Socialist Labour Party (UK)
| Socialist Labour Party | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Leader | Arthur Scargill |
| President | Andrew Jordan |
| Vice-President | James McDaid |
| General Secretary | Kim Singleton |
| Treasurer | Ken Capstick |
| Founded | 1996 |
| Headquarters | PO Box 193, Liverpool. L38 0WX. |
| Ideology | Socialism, Trade unionism, Euroscepticism, Economic protectionism, Irish unification, British republicanism |
| Political position | Left-wing |
| Colours | Red |
| Website | |
| http://www.socialist-labour-party.org.uk/ | |
The Socialist Labour Party (SLP) is a socialist political party in the United Kingdom. The party is led by former trade union leader Arthur Scargill, who helped establish it in 1996 as a breakaway from the Labour Party, following the changes to the Labour Party's Clause IV. The name 'Socialist Labour Party' symbolises the fact that the Labour Party moved away from any commitment to progressive Socialism when it removed Clause IV from its constitution. Clause IV of the Socialist Labour Party constitution is therefore a fundamental element of the Party's identity.
According to accounts filed for the year of 2010 with the Electoral Commission, the Socialist Labour Party had 3,260 members excluding affiliates. It had an income of around £14,200 and an expenditure of about £10,000.[1]
Contents |
Formation [edit]
Arthur Scargill formed the Socialist Labour Party in 1996 as a reaction to Tony Blair's rewrite of Clause IV in the Labour Party's constitution a year earlier, seen as a final rejection of a commitment to socialism. The SLP advocates the public ownership of leading industries - which had been privatised under Conservative Party prime minister Margaret Thatcher during the 1980s, with the policy being maintained by her successor John Major and then advocated by Labour Party leader Tony Blair in his re-write of Clause IV.
The party initially attracted trade union figures such as Mick Rix and Bob Crow.
The SLP advocates economic localism and is in favour of reopening the mines.[2]
Electoral performance [edit]
At the 2001 general election the party took about 3% of the vote in seats it stood in.
The Party managed to get its highest percentage share in any individual parliamentary constituency at the 2005 general election when it gained 14.2% of the votes cast in Glasgow North East.
The Socialist Labour Party did not contest the 2004 European Elections, but fielded a full list of candidates for England, Scotland and Wales in the 2009 European Elections, where it took 173,115 votes, or 1.1% of the national vote.[3]
The Socialist Labour Party ran 23 candidates in the 2010 general election, who received a total of 7,196 votes, fewer than 0.1% of the UK national vote. All lost their deposits. The best results were those of Kai Andersen in Liverpool West Derby (614 votes - 1.7%) and Ken Capstick in Barnsley East (601 votes - 1.6%). In the local elections held on the same day, Andersen also received 244 votes (4.2%) in the Croxteth ward of Liverpool.[4]
The Socialist Labour Party contested both the Scottish Parliamentary and Welsh Assembly Elections in 2011. In Scotland the Party's share of the vote increased from 0.7% (in 2007) to 0.9% in an election at which nearly every other political party saw a decrease in votes due to the Scottish National Party (SNP) landslide. In Scotland the SLP beat all other left-wing opposition and, amongst others, the British National Party (BNP). In Wales the party's share of the vote increased from 1.2% (in 2007) to 2.4% giving the SLP the second biggest percentage gain of the total votes cast in the election meaning it far outperformed all other left-wing opposition as well as once again outperforming the BNP. The SLP also received more votes than the Green Party in two of the five regions of Wales.[5]
Notes [edit]
- ^ [1][dead link]
- ^ Martin Shipton (2010-03-25). "Reopen Welsh mines, says Scargill". Wales Online. Retrieved 2013-05-13.
- ^ "European Election 2009: UK Results". BBC News. 2009-04-19. Retrieved 2010-01-04.
- ^ "General Election and Local Elect". Web.archive.org. 2010-08-17. Retrieved 2013-05-13.
- ^ "Elections". Socialist Labour Party. 2011-05-05. Retrieved 2013-05-13.
External links [edit]
- Socialist Labour Party
- Socialist Labour Party Wales
- Party Broadcast for the 2009 European Parliament Election
