Some confirmed and some unconfirmed reports, mainly on the BBC about people not being able to vote at polling stations for various reasons. Some not being able to vote after 10pm, and getting turned away and or locked out! Polling stations running out of ballot papers! Polling station sit-ins and a bomb scare in Northern Ireland apparently.
May 6 2010 23:47
May 7 2010 20:15
There was a sit in in Hackney as well, I believe. Apparently, most returning officers had not calculated that there might be an increased turnout.
Some human rights group is threatening legal action over this, though it may well fizzle out.
Regards,
Martin
May 7 2010 22:36
In other news, isn't it amazing how so called "revolutionaries" quickly forget about all the fancypants stuff they quote from books about bourgeois democracy to vote for the party they've spent 13 years battling?
May 8 2010 04:48
Caiman del Barrio:
Quote:
isn't it amazing how so called "revolutionaries" quickly forget about all the fancypants stuff they quote from books about bourgeois democracy to vote for the party they've spent 13 years battling?
Here's a confession - I voted, for the first and last time, in '97 - not for Blair, but for a postman who'd been sacked and was standing for Scragill's Socialist Party; it was a sunny day, and the polling station was a 5 minute walk, through a small park, from my flat - and it was an opportunity to insult a hippy-looking Tony Blair supporter standing outside the school transformed into a place to worship bourgeois democracy (not much of a transformation, in fact) - well, you got to try everything once (please don't pull me up on this and denounce me by giving a list of crazy things it's certainly not worth trying even in your dreams).
I think you can make too much of a thing about voting or not voting - after all, you can critique the whole of spectacular football, for instance (the enormous incomes for top footballers, the ridiculous prices for t-shirts, the fanatical adherence to your team, the fact that for most spectators it's just vicarious sport - they don't even play football themselves, the way it's become the last remnant of false community with the crushing of genuine communities of struggle, etc. - the whole capitalist con of it) but no one not utterly ideological would slag off someone for going to watch a match. There's a difference in being a voter/consumer/spectator and ideologically justifying it. Sure, the political show is more ideologically-imbued than sport shows, but you get my drift, I hope. I wouldn't make a big thing about what someone does for one minute every 4 or 5 years - putting a X next to the name of a high-up collaborator in mass murder &/or mass thieving - as long as they didn't make out that this was somehow an expression of their freedom blah blah blah...as long as they didn't justify the enormous incomes for MPs, the ridiculous laws they impose on people, the fanatical adherence to your party, the fact that for most voters it's just vicarious democracy - they don't even try to determine the slightest thing in their daily lives themselves - a fake "democracy" of neither form nor content, the way it's a false connection with the bourgeois world leaving you separate amidst the crushing of genuine communities of struggle, etc. - the whole capitalist con of voting for how you're going to be humiliated for the next few years......
May 8 2010 07:07
Samotnof how many votes did that postie get?
Vote rigging in Tower Hamlets-
http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/uk/vote+rigging+claims+raise+electoral+questions/3636102
May 8 2010 16:37
Samotnaf wrote:
Caiman del Barrio:
Quote:
isn't it amazing how so called "revolutionaries" quickly forget about all the fancypants stuff they quote from books about bourgeois democracy to vote for the party they've spent 13 years battling?Here's a confession - I voted, for the first and last time, in '97 - not for Blair, but for a postman who'd been sacked and was standing for Scragill's Socialist Party; it was a sunny day, and the polling station was a 5 minute walk, through a small park, from my flat - and it was an opportunity to insult a hippy-looking Tony Blair supporter standing outside the school transformed into a place to worship bourgeois democracy (not much of a transformation, in fact) - well, you got to try everything once (please don't pull me up on this and denounce me by giving a list of crazy things it's certainly not worth trying even in your dreams).
I think you can make too much of a thing about voting or not voting
Yeah just to clarify, I'm 100% in agreement with that sentiment. If voting makes no difference, neither does not voting. I didn't vote cos I'm in Venezuela. And in 2005, I had worked all damn day and was too knackered to spoil my ballot or whatever it is we're supposed to do. I would have possibly voted for the Pirate Party, who wanted to campaign against government legislation on mp3 downloads.
I was more referring to the orgy of Facebook statuses, links to Mirror articles on Labour's achievements, obsession with "stopping the Tories getting in" etc.
May 9 2010 05:18
Sit-ins and protests about not being permitted to vote ? It appears a reflection in many ways of James Connolly during the IWW political clause debates about rejecting the use of the vote - paraphrasing him - "just try and stop it"
Even this accidental disenfranchisement of some workers raised angry emotions and demonstrated once again the commitment to democracy which many workers still hold (and i question if its a deluded belief which some on this list will try and assert).Those demands to engage in the parliamentary process is something the SPGB can only view as positive even if we do criticise the choices the working class make when exercising their vote .
May 9 2010 05:45
allybaba:
Quote:
Samotnof how many votes did that postie get?
Can't remember - a couple of hundred or so, I think. But why do you ask? In fact, I voted for him without reading a single election leafet or even knowing anything about him, including what he looked like, other than that he'd been sacked and was a member of Scargill's silly Socialist Party (slightly sillier than the Socialist Party of GB, but not much). ajjohnstone engages with nothing here - and continues to repeat an ideology of voting which should have been fundamentally questioned - by those who claim to want a different society - almost a hundred years ago with Emily Pankhurst's support for the Great War...but then the SPGB are nothing if not up-to-date.
May 9 2010 08:12
Quote:
ajjohnstone engages with nothing here - and continues to repeat an ideology of voting which should have been fundamentally questioned - by those who claim to want a different society - almost a hundred years ago with Emily Pankhurst's support for the Great War...but then the SPGB are nothing if not up-to-date.
Not really sure of Samotnaf's point . Whereas i refer to events of only a few days ago , he draws upon the example of amost a 100 years ago and then snipes at the SPGB's long history !
But then, is it some allusion by Samotnaf to the fact that that the SPGB in its support of parliamentary democracy was somehow possibly unaware of the suffragette movement's reactionary nature ?
If so, then , there was no need to wait for the First World War to come to such a conclusion :---
Quote:
Under the pretence of sex equality they are buttressing class privilege. Under the guise of democracy they are endeavouring to strengthen the political power of property...It is a
movement by women of the wealthy and middle class to open up for themselves more
fully careers of exploitation, and to share in the flesh-pots of political office, to get sinecures, position and emoluments among the governing caste...The Suffragette movement is upon all counts but a bulwark of capitalism. It is directly opposed to the interests of the working class—women as well as men, and the Independent Labour Party shows its capitalistic nature when it supports that movement in strengthening the political power of the propertied against the propertyless.- Socialist Standard 1908
May 9 2010 09:45
Samotnaf wrote:
allybaba:Quote:
Samotnof how many votes did that postie get?Can't remember - a couple of hundred or so, I think. But why do you ask? In fact, I voted for him without reading a single election leafet or even knowing anything about him, including what he looked like, other than that he'd been sacked and was a member of Scargill's silly Socialist Party (slightly sillier than the Socialist Party of GB, but not much). ajjohnstone engages with nothing here - and continues to repeat an ideology of voting which should have been fundamentally questioned - by those who claim to want a different society - almost a hundred years ago with Emily Pankhurst's support for the Great War...but then the SPGB are nothing if not up-to-date.
Was just curious. As the Socialist Labour Party's highest election result was about 600 in Liverpool West Derby.
http://www.socialist-labour-party.org.uk/general_election_and_local_elect.htm
May 9 2010 17:03
ajjohnstone wrote:
Sit-ins and protests about not being permitted to vote ? It appears a reflection in many ways of James Connolly during the IWW political clause debates about rejecting the use of the vote - paraphrasing him - "just try and stop it"
Actually, after watching the videos people had uploaded on the BBC, I was struck by just how passive folk were. The cops arrived and told everyone to go, and in one instance, a (Tory?) party hack stood on a soapbox and promised everyone he'd appeal through the "correct channels" and that they'd be able to vote "but probably tomorrow".
Considering the oft-repeated distortion of people "dying" for "my" right to vote, it all seemed rather placid TBH.
May 11 2010 00:30
i spoilt my vote as per usual, great fun writing anarchist truisms on a ballot, where i live its just a sectarian headcount anyways, normally it doesn't make a blind bit of difference whether you vote or not but let's not pretend it never does, if i lived in Britian i might vote IWCA or SSP or SLP or SPGB or TUSC just as another way of expressing my dissaproval of New Labour, not expecting anything beyond that, also if the BNP stood in FPTP I'd vote for whoever would defeat them, i know voting for our masters is piss poor and choosing between them is mostly pointless, but not always - voting for anyone but the Nazi party in the 1930s, voting against Le Pen in the Presidential, voting Labour in '45.
Only direct action by we ourselves will create genuine change for the better, and we shouldnt encourage the bastards so i don't vote but can we honestly say they are all exactly the same, all parties, all states? It's not who's better or best but who's least worse. As you can see I'm all over the palce, will cease rambling now..
May 11 2010 00:36
..(still rambling) and I am glad the Tories failed to get a majority cos I lived through the 18 years of Tory rule and it was grim, yes New Labour murder children in Afghanistan, but yet still the Tories are somehow even worse, and maybe just maybe PR will bring Brit politics back to the centre from the centre right, what's important is getting rid of anti union laws and as always the best way to do that is direct action, industrial muscle..
May 11 2010 11:46
ajjohnstone writes:
Quote:
there was no need to wait for the First World War to come to such a conclusion :---Quote:
Under the pretence of sex equality they are buttressing class privilege. Under the guise of democracy they are endeavouring to strengthen the political power of property...It is a
movement by women of the wealthy and middle class to open up for themselves more
fully careers of exploitation, and to share in the flesh-pots of political office, to get sinecures, position and emoluments among the governing caste...The Suffragette movement is upon all counts but a bulwark of capitalism. It is directly opposed to the interests of the working class—women as well as men, and the Independent Labour Party shows its capitalistic nature when it supports that movement in strengthening the political power of the propertied against the propertyless.- Socialist Standard 1908
This is a good example of the SPGB's ahistorical purism, and of ahistorical purism in general. The suffragettes weren't just Emily Pankhurst; and the following, from "Closed Window onto another life", shows how the suffragettes had radical aspects to them, despite the middle class politics.
Quote:
The dominant (and feminist) re-writing of Suffragette history always focuses on the martyr/victim picture we have of the movement: women manacled to railings, the woman who threw herself under the King's horses' hooves, the very brutal force-feeding of suffragette prisoners on hunger strike. What's largely forgotten is the excellent violence of the women against private property and against aspects of culture and religion in this movement: Mary Richardson herself was imprisoned in October 1913 for burning down an unoccupied house, and was, with another woman, the first woman forcibly fed under the Cat and Mouse Act against hunger strikers. In 1914, in the seven months before the outbreak of a very convenient war: 3 Scottish castles were destroyed by fire on a single night; the Carnegie Library in Birmingham was burnt; Romney's "Master Thornhill" in the Birmingham Art Gallery was slashed by Bertha Ryland, daughter of an early suffragist; Carlyle's portrait of Millais in the National Gallery and a number of other pictures were attacked, a Bartolozzi drawing in the Doré Gallery completely ruined; many large empty houses in all parts of the country were set on fire, including Redlynch House, where the damage was estimated at £40,000 – no precise calculations here – but certainly well over a million quid in today's money, possibly over £3m. Railway stations, piers, sports pavilions, haystacks were set on fire. A bomb exploded in Westminster Abbey and in St George's church where a famous stained-glass window was damaged. There were two explosions in St.John's, Westminster and one in St Martin in the Fields, and one in Spurgeon's Tabernacle. The ancient Breadsall Church and the ancient Wargrave Church were destroyed. As far as we know, nobody was hurt in these explosions and arson attacks. The Albert Hall organ was flooded, causing £2000 worth of damage. One wonders if this fury, expressive as it was of a wider social movement, was one of the factors not just in the push for war (the classic use of war and nationalism as partly a method of distracting from internal conflicts) but also in getting Emily Pankhurst to support this massacre, and even maybe, do a deal with the State to initiate a limited womens' suffrage as a reward for her loyalty...? One wonders...
So the suffragettes were
Quote:
endeavouring to strengthen the political power of property
. Yes - some of them, but clearly understanding contradictions and different tendencies in a social movement are beyond the SPGB. And so you go on arguing for people to vote when parliamentarism as such has long proven itself to be elitist: to expect 640 or whatever men and women to decide whether Britain should be socialist or not is not only nationalist, but utterly hierarchical. You so-called educators must be educated. And Sylvia Pankhurst's politics, despite its limits, did at least challenge the cracked perspectives of Lenin, who denounced her as an infantile disorderly ultra-leftist.
May 11 2010 16:44
Quote:
What's largely forgotten is the excellent violence of the women against private property and against aspects of culture and religion in this movement: Mary Richardson herself was imprisoned in October 1913 for burning down an unoccupied house
why is this 'excellent'?
May 11 2010 18:23
Wait just now ,Samotaf , just hold on for a moment , for some reason it was you brought up that individual's reactionary political actions at the outbreak of war to argue against the SPGB case that the vote was an important gain for the working class and yet when i replied that the SPGB were critics of the actual movement which this person was the leader of and were critical of its whole political and social position of that organisation , we get accused of being a-historical purists ( as if the opposite of being purists - being contaminated - is somehow a positive condition!).
The SPGB was arguing that the aims of the WSPU for the female inclusion under the same qualification requirements as for men in the suffrage would lead to the strengthening of the bourgeois vote and weaken the working class ( men's suffrage was still yet to be extended fully and the very limited increased female vote would solely come from the well-to-do ) - and you assert we were being a-historical and purist by declaring this fact .( I suppose by condemning and exposing the 2nd International as against working class interests long before the Great War betrayals we were also being purists then too , eh ?).
Yet, you can then go ahead and cite some individualistic direct action acts of vandalism against works of art and claim that these were progressive by quoting some situationist-like anti-art anti-culture manifesto which is you seem to believe to be a more accurate and more historical a picture of the state of affairs . Indeed , one does wonder .
The Socialist Party of Canada perhaps possessing more influence than the SPGB at the time reflected socialist thought a bit more clear. A SPC member of the British Columbia Legislative assembly brought in a bill to give votes to women. Its journal the Western Clarion declared “every Socialist, as a matter of course stands for the enfranchisement of women and equal rights for the sexes in every department of life”. http://www.worldsocialism.org/canada/ss.review.feminist.challenge.newton.htm
You say with seemingly great panache that "understanding contradictions and different tendencies in a social movement are beyond the SPGB" as if we are somehow unaware of Sylvia Pankhurst and the differences she had with the mainstream suffragettes or her later ultra-leftism anti-parliamentarianism dispute with Lenin. We have re-published one of her articles [url= http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/nov99/sylvia.html ]Future Society [/url]in our journal and also had a couple of articles about Sylvia here and [url=http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/jul03/pankhurst.html ]here. [/url]
You assert
Quote:
"parliamentarism as such has long proven itself to be elitist: to expect 640 or whatever men and women to decide whether Britain should be socialist or not is not only nationalist, but utterly hierarchical."
You persist in claiming that the SPGB is advocating that it is going to be the MPs which will legislate socialism into being - when it has been repeated ad nauseum on this list that this is not - NOT - the SPGB position. Our latest parliament pamphlet makes that clear.
Quote:
"The socialist revolution – the more or less rapid changeover from capitalism to socialism – can only be a participatory, majority revolution....With the spread of socialist ideas all organisations will change and take on a participatory democratic and socialist character, so that the majority’s organisation for socialism will not be just political and economic, but will also embrace schools and universities, television, film-making, plays and the like as well as inter-personal relationships. We’re talking about a radical social revolution involving all aspects of social life....[socialist majority] does need to organise politically so as to be able to win control of political power. But it also needs to organise economically to take over and keep production going immediately after the winning of political control. We can’t anticipate how such socialist workplace organisations will emerge, whether from the reform of the existing trade unions, from breakaways from them or from the formation of completely new organisations. All we can say now is that such workplace organisations will arise and that they too, like the socialist political party, will have to organise themselves on a democratic basis, with mandated delegates instead of leaders...workers should not vote for anyone seeking election to parliament as an unaccountable representative....a constitution is just a piece of paper; what is important is how it is interpreted which is a reflection of political reality including the balance of forces between the ruling class and the working class. So-called “people’s power” is not just a myth.
http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/20C/Parliament_update.html
If there is a Thin Red Line , then lets just be accurate and honest about what those who compose it actually do stand for . ( in regard to political honesty , i just read in the EC minutes of the SPGB , having previously approved the text of the Parliamentary pamphlet that inadvertently and unintentionally misrepresented the AF position , the revised text correcting it has now been approved but a reminder e-mail to the online version may not go amiss)
May 12 2010 00:32
Did the SPGB stand in this election? I know they stood in the Euro election. And if Britain does get PR are the SPGB gonna stand in more seats or do they not have the resources? Just curious cos PR would obviously open up a space for the nominal left to pressure the so-called Labour Party. Left candidates got an average 600 votes. Would they get any more in PR? or has the opposition of we anti-electoralists (not just anarchists) + the apathy and cynicism of thousands ended this possibility?
May 12 2010 03:43
Stood one candidate in Vauxhall , London , who polled a dismal but fully expected 143 votes , but beating the Trotskyist Workers Power so it shows that having a list of transitional demands don't make much difference .
It appears nationally that the Left vote is usually something in the region of like 0.6% with a few exceptions .
The trouble with one version of PR ,the Single Tranferable Vote as done for the Scottish Parliament is that by having a system of voting by preferences it is possible that the SPGB would receive 2nd or 3rd choice votes from voters who have as first choice a pro-capitalist party . This contradicts the SPGB long held position that you only vote SPGB if you understand and agree with the idea of socialism , we don't want your vote otherwise. I foresee some discussion in the future within the SPGB over the matter .
I have also referred to proposals about electronic voting elsewhere here and if that is introduced it will thwart the SPGB advocacy of the spoiled ballot paper tactic - writing world socialism .
Many remain convinced that the SPGB never changes , never adapts , but in reality a whole host of events in its history meant reviewing the SPGB 's ideas and involved debate within the party. Changes to how we vote clearly may mean change to the SPGB participation in elections .
May 12 2010 07:17
Are the SPGB more in favour of Party-list proportional representation then?
May 12 2010 10:13
May 12 2010 18:29
ajjohnstone :
Undoubtedly the SPGB was one of the best of the organizations in pre-WWI UK, and I was attracted to it 60 years later or so when I was 17, but then I fancied pop stars at that age also…But I can’t be bothered with this, so you win by default (yes! - SPGB stands for Stupendously Perfectly Gorgeously Brilliant and not Small Party of Good Boys as it used to be known as) – it was stupid of me to get into a debate with an organisation I regard as silly. Like a passing whim to wind up Jehovah’s Witnesses and then finding yourself stuck in some interminable debate about what Jehovah actually witnessed. So – goodbye, have a nice day, sorry for wasting your time and mine.
Petey:
ajjohnstone said the suffragettes were in support of bourgeois property relations. I wanted to point out that it wasn’t always so. And if you think a critique of bourgeois property relations should not lead to a practical attack on bourgeois property and that (some of) the suffragettes attacks on bourgeois property were not “excellent”, then I have nothing essential, at least in the way of struggle and discussion, in common with you. Again – have a nice day, etc.
May 13 2010 16:20
Quote:
This contradicts the SPGB long held position that you only vote SPGB if you understand and agree with the idea of socialism , we don't want your vote otherwise. I foresee some discussion in the future within the SPGB over the matter .
Seems a bit sectarian. I don't vote, being anarchist, but if you are gonna bother may as well work with other nominal socialists. Now I fully understand the reluctance of working with Leninists given the history. But my understanding of British left politics is that Red Action and Independent Working Class Action have now dropped Leninism and are libertarian Marxist and both of these have taken part in elections.
(Word Revolution (ICC), Communist Workers Organisation (ICT), Internationalist Communist Group, Internationalist Perspective, Communist Left (ICP) are opposed to elections as far as I know, aren't they? and may or may not be libertarian Marxist, I dunno how to clasify Bordigism. Aufheben is left communist but I dunno their take on elections.)
Both Red Action and the journal Critique have had healthy discussions with the Leninist Open Polemic and Weekly Worker. The remnants of of the RCP are now in this direction, are they not? - Institute of Ideas/Spiked and the Manifesto Club/Audacity.org (admitedly they come out with some strange ideas but the RCP took part in elections in the past). Then there's the London Corresponding Committee/Hobgoblin, your split - the SSG (sore spot I know), World in Common, Red Star split from CPGB (PCC) and became libertarian Marxist, The Commune network/aggregate. Since the SSP's main trotskyist sections have left that leaves only the Republican Communist Network (lib Marxist) and Frontline (who as Scottish Socialist Movement fell out with the CWI and I don't know if they're still Troskyist or not) and the openly Trot Solidarity Tendency (AWL). Point is the SSP is not obviously Trot.
There's plenty there to work with. Of the above the best bet as fellow electoralist libertarian Marxists would be Red Action, IWCA, Red Star and the SSP. I dunno Hobgoblin's view on elections either.
typical, where were his neighbours when he was being harrassed?
Bit harsh Samotnaf. I think the direct action by the Suffragists was most excellent. What a pity it was wasted on the vote, as Sylvia, antifascist heroine, later realised. All right she ended her days a supporter of what was practically an absolute monarchy. But she was there when it mattered.
May 13 2010 19:00
Samotnaf wrote:
Petey:
...
if you think a critique of bourgeois property relations should not lead to a practical attack on bourgeois property and that (some of) the suffragettes attacks on bourgeois property were not “excellent”, then I have nothing essential, at least in the way of struggle and discussion, in common with you.
i was, of course, referring to burning down a dwelling, which some victims of capitalism who didn't have a dwelling might, perhaps, have had use for. and of course there's nothing inherently "bourgeois" about any piece of real estate in itself.
so the conclusion of your comment sounds about right.
May 13 2010 16:54
Joey OD wrote:
Quote:
But my understanding of British left politics is that Red Action and Independent Working Class ActionDon't you mean the- Independent Working Class Association ?
May 13 2010 19:42
Oops, y 
a, sorry, Association
May 14 2010 16:48
Joey OD:
Quote:
Bit harsh Samotnaf. I think the direct action by the Suffragists was most excellent. What a pity it was wasted on the vote, as Sylvia, antifascist heroine, later realised.
This is exactly what I said, so i can't see why you claim that what you agree with is "a bit harsh". You must have misunderstood somehow.
BTW, doesn't it bore you silly to wade through the alphabet soup of ICC, IWCA, SSP etc etc and their various lines on elections? If you want to stuggle to have an influence, you have to start by rejecting all these organisational messes. This isn't to say that everyone who temporarily joins such an organisation can't be ok; but the longer they stay in them, the more tedious and petrified they become.
May 14 2010 18:23
eh, no, you misuderstand. We totally agree. The "bit harsh" bit was relating to calling the SPGB Jehovah Witnesses, saying we have nothing in common with these comrades in the way of struggle, and that discussing with them is a waste of time.
Alright we totally disagree with them on the vote, on using Parliament even as a platform. But we're all libertarian socialists/communists, hopefully our hearts are in the right place, and by building relationships we can at least unite where we do agree, such as anti-fascism, workers rights, tenants rights etc.
May 14 2010 23:16
Joey D - what i said was
Quote:
it was stupid of me to get into a debate with an organisation I regard as silly. Like a passing whim to wind up Jehovah’s Witnesses and then finding yourself stuck in some interminable debate
Obviously the SPGB is a bit more connected with reality than Jehovah's witnesses; it was the passing whim to critique them and the element of winding them up that i regretted; as I said, a waste of time - and i certainly can't discuss things with organisations - it's like discussing things with a labyrinth; the difference between self-organisation and organising an organisation is the fundamental question that many people on libcom confuse or avoid or dismiss as 'individualism' and 'spontaneism' versus The Obvious Need For Our Particular Sect Whose Existence Is Essential For The Liberation Of The Working Class. You can do things with individuals, even sometimes wih individuals in political organisations, but not with the organisations themselves if you don't want to get caught up in trying to find the centre of this maze of inactivity, or the way out.
Can comment on articles and discussions
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/election_2010/8666128.stm
Apparently the sit ins were in Sheffield, where Nick "I'm still a cunt" Clegg showed up to "apologise" (presumably a Lib Dem marginal then) and the cops also showed up to clear them out.