IWCA ELECTION RESULTS
6th May '02
|
Northfield Brook ward (2 seats)
|
||
| IWCA | 42.4% | 682 |
|
Lab |
44.4% | 714 |
| Lib Dems | 8% | 129 |
| Green | 5.1% | 82 |
| Turnout | 22.37% | |
| Total votes | 1607 | |
(Stuart Craft elected)
|
Blackbird Leys ward (2 seats)
|
||
| IWCA (only 1 candidate) | 13% | 197 |
| Lab | 71.1% | 1071 |
| Con (only 1 candidate) | 7.3% | 111 |
| Lib Dem | 3.5% | 53 |
| Green | 2.6% | 40 |
| Soc. All. (only 1 candidate) | 2.1% | 33 |
| Turnout | 22.56% | |
| Total votes | 1505 | |
|
Haggerston ward (3 seats)
|
||
| IWCA & Ind | 30.1% | 1709 |
|
Lab |
41.3% | 2343 |
| Con | 22.2% | 1259 |
| Lib Dem (only 1 candidate) | 4.7% | 270 |
| Christian (only 1 candidate) | 1.5% | 87 |
| Total votes | 5668 | |
| Turnout | 32.15% | |
|
Gooshays ward (3 seats)
|
||
| IWCA | 23.1% | 2469 |
| Lab | 40.2% | 4299 |
| Con | 24.4% | 2611 |
| Residents Assoc. | 12.1% | 1301 |
| Total votes | 10680 | |
| Turnout | 35.7% | |
|
Heaton ward (3 seats)
|
||
| IWCA | 27.8% | 2865 |
| Lab | 40.7% | 4189 |
| Con | 31.3% | 3216 |
| Total votes | 10270 | |
| Turnout | 38.3% | |
|
Clerkenwell ward (3 seats)
|
||
| IWCA & Ind | 26.6% | 1551 |
| Lib Dem | 42% | 2446 |
| Lab | 19% | 1110 |
| Con | 6.3% | 369 |
| Green (only 2 candidates) | 5.7% | 337 |
| Total | 5813 | |
| Turnout | 24.95% | |
5th May '02
Despite being registered as a political party for less than six months
the Independent Working Class Association (IWCA) scored it’s first electoral
success in the local elections, when Stuart Craft was elected Councillor
for Northfield Brook in Oxford. Stuart who stood in nearby ward of Blackbird
Leys as an independent last year saw his vote climb more than fourfold
from 9%. When the result was announced at the count, it was greeted with
stony silence by the previously jubilant New Labour ‘socialists’ who had
been singing an inadvertently bastardized version of the Red Flag.
Overall, the IWCA took 42% of the vote, knocking the other Labour candidate
into fourth place.
In nearby Blackbird Leys the IWCA also secured second place beating
the Tories and Greens along the way. Bringing up the rear was the Socialist
Alliance with 2.1% of the vote.
In the Haggerston ward of Hackney in east London, the IWCA ran Labour
close with one candidate Carl Taylor, coming within 90 votes of taking
a seat. In Hackney, the IWCA’s two candidates were joined by an independent
on a joint platform, taking over 30% of the overall vote.
In Clerkenwell ward in Islington the IWCA stood two candidates and recommended
the third vote went to an independent community activist. If Islington
is widely understood by the national media to represent loft-dweller heaven,
then Clerkenwell is its epitome.
For an organization with ‘working class’ in it’s title to stand there,
much less come second, displacing New Labour as the official opposition
in the process will send shock waves through the establishment locally.
Particularly when the 26.6% of the vote was secured from approximately
60% of the population, as a tactical decision had been taken not to mount
any campaign within the wealthy 40%. Among those in social housing, and
on the larger estates in particular, support for the IWCA is estimated
to be more than one in two of those voting. One woman told an IWCA supporter:
“I have never voted for anyone in my life but I am voting for you.”
Curiously, the ‘worst’ result of the IWCA is also arguably the most impressive.
In Havering, the IWCA branch, though in existence for less than 18 months,
put up an ambitious 6 candidates in two wards, Gooshays and Heaton. In
Gooshays they came a credible third behind the Labour and the Tories with
23% in a 35.7% turnout. Next door in Heaton the IWCA took a total of just
under 28%. But that is not the whole story. Far more impressive than the
placing or the percentages, is that across the two wards the IWCA secured
a total of 5,334 working class votes. What this shows is that the electoral
appeal of the IWCA is not determined by a low turn out, or the twist of
card in an obscure by-election. The local Tory candidate admitted as much.
“If you keep it up” he said “you will win it all in four years time.”
On more than one occasion last year we warned the left that ‘2002 would
be a watershed’. So it has proved. We also stated that the BNP would win
seats and that the IWCA would ‘do well’. We predicted these results would
‘define the political landscape’. While the national media has zeroed
in on the BNP, the potential of the IWCA as a natural rival has been absolutely
ignored. The Guardian in typical bumbling fashion listed Stuart Craft
as an ‘independent’. ‘The Independent’ in turn, though ostensibly dealing
with ‘independents’ managed to miss the Oxford result entirely. It can
also be expected that the IWCA showing will be rationalised and dismissed
by the conservative Left. It is richly ironic, particularly given the
brouhaha in the media, that the people least likely to be dismissive are
the strategists within the leadership of the BNP.
