16.06.2004

SP retains two, loses one

Alan Fox evalutates the remainder of the Thursday's left results

The Socialist Party fought 36 council seats on June 10, the most notable battles being in Lewisham and Coventry. Unfortunately only two of its three sitting councillors in Coventry St Michael's, Dave Nellist and Karen McKay, were re-elected. Rob Windsor was narrowly beaten into fourth place by the leading Labour candidate. The SP contested 13 of the 14 wards in the city and won more than 4,000 votes in addition to the average of 1,400 for its three St Michael's candidates. In Lewisham, Jessica Leech's 374 votes (13.2%) saw her finish third in Evelyn ward.
The SP also polled reasonably well in Bootle and Netherton on Merseyside, as well as in Rugby, Lincoln and Stoke, picking up more than 10%. However, councillor Ian Page's result as a Respect GLA candidate in Lewisham and Greenwich was disappointing - well down on his score when he stood as London Socialist Alliance in 2000.

In Oxford, the Independent Working Class Association took its total of seats up to three, adding Churchill and Northfield Brook to sitting councillor Lee Cole's Blackbird Leys. However, its anti-crime activist localism is difficult to replicate over a larger area, as Lorna Reid's showing in the London mayor contest demonstrated (9,542; 0.5%).

Another group to pick up a seat was John Marek's Forward Wales, which contested every ward in Marek's base of Wrexham. In addition to winning Johnstown, FW came second in six other wards. The Alliance for Green Socialism contested widely in Leeds (a large section of the AGS membership previously made up the ex-Labour Leeds Left Alliance). Despite picking up some useful votes, the AGS did not come near winning.

As far as I am aware, the remnants of Arthur Scargill's Socialist Labour Party stood only in 10 seats, in Merseyside and Manchester.