Re: Wake Up Call Or 'Great Start'?

Date: 9th June '01

Name: Joe Clemence

It is interesting to see how the official SA comment on the election compares to Lawries assessment. It is reproduced below from the SA website

A Great Start

The Socialist Alliance and Scottish Socialist Party campaigns brought the socialist argument to more working people over the last four weeks than in any general election campaign in several generations. As the Tory party went into meltdown the Socialist Alliance made a great start in building a nationwide socialist alternative to New Labour.

With two results in England and Wales and 22 in Scotland still to come the combined Socialist Alliance\Scottish Socialist Party poll was over 100,000 votes (55,635 for the Socialist Alliance and 49,182 for the SSP). This total exceeds the best achieved by the Communist Party when they stood 100 candidates in 1950.

Two Socialist Alliance candidates and nine SSP candidates saved their deposits last night. Neil Thompson in St Helens got 7 percent of the vote as Labour's vote collapsed. Shaun Woodward only got just over 16,000 votes (7,000 less than the Labour majority before he was parachuted in to St Helens). In Coventry Dave Nellist also saved his deposit with a 7 percent vote.

Cecilia Prosper in Hackney South got 4.6 percent of the vote (just 116 votes short of saving the deposit). Louise Christian got 1,106 votes, 2.5 percent, in Hornsey and Wood Green. Weyman Bennett got 1,162, 3.7 percent, improving his vote from the Tottenham by-election.

Other good general electon results included Wigan where the Socialist Alliance won over 800 votes in both constituencies where we stood, Withington in Manchester where John Clegg polled 1,208 (3.5 percent), Holborn and St Pancras where Candy Udwin won 3.1 percent, Nottingham East where Pete Radcliffe won 3.8 percent, Liverpool Riverside where Cathy Wilson received 3.6 percent and Lewisham Deptford where Ian Page got 4.3 percent

In council by elections in Hackney Mitch Dublin got 6.6 percent of the vote and Diana Swingler got 6 percent of the vote.

In 1997 the Greens, in their fourth general election campaign, secured 63,000 votes and did not save a single deposit. Two years later they elected MEPs and after another year they elected three members of the Greater London Authority.

The average vote for the Socialist Alliance in this election was 1.75 percent per seat. In 1950 the CP only averaged 1.32 percent per seat. In some 50 seats the average for the SSP is 3.3 percent.

This was an ambitious campaign in our first general election. It was only in the course of the campaign that we constructed an effective nationwide organisation. We were right to do so. The attacks on working class people that the New Labour government are planning mean that we have acted just in time. We must now capitalise on the best experiences of the general election campaign so that we can extend our organisation and prepare for battle with a pro-capitalist Labour government.

Congratulations to every Socialist Alliance supporter for the enormous effort that you have contributed to the election campaign and building a solid platform for the future.

Rob Hoveman, Mike Marqusee and John Ree

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