I wouldn't expect anything else of Socialist Appeal than to use the not too fantastic results of the left (particularly SWP/Left List) in the local elections to say there is no possibility of building anything outside of Labour. But you would thought they would tell the whole story.
The paragraph that offends me most is as follows
Another sect, the so-called Socialist Party, fielded about 15 candidates nationally in the local elections. They all sank without trace - except one. And this was the exception to the rule. This was Dave Nellist, the ex-Labour MP of Coventry SE, who retained his seat in St Michael’s ward with 1,643 votes. This was clearly a personal vote as the other two SP candidates managed to scrape a measly 142 votes (to come bottom of the poll of seven candidates) and 135 votes (to come bottom of the poll out of six). Other results included Alec Thraves in Castle ward, Swansea, who scored 172 votes, Pete Bradley in Nuneaton who polled 88, while in Stoke on Trent the SP candidate got 130 votes. In London, they fared no better, where they stood Chris Flood for the London Authority. He managed to come bottom of the poll (10th out of 10 candidates), with 1,587 votes (out of 146,841 votes caste) in Greenwich and Lewisham. This was even less than the votes cast for the fossilised sect of the Socialist Party of Great Britain, which polled 1,588 votes in Lambeth and Southwark!
The results picked are selective - (this is also the case with some of the SWP/Left List candidates who polled fairly well in a few areas outside London where they have been campaigning for several years) But it misses out the four best results after Dave Nellist - which are
18% (377) Pete Glover in Sefton
936 Ian Slattery in Huddersfield (standing for Save Huddersfield NHS)
12% (295) Lyne Worthington in Bagueley, Manchester
12.3% (352) Mick Griffiths in Wakefield
now, these aren't victories but they are better than the results reported by Socialist Appeal, and show that we are building bases of support in several areas around the country.
but also there is the question of why we stand in elections. according to Socialist Appeal we should be standing to win hundreds of seats by the sounds of it (okay maybe I am exaggerating a bit). we know we are only small and the task of building a much bigger organisation remains.
for us however, standing in elections is part of the process of building our support - most of the time we don't expect to win (although it's nice if we do), it's more about increasing our share of the vote, building support for socialist ideas and building the party.
