UK By-Election & The UK Left

[farleft]

A by-election is coming up in Barnsley Central, there are 9 candidates standing and none of them are left-wing, not even the Greens are standing.

Candidates:
Lib Dems
Labour
Tory
UKIP
BNP
Independent
Independent
English Dems
Monster Raving Loony Party

Barnsley is a working class place so why no left-wing candidates?

Is the left in the UK being 'left' behind?

[Comrade Wolfie's Very Nearly Banned Adventures]

A by-election is coming up in Barnsley Central, there are 9 candidates standing and none of them are left-wing, not even the Greens are standing.

Candidates:
Lib Dems
Labour
Tory
UKIP
BNP
Independent
Independent
English Dems
Monster Raving Loony Party

Barnsley is a working class place so why no left-wing candidates?

Is the left in the UK being 'left' behind?

Any true revolutionary would not use elections as a mesure of success.

[Q]

Elections are a tactic in that they provide the left with a nice platform, expose the crap of government, can build an opposition. So yes, the fact that the left is outdone by a formation called the "Monster Raving Loony Party" is a sad reflection in the mirror indeed.

[scarletghoul]

Yeah my constituency is the same, no left candidate at all. this is why most people dont give a fuck about politics; its nothing to do with 'apathy', its that the vast majority of politicians actively oppose the common man and people can see thgat

obviously we the leftn should not see electoral politics as the be all and end all of politics, but we should certainly be more engaged in the political process and should be reaching out to the masses

[Comrade Wolfie's Very Nearly Banned Adventures]

If you take part in electoral politics you legitamize a corrupt and oppressive system.

[scarletghoul]

If you take part in electoral politics you legitamize a corrupt and oppressive system.
There is a big difference in taking part in elections as part of a wider subversive strategy and seeing electoral politics as the entirety of political struggle. As long as it is viewed as a means, and not an end, then participation is fine.

[Comrade Wolfie's Very Nearly Banned Adventures]

There is a big difference in taking part in elections as part of a wider subversive strategy and seeing electoral politics as the entirety of political struggle. As long as it is viewed as a means, and not an end, then participation is fine.

Perhaps, but I still feel that participation in bourgeois politics lends such systems an undue ligitimacy.