On Monday 14 September the Political Committee of the Workers Party met to discuss the Holborn & St Pancras by-election and to agree upon our attitude towards it.
The decision of the committee was to stand a candidate and that of those shortlisted our candidate would be George Galloway. There was a single dissenting voice in the discussion and vote, and the following evening we were informed of Chris WIlliamson's resignation. Chris then posted about his resignation online and has given an interview to Crispin Flintoff. We wish Chris well and have parted on perfectly amicable terms. We will continue to work together where we agree.
It is important that Chris and those who hold similar views are given the opportunity to reflect on the content of the struggle against Labour, and to appreciate that in our view, this is a struggle not merely against a nasty party but the economic system that needs it to misdirect the working class movement.
"I have tonight resigned from the Workers Party of Britain because I profoundly disagree with the decision to stand in the Holborn and St Pancras by-election. I have a huge amount of respect for George Galloway, but I believe we should get behind Zack Polanski on this occasion. My firm view is that the left must collaborate to defeat the Labour Party, Reform UK, Conservatives and Lib Dems because these parties are all in the pocket of the neoliberal Zionist war machine. Zack is best placed to do that in this by-election.
I commend Zack's recognition that the govt can intervene in the economy to create a good society because it issues the currency. I applaud his position on the so-called war on drugs, which has absolutely failed. I salute his pragmatic and compassionate analysis of illegal immigration. And I commend his assessment of the criminal justice system.
I do have some differences on a small set of issues, most notably their current pro-EU and pro-NATO stances, but my view is that we should agree where we agree, which is on most things, and simply have fraternal disagreements where we don’t."
Where we stand on the Green Party
To set aside our differences on questions such as the EU and NATO's drive to war with Russia for the sake of "left unity" is to set aside the core issue at hand.
Finance capitalism, it's predatory wars and the anarchy of the global market is not merely another issue amongst many, it is the primary contradiction facing the world. It is not but one issue amongst many, it is the root cause of oppression and exploitation of all toiling humanity.
The Green Party reveal their hand on this question, and opportunistically hiding behind their left Zionist two state solution only gets them so far. Their shameless support for Zelensky's NATO spearhead, tens of £billions laundered in Ukraine (better spent in Britain), and parroting the ruling class narrative on the Nato proxy war on Russia exposes the true nature of the Green Party.
That is, the Green Party are indeed on "the left wing"... Of capitalism.
This is why there can be no unity with the Green Party leadership. Furthermore, the Greens have demonstrated in practice that they do not wish to enter into any temporary or limited electoral arrangement with the Socialist movement, and have cynically exploited some of those who can be duped into thinking the Greens offer an alternative to Labour. Whilst the fight to break the link between the labour movement and the Labour party is far from over, it can never be accomplished if we allow social democracy to syphon the anger of working class people through the Green safety valve.
Some other Socialist parties may hold a similar opinion to us, but they have no plan as to how to teach this in practice to the public at large.
We will fight in Holborn & St Pancras, we will do our best to win (and on a fraction of the £180,000 budget the corporate parties have at their disposal!). Win or not we intend to use the election as a platform to speak not only to the good people of London, but the entire country, and to expose the danger of a third world war, the atrocity of the genocide in Gaza enabled by the present government, the anti-working class policies of the ruling parties and to explain that Socialism not Greenery can lead us to a better future.
