KitNotes

I have been reading the Workers’ Liberty pamphlet “How To Fight Elections”. It it essentially the story of Lol Duffy, a supporter of Socialist Organiser (the forerunner to the AWL) who stood as the official Labour candidate in Wallasey, Merseyside in the 1987 elections. Lol came within 250 votes of ousting Lynda Chalker, the then Tory minister.

It is an inspirational story of how Marxists, with a well-organised, firmly rooted and imaginative campaign, coupled with real working class, socialist ideas, can connect with working class people and make a real difference. Lol’s campaign reached into workers in struggle - Lol himself was a sacked shipyard worker who was sent down for defying the anti-TU laws brought in by the Tories. It reached out to unemployed workers by calling on them to help “put Chalker on the dole.”

Many said that Lol’s support for SO and his Marxism would put voters off. Even fellow Labour Party members - including the neighbouring Labour MP Frank Field refused to support a democratically selected Labour candidate (if a left-Labour candidate did the same to a right winger, that lefty would be out sooner than you can say Peter Kilfoyle). Lol and the comrades proved them wrong, by generating the biggest swing to Labour in the 1987 election, and seeing a near-doubling of membership in Wallasey Labour Party.

Working people identified with Lol, mainly because he stood for working class socialism, a real socialist alternative to the attacks of the Tories. Lol’s campaign wasn’t a passive leaflet fest, but sought not to just win peoples’ votes, but also to activism. It wasn’t Lol’s campaign, but Wallasey’s campaign.

The lessons of the Lol Duffy campaign are relevant now, more than ever. They are relevant to the SSP, as they regroup after the Sheridan split. They are relevant to the John McDonnell campaign. It is a shame, therefore, that the AWL have not published the pamphlet online (since I assume it is out of print). This should be corrected as a matter of urgency.