British and all imperialist troops out of Iraq, Ireland, Africa and the Balkans! Defend the right of the power-starved colonial world to electrification!

Organize and strengthen the unions to resist the bosses’ attacks!

In two constituencies in the UK general election, working people have the opportunity to vote for a working-class alternative to the parties of capitalism. Communist League candidates Celia Pugh in Bethnal Green and Bow, London, and Peter Clifford in Edinburgh East are presenting a revolutionary working-class program to reach out to our sisters and brothers around the world in order to strengthen the struggle against our common enemies—the imperialist aggressors and capitalist exploiters the world over.

The line presented by the capitalist parties—“vote for us and we’ll do it for you”—is a fake and a fraud. Real social change will not come about by getting someone into Parliament. The emancipation of the working class must be the act of the working class itself.

Moreover, what the capitalist parties—whether Labour, Tory, Liberal-Democrat, Scottish Nationalist, or whichever—really mean is “vote for us and we’ll do it to you.” No matter who wins the election, the prospect for working people remains the same: at home, a grinding offensive by the employers against our living standards and conditions of work; government attacks on the social wage and on workers’ rights; scapegoating of immigrants as the billionaire rulers prepare for an open assault on working-class conquests. And their foreign policy will continue to extend these attacks on working people abroad, through imperialist wars.

Driven by the weakness of the British economy in a weakening imperialist system; by the failure of neo-colonial models from Iran to Argentina; and by a world financial crisis, the UK rulers are hitching their wagon to Washington in an attempt to safeguard their place in the pecking order in the imperialist redivision of the world. In this world of sharpening crisis and interimperialist competition, Prime Minister Anthony Blair has stated, with support across Parliament, that London’s military forces are “a huge part of British foreign policy in the 21st century.”

In election hustings, using loudhailers from campaign tables on the streets, in their election literature, in the media, at social protests, the Communist League candidates have been explaining that these questions can’t be resolved by a vote once every 4-5 years. They’ve been using the election to advance the international campaign to sell thousands of copies of the Marxist magazine New International, which explains the line of march of the working class to wrest political power from the billionaire rulers through a revolutionary struggle and establish a workers and farmers government. This campaign will extend way past the May 5 election date.

Both Communist League candidates are workers who participate in the daily resistance to the government and employer offensive. They are using their campaigns to tell the truth about the strike action by workers at Ambala Foods in Stratford, London, who have recently organized a union and are today using that union to defend their interests. This action by workers overwhelmingly from the Indian sub-continent is strengthening all workers—it needs and warrants solidarity. The employers’ offensive will lead to more Ambala Foods. Resistance will deepen and broaden. And it’s such resistance that’s generating the seeds of the coming rebellions against the rule of the exploiters and provides hope for humanity’s future.

The Communist League candidates have used the campaign to talk up the need to defend a woman’s right to choose abortion. The leaders of the main capitalist parties have stated that, following the election, parliamentary time may be made available for enacting legislation restricting abortion time limits. But this, like all major questions faced by working people, has not been debated in the election.

In different ways, not just the openly capitalist parties, but also their left hangers-on, have centered their campaigns on the need to vote against Blair and Brown, or Tory leader Michael Howard, or a local MP of one or another party. But it’s not who you’re against, it’s what you’re for. Vote not for the individual, vote for the program. Vote Communist League.
 
 
Related articles:
London Ambala Foods strikers demand pay hike
Socialists to launch ballot efforts in New Jersey, Boston  
 
 
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