Left Wing Candidate who got Zero Votes appeals.
Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (Tusc) Rainham North candidate Paul Dennis was told he had no votes in the London constituency after they were counted on May 7.
Tusc said it will now petition Medway Council over the result. Mr Dennis says he should have got at least two votes as he claims that both he and his wife voted for him.
A Leftist Trainspotter comments:
The previous victory was held by Les Comités communistes pour l’autogestion who managed the stunning feat in the 18th arrondissement (Paris) in the 1981 French legislative elections.
Zero votes.
Chapeau TUSC!
Meanwhile in a Parallel Universe.
“We are still in the early stages of building a left challenge to Labour. To increase the vote for TUSC among a big swing to the right is a real achievement.”
In some areas the results were more disappointing—particularly where the share of the left vote fell.
Other left candidates also suffered setbacks. Bradford West Respect MP George Galloway lost his seat to Labour. He had won it from Labour in a landslide by-election victory in a 2012 .
But TUSC activists used the campaigns to build the fight against austerity after the election.
Jenny told Socialist Worker, “The point was to build a network of activists on the ground—that’s exactly what we’ve done in Tottenham.
“Even though our support wasn’t reflected in the vote we were very successful in getting out the message that austerity is a con in the interests of the rich.
“Things don’t change in parliament unless there’s a movement on the streets—that’s the next step.”
The task now is to build on the networks established through the campaigning. The result of the election shows the need to fight for a more united left wing alternative.
Jenny said, “We’re going to follow up our campaign with a public meeting on housing and regeneration—and we’ll be having regular meetings around the cuts.
“One thing is clear is—we can’t wait for Labour. There’s no option but to fight.”
Tendance Coatesy 
Reblogged this on A Riverside View and commented:
What a laugh!
Kevin Algar
May 15, 2015 at 11:29 am
I thought the SWP declaration was also worth a laugh.
Andrew Coates
May 15, 2015 at 11:30 am
Laugh or cry? Or both? To think that the IS/SWP was once a serious force to be reckoned with …
Jim Denham
May 15, 2015 at 12:07 pm
The Provisional CC (Posadist m-l) are pleased to say that our newest recruit is coming to aid the Struggle Struggle against the Tories.
http://cdn.bleedingcool.net/wp-content/uploads//2012/12/si-superman-avait-ete-russe-L-1.jpeg?802b89
john r
May 15, 2015 at 12:18 pm
Oops, we hope this loads better.
john r
May 15, 2015 at 12:19 pm
There are worse scenarios: look at what Manuel Carlos Valls is doing to the French left.
Andrew Coates
May 15, 2015 at 2:35 pm
this proves there are voting irregularities and vote rigging. The left alliance of Respect/Tusc is being untreated unfairly. Galloway was robbed and Paul Dennis probably had a much higher vote.
Dean
May 15, 2015 at 10:24 pm
to get zero votes must be a kind of record. I bet not many people could achieve that!
The workers have nothing to lose, and neither does TUSC. You can’t get lower than zero. In normal bourgeois parties, there would be a change of leader and program. But TUSC always say the same thing, have the same program, the same slogans.
TUSC suggests the tusks of a wooly mammoth in the museum. a dead thing.
Respect would be better if the dropped the final ‘t’, and just called it ‘respec’ , as that would sound more black.
Left Unity would be OK, but it sounds just like other left unity/alliance groups.
Dean
May 15, 2015 at 11:11 pm
I was close to the SWP in the mid 1970s. They were “in the early stages of building a left challenge to Labour” then. Some things never change.
Bob-B
May 16, 2015 at 10:10 am
Meanwhile in another parallel universe.
Goldsmiths students start petition for vote of ‘no confidence’ in Welfare and Diversity Officer Bahar Mustafa after tweeting #killallwhitemen and labelling someone ‘white trash’.
A welfare and diversity officer caught up in a racism row could potentially lose her job for tweeting the words “kill all white men” and calling people “white trash”.
Goldsmiths University’s officer, Bahar Mustafa has been at the centre of a media storm after banning white men from an event on diversifying the curriculum and stating on camera ethnic minority women cannot be racist.
Students have now started a petition for a vote of no confidence in Ms Mustafa, which would remove her from office.
http://www.newsshopper.co.uk/news/12948007.UPDATE__New_Cross_Diversity_Officer_could_lose_role_after_tweeting__killallwhitemen_and__white_trash_/
Andrew Coates
May 16, 2015 at 1:36 pm
Paul Canning
May 16, 2015 at 2:34 pm
Galloway is also a a but of a Seer.
George Galloway opinion on the Labour candidates.
Yvette Cooper
“She’s a highly competent person, but she has all the charm of Ed’s headstone.”
Andy Burnham
“He at least speaks the language of Labour. He’s rather popular with the ladies also, so maybe a women’s vote bounty would come his way.
“People are looking for authenticity, they are looking for genuineness and I think Andy Burnham has that. But it’s all about the strategy that Labour now develops.”
Chuka Umunna
“This would be the very worst thing they could do. He’s Mr Blair’s first choice and that should tell you just about everything that you need to know. He’s a snake oil salesman and that doesn’t work in politics I don’t think.
“If it is their intention to chase the 24% of the people of Britain who would vote for David Cameron, then perhaps Umunna is the answer.
“From my party perspective, I hope they choose Chuka Umunna as that would leave a big space on the left.”
http://www.lbc.co.uk/galloway-slams-labour-contest-as-donkey-derby-109651
Andrew Coates
May 16, 2015 at 2:55 pm
The story (#killallwhitemen) from Goldsmiths about the Welfare and Diversity officer is like something the Sun would have made up in the 80’s except… it’s not made up and seems to sum up student leftist politics today.
I think I’d find it amusing if it wasn’t far too close to home.
My student step-daughter is mixed-race (I’m white, btw) and a few months ago we have a bit of a row about “identity politics” and “safe places”. My description of it as the worst kind of “whiny, me, me, me” politics which promoted “echo chamber” debates and where Islamist hate clerics were given a free pass by “Liberation Reps” did not go down well. I contrasted the latter with bans on feminists who were deemed “transphobic”, “Islamophobic” or even “whorephobic”.
I’m now being to think the Student Far Left are like rats all stuck in a cage fighting and eating fellow students as they can have absolutely no positive impact on wider society. And, as the vote above shows, this malaise is not confined to the Student Far Left.
More to the point, as Osborne is about to smash up the Welfare State even more this July, even Labour doesn’t seem to know what to do in this era of Bourgeois triumphalism.
John R
May 16, 2015 at 4:14 pm
Giles Fraser is at it again, making the ridiculous parallel on ‘spiritual influence’ between a group of Imans and a Hindu lobbyist > http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/belief/2015/may/15/one-rule-for-hindus-another-for-muslims (I commented earlier on disquiet among conservatives about Hindu support relying on repeal of caste discrimination law. Fraser of course ignores that disquiet.)
He has also got an opinion from a QC. Here’s part of it:
“there is nothing in the quoted passages from the imams’ letter that could reasonably be interpreted as inflicting or threatening any injury, damage, harm or loss. The letter did not, for example, threaten any punishment (whether here or hereafter) for Muslim voters who failed to support Mr Rahman’s candidacy, nor did it threaten exclusion from the religious community. At most, it sought to persuade Muslim voters in the Borough that good Muslims should vote for Mr Rahman. In this respect, it is difficult to see why it should be regarded any differently from a letter from a group of doctors urging voters to vote for or against a particular candidate or party so as to protect the NHS, or a letter from a group of business people urging voters to vote for or against a particular candidate or party for economic reasons.”
He also has a Human Rights Act argument:
“In this case, the principle of legality means that – to the extent that there is any ambiguity – s. 115 must be read as restricting freedom of expression to the minimum possible extent.
This too seems to me to militate strongly against Mr Mawrey’s construction.”
In other words:
“The prohibition discriminates on grounds of religion and/or on grounds of profession in the enjoyment of the right to freedom of expression.”
Paul Canning
May 16, 2015 at 6:46 pm
I know you think the TUSC is a joke, Andrew, but it’s actually an important point. The integrity of the vote is in question if two votes cast for an identifiable candidate have been discounted.
Sue R
May 16, 2015 at 8:59 pm
Sue R – of course, in the sense that the individual vote can be tracked and the process will find out if it was misattributed or whatever. Hallelujah to that. No in the sense that this is about the ego deflation involved in getting zero votes as opposed to two.
Got to share this one. For all the people using ‘hegemony’ and ’empire’ rather a lot. The Chomsky and Greenwald worshipers. (And Bill Maher haters.) And for the LOLZ.
Paul Canning
May 16, 2015 at 10:04 pm
i think Chuka was blackmailed in some way to step down. It all seems a bit odd, like he doesn’t want something to come out, which some person may have threatened to release to the media. Galloway is right about him though.
As for Bahar Mustafa, she can’t be racist. Neither can Galloway be anti semitic because he is a convert to Islam and thus part of a minority which can’t by definition be racist.
Dean
May 16, 2015 at 10:17 pm
Dean, your talent is wasted on us. You’re the C21st Jonathan Swift. Get an agent.
Funny thing about Chuka. The complete absence of mention that he’s black. Noticed that? Am I alone? I dunno whether this is good or bad. Just noticed it.
Paul Canning
May 16, 2015 at 11:13 pm
I noticed that Chuka was black, but like Obama, not very black. things are beyond parody,
Dean
May 17, 2015 at 12:19 am
‘Not very black’? Who are you to be the arbiter of who is and who isn’t black, or how much blackness is sufficient? As far as I know, both his parents were black from a long line of black people. His father was actually a candidate for a state governor in Nigeria when he was killed in a car accident, while his mother is the daughter of a NIgerian HIgh Court judge, who was (as far as I know) black. According to Socialist Unity the reason why he pulled out was because he couldn’t make the requisite number of nominations, as he is not very popular in the PLP. As well as being a total arse.
Sue R
May 17, 2015 at 9:01 am
My bad, Chuckie has a white mother, a member of the Establishment ie his grandfather was a Sir and a great uncle was the leading libel lawyer of his day. He is a member of the Milmo family. Interestingly, the article in the Telegraph that I read did not explain how a penniless Nigerian immigrant met and married a woman from a upper-middle class family. Was his mother involved in African solidarity movements back I the 60s or was it through the Church? And, how did his father end up becoming very rich? What business was he in?
Sue R
May 17, 2015 at 9:27 am
The candidate did not get zero votes. The council declared he got zero but growing numbers in Rainham north are declaring they voted for this candidate…the problem here isn’t tusc receiving low votes..it’s a Tory council who have lost people’s votes.
Btw. There are a number of factual errors in the star article.
Ntk
May 17, 2015 at 2:26 pm
Here we go again …
“Election leaflets for Independent Mayoral candidate Rabina Khan are being delivered inside Tower Hamlets Homes newsletters across Wapping.
The leaflets urging residents of the Green Bank Estate in Wapping E1W to ‘Vote Rabina Khan for Mayor of Tower Hamlets’ were neatly folded inside the Tower Hamlets Homes leaflet.
Rabina Khan was (is?) the Cabinet member for Housing and Development and so responsible for Tower Hamlets Homes (THH) during the Lutfur Rahman administration.
Although hundreds of Rabina Khan’s election leaflets have been pushed through letterboxes on the Green Bank inside the THH leaflets when Love Wapping asked the gentlemen for a leaflet in person we were only given a Tower Hamlets Home leaflet.”
http://lovewapping.org/2015/05/rabina-khans-election-leaflets-delivered-inside-thh-newsletter/
Paul Canning
May 17, 2015 at 6:48 pm
Counterfire are taking the opposite view, they are all for Rubina Khan. I think if she gets in, then she should give Counterfire a second chance at setting up and recreating a left wing coffee shop in Tower Hamlets. The Firebox cafe only went bust because of capitalism, and it is unfair of people to say ‘ well, Counterfire couldn’t even run a bloody Cafe, those stupid Trots etc, because everybody deserves a second chance. after all, in politics, and bangladeshi people will know this more than anyone, nobody does anything unless they get something out of it. A second chance at setting up a cafe must be what Counterfire are getting out of it.
Dean
May 18, 2015 at 7:36 pm
Excellent point – a caff with a Mayor attached.
What could be more appealing than that?
Andrew Coates
May 19, 2015 at 9:10 am
A closed caff with an ex-Mayor attached, possibly?
daggi
May 19, 2015 at 5:31 pm
They’re still banging on …
“Mr Dennis’ agent, Alec Price said: “We’re an anti-austerity party and it appears Medway Council’s austerity policies have disenfranchised every TUSC voter in Rainham North. By overstretching staff at a chaotic count, Medway Council have failed in their fundamental duty to ensure that every vote counts. This raises serious questions about the democratic process. No-one knows how many ballots have not been counted“.
This does not just affect TUSC however, if Paul is missing his votes who else might be missing theirs?”
https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/justice-for-paul-dennis-rainham-north-medway
Citizen Smith has moved to Medway.
Paul Canning (@pauloCanning)
May 25, 2015 at 3:49 pm