Looking ahead after a great campaign

Thanks for all your support!

After Labour’s meltdown – fight back against the Tories by building TUSC  

After a really excellent campaign our results are:

Nancy Taaffe in Walthamstow – 394 votes

Len Hockey in Chingford – 241 votes

We distributed well over 100,000 leaflets, had dozens of volunteers helping us campaign on the streets or bundle leaflets or raise money, and had thousands of conversations. “I see you everywhere” said many when they came across our pink flashmobs around the borough! And the pink is here to stay – this campaign was always a step towards something bigger, building for the future.

These are modest votes. We believe this reflects mainly the campaign of fear by the mainstream parties leading people to think they had no choice but to vote purely on who they would prefer to be prime minister. The on-going battle for every ounce of media coverage is also an issue. It’s clear from the thousands we spoke to that our support goes much wider than those who felt able to vote for us this time. Having said that, we increased our vote in Walthamstow from 2010 and there is certainly a small but growing constituency of committed TUSC voters.

We would appeal for those voters, and others who support us, to not just passively give us your vote but to join us. Help us build a political voice for working class and young people.

We’re horrified to see another Tory government elected. The Con-Dem Coalition is hated for what it has done to people in the last 5 years. In that situation the Labour Party should have been able to win this election hands down. That they haven’t is an indictment of Labour and its failure to inspire and enthuse the mass of people.

We would argue, if Labour cannot defeat the Tories now, when people are so angry and so keen for a change, then when could it? Labour is no longer capable of representing working class people in our fight against the bosses and their party the Tories. We have to build something new. The struggles that will inevitably follow in the next months and years to defend jobs and services from yet another Tory onslaught, need to take the lead. TUSC is at the heart of this process.

We plan to organise a post-election meeting soon, check back for details.

Chingford: Meeting with Bilal Mahmood

I, and other trade unionist TUSC supporters, visited Bilal Mahmood, the prospective parliamentary Labour candidate for Chingford and Woodford Green on Sunday 26 January. TUSC had written to all the local Labour PPCs asking them to publicly state their position on trade union rights, restoring public services and benefits, a living wage, and public ownership.

Bilal was very hospitable and made us tea and biscuits. On the issues raised in our letter he explained that his general position was one of support.

He said he supported a living wage. He was appalled at the cuts and thought that his stance against Chingford MP and secretary for work and pensions Iain Duncan Smith was imperative to stop ideologically driven cuts. He agreed with trade union freedom and supported taking rail and Royal Mail back.

However when we pressed him on how he would have voted on Trident, and the £30 billion cuts just voted through by 550 MPs from all three main parties(including Stella Creasy and John Cryer) he admitted, not unexpectedly, that he probably would have been with the official Labour Party. His words were: “I will tow the party line”.

Bilal Mahmood reflects a kind of Labour representative that believes that Labour has to be supported even if he doesn’t personally agree with them on every issue. He saw Labour as a “last line of defence”.

He explained why he had left the Labour Party after the invasion of Iraq. Along with millions of workers he was appalled that Labour could take the country to war. However, he later changed his position, and was seen welcoming Alistair Campbell of the famous “dodgy dossier” to a Walthamstow Labour Party dinner last year. He did not get the irony!

He echoed the position of a few Labour politicians that some privatisation, like the Academies programme, the sell-off of Royal Mail at a knock-down price, and generalised outsourcing of public services had gone too far. And also like many Labour politicians his conclusion was, predictably, that Labour wouldn’t be able to reverse any of these measures.

Working people in Chingford may want to get rid of the Tories, but, really, what kind of alternative does this candidate offer? This interview made us even more determined to try our best to get a TUSC alternative on the ballot paper in Chingford.

By Nancy Taaffe, TUSC prospective candidate for Walthamstow