
proposal for a European constitution was raised, the Daily Mirror
(which has an appalling position on the Euro in contrast to its
generally good position on the war) proclaimed the virtues of
an "elected President" in an editorial. If the President really
was "elected", i.e. there was an election for a President in which
everyone could participate, especially if additional preferences
could be specified, with the same choice of candidates across Europe,
it would be a brilliant opportunity for a popular left-wing candidate
to win - just as Ken Livingstone became Mayor of London. Therefore, I
may support the proposal for an elected President if that was what
the new constitution entailed - but since it was drawn up by
capitalist ministers, the decision of who the SELECTED (NOT ELECTED)
PRESIDENT is would be taken by those ministers! So much for
democracy! Similarly, most people aren't particularly concerned with
who their local councillors are, largely due to the erosion of local
democracy brought about by Margaret Thatcher. Therefore, like the
European elections, people tend to vote on national issues. The only
reason that the Tories give for voting Tory in their election
broadcasts is that if they don't New Labour would get in again (and
raise taxes). The only reason that New Labour gives for voting Labour
in their election broadcasts is that if they don't Labour would get
in again (and cut public spending). Of course these raises/cuts would
occur after the next general election (probably next year, but
possibly the year after) - it is simply to help their popularity in
the meantime! What a farce!

IN THIS MESSAGE, I AM PROPOSING THAT AFTER THE ELECTIONS ON THE 10TH
OF JUNE, THE LEADERSHIPS OF THE PARTIES IN FAVOUR OF PROPORTIONAL
REPRESENTATION (WHICH SHOULD CONSIST OF THE SCOTTISH SOCIALIST PARTY,
RESPECT, THE GREEN PARTY, THE LIBERAL DEMOCRATS AND THE SCOTTISH
NATIONAL PARTY) SET UP A NEW GRASS-ROOTS MOVEMENT DEMANDING A FAIR
FORM OF PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION. WE MUST INSIST ON A SINGLE
TRANSFERABLE VOTE SYSTEM AS OUTLINED ABOVE, FOR THE NEXT GENERAL
ELECTION AND SUBSEQUENT ONES. SINCE THE LIB DEMS AND SNP LEADERS
SUPPORT BIG BUSINESS, THIS APPROACH WILL PROBABLY CAUSE A SPLIT IN
THEIR ORGANISATIONS. THE MOVEMENT WILL ORGANISE LOCAL AND NATIONAL
DEMONSTRATIONS, OCCUPY PUBLIC BUILDINGS, HAND OUT LEAFLETS, SEND OUT
INTERNET MESSAGES, SET UP DISCUSSION FORUMS (PREFERABLY AT
http://groups.yahoo.com), ETC.

If you are want "a world of peace, justice and public ownership",
which Respect stands for, you may like to support setting up such a
new grass-roots movement in the part of the country in which you
live, in order to achieve such a society in your part of the world.
If none of your politicians will support you, get together with a few
friends/comrades and set up your own local movement linking up with
similar movements elsewhere.

A RELATED PROBLEM WITH CAPITALIST DEMOCRACY IS THAT THERE IS NO
METHOD TO REMOVE VERY UNPOPULAR GOVERNMENTS FROM POWER. There must be
a way to force another election (e.g. general or Scottish
parliamentary) if a mass movement can prove that there is a big case
for one – e.g. via demonstrations, opinion polls or petitions.
Individual politicians who have betrayed their voters should also be
able to be held to account in a similar way.

To stay informed or take part in debates on these and related issues,
visit http://groups.yahoo.com/group/fair-pr or email fair-pr-
subscribe@yahoogroups.com.

Despite the above revelations, the US and UK lecture Iraqis about
democracy!

It is highly unlikely that elections in Iraq will take place in
January 2005 as promised by the US and UK with continued unrest being
the excuse (a small proportion of the population is registered in
Afghanistan due to the control of warlords outside the capital). Even
if they do take place, what will the electoral system be? One thing
is for certain. It will not be fair if it is chosen by the US or UK
or other capitalist leaders in the UN since they are all opposed to a
system which makes it reasonably easy for a left-wing government to
come to power. We need to build a mass movement in the West that
spreads to the Middle East.

Last year, I set up a forum for democracy in Iraq and to oppose the
occupation. Visit http://groups.yahoo.com/group/iraq-democracy or
email iraq-democracy-subscribe@yahoogroups.com.

I encourage everybody who reads this message to broadcast it far and
wide, to your friends and neighbours and any forums that I have not
got round to sending it to. If this message goes round the world as
quickly as it should do, and people participate in the forums I've
set up, then massive upheavals could take place and the world
socialist revolution could take place more quickly than it otherwise
would, finally putting an end to the mass suffering across the world.

--
Steve Wallis (email socialiststeve@... or visit
http://www.stevewallis.org bearing in mind that the website has not
been updated since the summer of 2003).
Convenor of Manchester International Socialist Movement (visit
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/manchesterism or email manchesterism-
subscribe@yahoogroups.com).
Involved with Manchester Grass Roots Opposition to War
(http://groups.yahoo.com/group/grow-manchester or email grow-
manchester-subscribe@yahoogroups.com).
Visit the websites of the Scottish Socialist Party
(http://www.scottishsocialistparty.org) and the International
Socialist Movement platform of the SSP (http://www.redflag.org.uk).