Chris Burford
Fri, 05 May 2000 16:11:00 -0700
At 13:24 05/05/00 +0100, you wrote:
>On Fri, 5 May 2000, Andy Lehrer wrote:
>
> > The results thus far are disappointing. The LSA's only chance at an
> outright
> > first-past-the-post seat, Ian Page, has not been elected and as for the
> "top-up"
> > PR returns the LSA seems to be running between 2-3% with half the votes
> counted,
> > well below the necessary 5% threshold.
> >
>The LSA got about 1.6% of top-up votes and 2.7% of constituency votes.
>Note exactly brillant. It's worth noting that in total leftwing slates in
>the top-up section got around 4%, all the parties were standing on
>broadly similar platforms so this isn't unreasonable.
Yes, we are going to have to learn how to use this proportional electoral
system. Hopefully next time round there will be still more serious debates
about where the left should pitch its stall. Of course some groups would
rather fight on their own to get 1% of the vote across London, but I
predict over the next ten years a group will emerge that will put a more
radical reasonably-coherent reformist position.
This should still not be about tailing behind bourgeois parties or
bourgeois politics. But without the first past the post system, that is
less of a danger.
How this can link up with revolution, the question John Walker poses, is
that this radical party must articulate issues that make sense in terms of
immediate tactics as well as with long term goals.
At the moment it is the three green councillors who have got the chance.
Meanwhile we will have to see whether the extra-parliamentary anarchist
anti-capital protestors will find a more effective way of locating their
direct action within the context of a larger political space which they
have to open up with the help of serious radical reformers.
The socialising of land in London would be a pretty radical agenda, and
does indeed touch on the Mayor's few powers - over transport and vetoing
certain developments.
Don't expect the IMF to schedule its next major international conference
here in London in the near future!
Chris Burford
London
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