Socialist Party of Great Britain candidate Bill Martin on their London Assembly platform

Part of a promotion leaflet for the Socialist Party

You’re being asked to vote in the London elections for an Assembly that will watch a Mayor ask a government to ask the people who own the country for the money to run the region.

They will only get that money on terms that will help the owners keep on owning and making profits.

Confusing, isn’t it?

This is a long way from democracy.

In London 200,000 people are unemployed. Half a million work for less than a living wage. Nearly 5 million people spend their lives working on behalf of the owners, making their profits and the money that the politicians try to beg out of them.

That is about 9 billion hours of work done in London each year.

But we are not benefitting from all that hard work. The rewards go to the employers, the owners, the already wealthy who are first in every queue and whose interests always come before those of the working majority.

If instead we owned the world in common, that amount of work could go directly to improving the lives of the people without needing to send leaders to ask for scraps.

Democracy would extend into our daily lives and we could have meaningful control of our workplaces and communities.

We wouldn’t need leaders. We’d all be decision-makers.

Creating this common ownership depends on the conscious decision of the majority of people to work and co-operate in their own interest. No leader could bring this about for you. Only you, your neighbours and colleagues could make it happen.

We are standing candidates in this election, not to become bosses or administrators in the owners’ empire, but to enable you to send a message to your neighbours and colleagues that you want a world of common ownership and democratic control.

Bill Martin is one of six candidates for the Barnet and Camden constituency along with current assembly member Anne Clarke for Labour, Lib Dem Scott Emery, Conservative Julie Redmond, Green Kate Tokley and Reform UK’s Raj Forhad.

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