Dear readers,
I am seventy six years of age and Labour Party member for over fifty years on and off, I sometimes resigned on some principal or other, but always returned the party. I was born in 1937 just before the outbreak of the war was evacuated to Devon a long with my sister, who was eight at the time. Not a good time for us and having lost our farther to leukaemia, who was a coal trimmer at the London electricity board in Stepney in East London, being so young never having the joy of a fathers love we were taken away from the family until the end of the war. My sister and I returned to find our mother had remarried to a friend of my fathers who had lost his wife, so we returned to a new father and four new brothers and sisters. I wish I could say it was 'happy ever after' but my mother lost her sight when I was thirteen. So sisters Mary, Kathleen, my brother John and I cared for her until her death. My youth was nothing to be proud of, in and out of all kinds of trouble until I meet a guy named Freddy Lake. This man was to have a profound effect on my life I was working at a waste paper company on the Isle of Dogs shipping waste paper over to Europe. He was a driver, driving all over London and I was asked if I would like to be the drivers mate, so I said yes 'Happy Days'. Fred had served in the war and was at Normandy fighting through Europe. As we drove around London and with the war only won four years earlier the talk was of battles won and lost and that young people like me must never see the likes of them times again. Talk was always about peace and politics and that the only way is 'Socialism', I was hooked. I was called up for National Service, also not a happy time serving in Northern Ireland, Germany and Cyprus during 1955/77, army life was never for me. I returned to Civvy Street where I meet Maureen, we married and I retuned to loading ships. I later joined the Ford Motor Company and stayed there twenty two years. I was already a union member of the TGWU and was shop steward for janitors Engine Plant then moved to Soft Trim Shop and was a Steward for sewing machinists in 1982, successful in girls winning their grading grievances battle. Time to move on, I took early retirement, bought a small van and took work has a courier. I was asked to stand in a by election for Labour in Eastbury Ward, then a Liberal ward, where I over turned a former majority of 128 and lost by for votes. 2006/10 we won two seats, and by 2010 we took all three seat. However in 2013 i was 'DUMPED'. I feel I still have something to give.
Dear Friends
I write this letter with a heavy heart. I have been a member of the labour party for over fifty years, but there comes a time when you wonder if the party that you joined all those years ago still stand for the principals today has they did all those years ago.
In those eight years I have seen a change that has come over the Barking Labour Party. In 1994 Margret Hodge was selected to represent Barking, I wish to make it clear that I have the highest regard for Margret and the work that she is carrying out on the Public Accounts Committee. But I am sorry to say that Margret has paid more attention to her national persona and less time in theconstituency by taking this stand she has missed what is going on in her absence The Barking Labour Party is I believe is being overtaken by a group of members who wish to take the Barking Labour Party on a path with a different political agenda and I wish to be no part of the way this group iscontrolling the Barking Labour Party. In the 2010 election we saw good local party members deselected for no good reasons simple because they had reached a certain age it seem “you are surplus to requirement” only to be replaced by persons who had not been in the Barking Labour Partyvery long, I myself was deselected but later allowed a rerun because two member of the selection committeewere found wanting one was found to be out of compliance and the other was a lapsed member, later the selection was rerun with different party members and I was reselected to stand for Eastbury Ward. I intend to leave the Labour Party and l intend to stand has a Socialist Labour Party Councillor for Eastbury Ward in the 2014 council elections.
Jim Mc Dermott
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As you can see its becoming more and more clear to Labour Party members that the party that used to stand for working class rights and socialism no longer does so. It's also becoming known that attempting to try and change it from within is also a lost cause. The socialist body that was once known as the Labour Party is long dead and lying in a state of decay, it may look like its heart is beating and chest is breathing but in reality all that's inside causing its body to move are the maggots of the higher class 'new labour' feasting and growing fat from the remnants of a working class party.
The capitalist owners of this country was scared of working class power and so their only option of truly defeating the workers was to poison the workers party and mould it into yet another party for the ruling class, doing so strengthening their grasp on power and dominance over the workers.
This however will not happen with the SLP, because we stand firm, we stand as militants and we always stand in solidarity amongst the worlds working class.
No war but class war!
¡Hasta la Victoria Siempre!
Thatcher said her proudest achievement was New Labour, and Tory Blair's eulogy to her proved her point. 'Progress' should be removed from the Labour Party and there should be more pressure at the grass roots level to get rid of 'career politicians' at all levels. If the SLP affiliated itself with Left Unity and other Socialist groups to end the fragmentation of the Socialist left, I believe we could see the rebirth of a Nye Bevan generation. New Labour is governed (like the other two parties) by a false faith in neoliberalism. Most of our politicians are from priviliged backgrounds and, as a consequence, indoctrinated into this bogus economic model with no reference to any alternatives. We have to find common ground with all the other Socialist groups and unite. Fragmented we're weak, which was Thatcher's goal. But, as had been said many times, there are more of us than there are of them!
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