Mixed fortunes for left candidates in England

Alan Thornett

Respect scored a series of good results in last week's local elections. Where it stood, it proved a serious challenge – not only to the smaller parties but to Labour, the Lib Dems and the Tories.

Respect won council positions in three wards. In Preston Michael Lavalette retained his seat with a greatly increased majority – 1179 votes and 52%. Mohammed Ishtiaq was elected in Birmingham Sparkbrook with 3514 votes and 42% as the second councillor in Salma Yaqoob's ward, and Ray Holmes in Bolsover Shirebrook with 295 votes and 53% in a straight fight with Labour. Shirebrook is a solid white working class area. Ray Holmes is a former NUM official and has a strong base in the area. He previously stood as a Socialist Alliance candidate.

It is also where new Labour first tried to force through the privatization of GP services. It had a series of strongly-attended meetings on the marketisation of the NHS in the last 15 months, with a succession of local long-time Labour supporters getting up to slag off the government and its record. Respect secured eight second places and 13 third places and an average of 15% across the 45 wards it contested. The seven candidates in Birmingham won 12400 votes between them.

This confirms once again that Respect has an electoral resonance that no other left party in England has been able to achieve for many years.

The Socialist Party stood 14 candidates in 13 wards most of them as Socialist Unity. It did not win any additional councillors or make any progress beyond the small bases they have had for a long time. The efforts they put into the Campaign for a new Workers party clearly do not reflect in their election results.

The SP's best showing was in Coventry St Michaels where Lindsay Currie lost by only 84 votes. Dave Nellist and Rob Windsor are councillors in the same ward. Their seats were not up for re-election. The SP therefore still has five councillors, three of them in Lewisham who were not up for election.

There is a debate to be had however over Respect current election strategy –which is to stand in only a small number of carefully selected seats and resourcing those campaigns from Respect as a whole.

This is a strategy that is partly driven by the first-past-the post system and how to tackle its undemocratic consequences. And it does produce better average results and a better chance of winning some seats. But 45 seats in this nation-wide election (outside of London) is less than the seats it contested in Tower Hamlets last year.

It means that a only tiny number of people get the chance to vote Respect and therefore to see Respect as a part of the election process at all. This inhibits the development of Respect as a national organisation.

Of course no party stands in all 10,000 seats. But the Greens stood in 1400 seats which gives them much more of a national profile. Respect could not match that at the present time, but it if Respect branches were encouraged to stand as a matter of course and maximise their candidacies, with an eye to resources, a much wider intervention could have been made.