Letters

Splitter!

Tony Greenstein accuses the CPGB of having a pathological tendency to split and resplit and, by implication, an intrinsic opposition to unity (Letters, March 4).

Is this the same Tony Greenstein that, while a member of the Socialist Alliance, stood as an independent candidate in last year’s local elections? Is this the same Tony Greenstein that resigned in a huff from the SA last year over something I can’t quite remember now? Is this the same Tony Greenstein who is proudly rejoining the SA this month just so that he can walk out of the special conference and resign again?

Splitter!
Splitter!

Smears

It is one thing being slandered by the so-called Alliance for so-called Workers’ Liberty - that’s like being defamed in an empty room. It is another thing when that slander is repeated in the Weekly Worker. It’s time your organ halted its repetition of their smears against me.

It is a matter of publicly registered fact that last year I earned £150,000 from my parliamentary salary and housing allowance and my journalistic earnings. Asked by a journalist how I could justify, as a socialist, earning so much, I replied that I use all of my salary to fund a life as a (very) full-time figure active in British politics. I explained that I travel virtually daily all over the country to speak at public meetings (as your reporters know) and virtually never receive expenses; and subsidise the costs of my larger than average parliamentary staff from my own pocket (by many thousands of pounds).

I hope you will agree that the quotation used in ‘Party Notes’ on this subject is misleading and unfair to me (Weekly Worker March 4). If I were to accept a worker’s wage and charge full expenses from local left organisations, I would be richer, they would be poorer (or, more likely, unable to invite me) and some other workers would be out of a job with no wages at all.

I have no problem with your political criticisms of me and my work, but, please, don’t join The Daily Telegraph and the AWL in misrepresenting my character.

Smears
Smears

Tactical BNP vote

The collapse of the Socialist Alliance has come about quicker than many expected, although it was no surprise to those who realised that something built on the shifting opinions of its founder members must collapse sooner rather than later.

Now we have the same people creating another white elephant, with George Galloway as messiah. Somehow, I can’t imagine that many British workers who struggle to get by in some low paid job will give their vote to this highly paid lover of the capitalist system. Do they really expect a pensioner to vote for the Respect unity coalition, when we all know that at today’s pension level it would take almost 30 years for a pensioner to earn what Galloway will spend in one year?

Getting together under one banner in order to form a genuine working class party for British workers is essential if the gains made so far by the British National Party are to be reversed. Leftwing writers can waffle on forever about the evils of capitalism and millions of words later we have not moved forward by the minutest increment. Perhaps these socialists who have got themselves well paid jobs under the system they claim to despise are not really interested in working for change?

The Labour Party has lost the trust of British workers, resulting in millions staying away from the polling stations; everyone knows that all 57 varieties of leftwing parties are completely unelectable. So, whom does the downtrodden worker vote for? To add insult to injury, we now have the sorry spectacle of disreputable politicians telling or ordering people not to vote for the BNP. There are reports that these same politicians are now trying to have the postal ballot in Manchester cancelled because it might lead to a massive vote for the fascist party. Is there no limit to their skulduggery?

The BNP can expect plenty of support from British workers in June; hopefully it will act as a wake-up call to this bunch of mealy-mouthed demagogues running our country. A bit of tactical voting is a good thing if it makes politicians listen.

Tactical BNP vote
Tactical BNP vote

Highest form

I would like to say something about the letter headed ‘Raving’, written by Edmund West (Weekly Worker March 4).

A state that destroys any religion by arbitrary and terroristic means and rules by despotism? Funny, but isn’t that what the Nazis did in 1930s and 40s Germany and Europe? If that’s what you really think, Mr West, then maybe you should be visiting the website for Combat 18 instead, because, from the sound of it, I think you’d fit in really well with that crowd.

I am all for a strong socialist republic of England, but I oppose any form of totalitarianism, whether right or left. Socialism should be the highest form of democratic rule, because, if it’s not, then it’s no better than any other tyrannical regime that’s based on oppression and slaughter. Stalin’s USSR is proof of that.

Highest form
Highest form