Local Trade Unionists Stand for Parliament

Voters in the Vauxhall constituency of London will get the chance to vote for socialist alternatives to New Labour in May, with two trade unionists running against Labour MP Kate Hoey.

Jeremy Drinkall from Workers Power will be standing on an anticapitalist manifesto, saying on the streets and doorsteps that ordinary people should not pay for an economic crisis caused by the rich.

Jeremy, who is a teaching assistant at a local school, plays an active role as a Unison shop steward in Lambeth. He has taken part in local efforts to protect council housing and is on the steering committee of the national Right to Work campaign which fights against unemployment. Jeremy has long contributed to the work of Lambeth Activists in the local community.

Joseph Healy has been elected by Lambeth Green Party to stand as the Parliamentary Candidate for the Vauxhall Constituency at the next general election.

He is currently Male Co-Convenor of Green Left, the ecosocialist, anti-capitalist platform within the Green Party. He is also the Green Party's delegate to the Stop the War Coalition and an active anti-war campaigner. Joseph has also supported the work of Lambeth Activists, and indeed joined Local Government workers on the picket lines at Brixton Town Hall in 2008. He is also an active member of Unison.

We hope that residents of Vauxhall consider voting for one of these candidates with the aim of building a strong and democratic socialist movement in Lambeth, independent of political and industrial elites.

Whilst trade union bureaucrats are still trying to trick workers into voting for yet more job, pay and service cuts under Labour, Vauxhall residents can now use their vote to protect public services, the environment and the rights of trade unions to organise.