Steve Wallis’ socialist website: Elections

Tortured by police handcuffs		revolutionarysocialiststeve@yahoo.co.uk
Telephone: 07725 735255

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Elections

In my opinion, there is a complex web of conspiratorial organisations that infiltrate political parties and other important organisations in society, in order to help or undermine them from within, rather than just for the purpose of gathering information (spying).

I set up my own conspiratorial infiltrating organisation, called the Foundation for PR-based Socialism in January 2007, consisting of a website (www.PRsocialism.org) and a discussion forum (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PRsocialism). I live in Glasgow (Scotland) but want the Foundation to operate internationally. I favour the Foundation remaining solely in hyperspace rather than becoming a hierarchical organisation open to bureaucratisation and infiltration by hostile forces (a criticism I have of Marxist organisations and their conceptions of socialism). Its only membership is the list of discussion forum members. Polls can be organised on the forum if there are any disputes on the policies or strategy of the Foundation, for which I have proposed:

The Foundation will try to achieve more democratic electoral systems under capitalism as well as arguing for a form of socialism with a government elected using PR – so that everybody is in control rather than just big business (as under capitalism) or the working class (as typically advocated by Marxists).

I advocate the STV system of PR because it eliminates the need for tactical voting. If a voter’s first choice candidate fails to get enough votes to be elected, the vote is transferred to his or her second choice, and it can similarly be transferred to additional choices. If, on the other hand, the candidate gets more votes than necessary, the vote is partially transferred.

The form of socialism I advocate is a middle way between capitalism and a Marxist form of socialism, and more likely to win majority support (and keep it when elections take place in a future socialist society). Many Marxists argue that socialism cannot be implemented through parliament, and under their approach a minority may attempt to impose its will on a majority, perhaps using “workers’ militias”, which is likely to have catastrophic consequences (a Stalinist dictatorship, a capitalist counter-revolution or even nuclear war). As well as being undemocratic, the Marxist idea of hierarchies of committees based on workplaces (called “soviets” in Russia) makes it easy for bureaucrats (perhaps potential vicious dictators or infiltrators on the side of big business) to reach positions of power and stay in such positions once they have got there. That is because it is generally only people on the same committees who know who the dodgy people are and what they are up to.

Elections to the Scottish Parliament (Holyrood) take place every four years. A form of PR is used, making them much more democratic than the elections to the UK Parliament (Westminster) for which the misnamed first-past-the-post electoral (FPTP) system (whereby the candidate in each constituency with the most votes gets elected) is used. However, unlike with STV, voters cannot specify preferences, so many of them do vote tactically, which favours the main political parties since voters are less likely to consider votes for those parties wasted votes. Instead, a voter can choose one candidate for the constituency and one party for the regional list; FPTP is used in the constituencies and candidates are selected from the regional lists to make representation roughly proportional.

In the first Scottish parliamentary elections, which took place in 1999, the newly formed Scottish Socialist Party (SSP) achieved one Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) – Tommy Sheridan, who made his name leading the successful mass non-payment struggle against the poll tax and topped the party’s regional list for Glasgow. In 2003, the SSP won six seats, including two in Glasgow – Sheridan and Rosie Kane – where the party received over 15% of the vote.

If the SSP had continued that level of progress, it should have been in a position to contemplate winning power in the 2007 elections! However, largely due to infiltration by conspiratorial organisations on the side of big business, and my inability to influence events to the extent I would have liked due to my incarceration as a political prisoner for much of the time (as described on the Disability & Mental Health page), the SSP has struggled to avoid losing ground never mind making progress.

The defamation trial won by Tommy Sheridan against the News of the World has had big repercussions, resulting in a breakaway party called Solidarity: Scotland’s Socialist Movement formed by Tommy alongside the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) and CWI Scotland (linked to the Socialist Party of England and Wales). Solidarity now has two MSPs (Sheridan and Rosemary Byrne) and is planning to stand against the SSP in every region in the elections on the 3rd of May 2007. I believe that Sheridan is overwhelmingly genuine, as are at least two of the SSP’s remaining MSPs (Rosie Kane and convenor Colin Fox), but that he did do some of the things he was accused of by the News of the World and that he is making the best of a bad situation. A very positive aspect of the split is the defection of the SWP, which is a very hierarchical organisation largely led (in my opinion) by infiltrators on the side of big business. The SWP should have been countered by the recruitment of many new people, and in fact such recruitment has taken place in Solidarity to a certain extent, resulting in the SWP failing to turn it into a Scottish version of Respect (so broad that it encourages people who are not socialists and don’t identify with the working class, particularly Muslim businessmen, to join) at Solidarity’s conference in November 2006. For more of my views on the defamation trial and subsequent split in the SSP, read the second edition of Revolutionary Platform News (which you can find on the socialist organisations page of this website).

I have decided to stay in the SSP, but want the Foundation to be neutral in the dispute between the two parties. It is much more important that the socialist parties together do well than that a particular one becomes dominant and I want to encourage others who agree with me on the issue of PR to get involved in either party.

The other thing that is very important about those elections is that the pro-independence parties – the Scottish National Party (SNP), the SSP, Solidarity and the Scottish Green Party – together get a majority of Members of the Scottish Parliament (MSPs). If that happens, there would soon be a referendum on Scottish independence, and that referendum would probably be won. Labour, the Liberal Democrats and the Tories are vehemently opposed to the idea of independence, so without such a majority, a referendum would be unlikely to take place until after the next elections in 2011.

A capitalist independent Scotland has some advantages in its own right, such as enabling Scotland to become nuclear-free and avoid sending troops to Iraq and Afghanistan, but the most important thing about it would be the considerably increased likelihood of a socialist transformation of society taking place. Such a change of society is much more likely in Scotland than the UK as a whole due to the electoral system, Scottish people tending to be more left-wing and the socialist parties being much stronger north of the border than in England or Wales.

Once a socialist revolution has taken place in a particular Western country, and Scotland is in my opinion most likely to be first, it could quickly spread around the world.

Socialists should not neglect the council elections that take place at the same time as the Scottish parliamentary elections. Despite the fact that only three or four candidates will be elected per ward, the SSP and/or Solidarity could make significant breakthroughs in those elections due to the STV electoral system.

I must issue a warning that ballot papers for the Scottish parliamentary elections and Scottish local elections will be counted by machines for the first time. As those who have investigated electoral fraud at US presidential elections will be aware, perhaps by coming across my ‘us-electoral fraud’ discussion forum which highlighted the fact that George W Bush did not really win in 2000 or 2004, the use of machines will present the powers-that-be with opportunities to defraud their enemies. The fraud was particularly important in 2004, since Democratic candidate Senator John Kerry pledged to tax the rich and close all tax loopholes, which in my view showed that he was a revolutionary socialist in disguise! For more information about that, visit my US electoral fraud page. [I have also set up a ‘uk-electoral-fraud’ discussion forum on which I pointed out that Respect was defrauded in the European elections conducted entirely by postal ballots in the North West of England, by the sending out of ballot papers urging voters to return them immediately before Respect’s party election broadcast. That forum would be a useful place to discuss potential fraud in these Scottish elections.]

Hopefully, parties will be able to subject the counting process to a reasonably high level of scrutiny to reduce the potential of such a fraud. Because the SSP’s and Solidarity’s policies are very similar, many socialist voters will leave it to the last minute to decide which party to vote for, leading to opinion polls underestimating the level of support those two parties have – so a low socialist vote may fail to raise suspicions. This situation was highlighted by an independent Solidarity opinion poll that found 6% quite likely but only 1% very likely to vote for them, even when people polled knew that Tommy Sheridan and Rosemary Byrne are in that party. They plan to include Sheridan’s name, and Byrne’s in her region (the South of Scotland), on the ballot papers as a result of that poll.

There has been a recent spate of election victories for the left in Latin America, with the coming to power of people like Hugo Chávez in Venezuela, Luiz da Silva (Lula) in Brazil, Evo Morales in Bolivia, Michelle Bachelet in Chile and Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua. The record of these leaders in power has been variable, with Lula (probably fairly) accused by many of selling out but remaining popular amongst many other working class people.

In my opinion, the balance of class forces has decisively switched from big business to the working class in Latin America. Despite the fact that capitalism still exists everywhere in Latin America apart from in Cuba and there are some very rich individuals in those countries, the governments are not necessarily acting in the interests of big business as they are supposed to in capitalist countries according to Marxist theory. There have been big reforms in favour of the poor in Venezuela and Bolivia in particular, in defiance of domestic capitalists, the multinationals and representatives of big business in organisations like the G8, International Monetary Fund and World Bank.

I believe that socialists in positions of influence or power in Latin America are waiting for a lead from socialists in the West before carrying out socialist transformations of their societies. A socialist Scotland would give a massive boost to left-wing forces around the world, including in Latin America, triggering socialist revolutions in many countries and leading to world socialism.

Despite my advocacy of change through elections, I also encourage extra-parliamentary activity by working and middle class people around the world. Morales’ victory in the Bolivian presidential election (with an unprecedented vote of over 50%) in December 2005 was achieved due to the general strike movement earlier that year led by him. I am promoting the idea of a worldwide general strike at the time of the next G8 summit, which could give a tremendous boost to ordinary people around the world, potentially triggering revolutions in some countries.