forget the lesser evil and fight for the greater good: 10 election candidates I’d happily vote for

This morning something extraordinary happened. I am not exaggerating to say that it was literally unprecedented. Are you ready…?

This dropped through my letterbox (ugly side up):

At first sight it might appear to be an ordinary (if tacky) Labour Party leaflet, but don’t be too quickly deceived. Look closely, especially towards at the lower edges. Yep, it’s Conservative all right, just projecting itself deliberately on to Keir Starmer’s stiffly looming shadow.

Now the shock is not that Conservatives are negatively campaigning – they tried the same trick during the run up to the 1997 general election prior to Tony Blair’s first election victory. Their notorious “New Labour, New Danger” advertising campaign posters with Blair’s demonic eyes turned out to be truer than anyone cared to believe:

So the real shock is simply this. Conservatives do not leaflet here. Never, ever. Because Sheffield Central, like the rest of this fine city, is an entirely Tory-free zone. So they don’t bother us, because there’s actually no point.

Quite frankly, it is difficult even to imagine how they found someone bothered enough to carry their leaflets from door-to-door. It’s a hard enough task when you have campaign volunteers, and the Tories do not. So I wonder if the candidate herself lugged them around.

But what it finally shows is an unimaginable level of desperation. And judging from the dubious design, I can only imagine they think a few potential voters might misread their leaflet and inadvertently connect the name of their own candidate with the Labour Party by mistake. Total desperation, as I say.

Meanwhile, I see almost no Labour posters up in windows, or Lib Dem – although Liberals tend to be more demonstrative when it comes to displaying their electoral colours with those oddly annoying “winning here” signs propped up next to an impeccably clean-cut hedge. All Liberals have gardens, of course. It just goes with the territory.

Liberals aside – and staunch Liberals are political weirdos almost by definition – there is no appetite for this election at all. No-one really believes in any of the major parties. Instead there’s just a widespread longing to get rid of the most corrupt and incompetent government in living memory. To ditch the Tories forever – hurrah! And to replace them with what…?

In the most horrendous British general election I’ve ever known, such universal loathing of the Tories is all that seemingly unites us. Besides our unfair and anti-democratic first-past-the-post electoral system (which maintains the increasingly fragile two-party dominance), it is the sole reason Labour suddenly enjoys the prospect of a landslide victory. A still viler rerun of Blair’s landslide win back in 1997 with a result that truly ‘broke the mould of British politics‘ by upholding Thatcher’s neoliberalism and bringing perpetual war. The politics of death.

Yet, in stark contrast to Blair, who undoubtedly had charisma and who offered a modicum of (false) hope, the insufferably plastic control-freak Starmer offers us nothing at all. Indeed, I’ve failed to meet anyone who strongly approves this latest and most insidious New New Labour pro-austerity, pro-war, pro-genocide hybrid. However, in order to get rid of the Tories, some people say to me (not many, but still a diehard handful of Labourites) what’s the alternative?

Well, here’s my answer. The Tories are toast. However, a Labour landslide under Keir Starmer is an outcome we ought to fear rather than celebrate or endorse. It will bring more austerity, more privatisation, more war, more misery and still greater lurch of the so-called political centre over to the extreme right. So vote independent left and don’t be too fussy.

At this critical moment, as people struggle to pay for food, as society as a whole is crumbling away, and the forever wars are forever expanding, political purity tests become an intolerable hindrance. What matters are not small differences of ideology, but the overall stance on key issues, past commitment to real causes, and track records. Now is not the time to get hung up on personalities and wedge issues.

Naturally we should back Jeremy Corbyn [see here], and Andrew Feinstein [here] who is fighting Starmer directly, but more importantly, we cannot lend further support to candidates who are quite literally enabling a real-time genocide.

We have to draw a firm line in the sand. If not now, then when…?

In fact, how did we ever come to this dire situation? By voting for the lesser evils, so reliably and repeatedly that they have taken our votes for granted. Why then, on the basis of past performance, would anyone give up their vote so cheaply again? And given such callous disregard for Palestinian lives, what makes you actually believe they care about any lives at all?

In this election, forget the lesser evil and fight for the greater good! A slogan I must confess that I stole directly from US Presidential Green Party candidate Jill Stein. Someone else I feel quite comfortable endorsing. (And gold is where you find it!)

In short, get behind the most electable and serious amongst the independent left, anti-genocide candidates including George Galloway and others standing under the banner of the Workers Party, but not overlooking alternative left independents. And do not go gentle into the political night with bent-knee ballot-box offerings to the unspeakable Starmerites.

Finally, this is my list of ten less well-known WP or independent left candidates who may also deserve your consideration and support.

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1. Chris Williamson – Derby South

Chris Williamson was Labour MP for Derby North (2010–2015 and 2017–2019). He served as Shadow Minister for Communities and Local Government from Oct 2010 – Oct 2013. As a close colleague of Jeremy Corbyn, he was targeted and during the Labour ‘antisemitism’ witchhunt, and was subsequently suspended from the party.

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2. Craig Murray – Blackburn

Craig Murray is the former British ambassador to Uzbekistan (2002–2004). As a whistleblower, he exposed the violations of human rights by the Karimov administration, including forensic evidence that political opponents had been boiled to death. These allegations brought him inevitably into conflict with his superiors at the FCO and ended with his sacking from the post. In response, during the May 2005 general election, he stood as an independent in Blackburn, against his former Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, who was the then-Labour MP for the constituency.

During this current election, Craig Murray has been subjected to a bizarre vote-splitting campaign against his candidacy. He writes on his website:

“When I stood in Blackburn against foreign secretary Jack Straw in 2005 as an anti-Iraq war candidate, Jack Straw’s campaign manager was Ibrahim Master. He is now the campaign manager of ‘Independent’ candidate, vote-splitter Adnan Hussain.

This is him on the right campaigning with Adnan.

When I attended a meeting with Adnan until 2.30am three nights ago to try to resolve the vote split that could let Labour back in, Ibrahim Master was in the meeting as Adnan’s second, and did much of the talking.

Jack Straw was the Foreign Secretary personally responsible for the war in Iraq and the death of a million Iraqis, with the blatant lies about Iraqi WMD which he personally told as Foreign Secretary.

Yet in 2005 Master openly campaigned for Straw on the basis that the war in Iraq was not important in Blackburn.

Craig Murray speaking with independent journalist Richard Medhurst:

You can reach Craig Murray at his official website or contact him at this email address: craigmurrayforblackburn@gmail.com.

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3. Chris Bradburn – North Durham

Chris Bradburn, an engineer based in Stanley, decided to stand as a Workers Party candidate in North Durham after Labour parachuted in Luke Akehurst, who has no connection with the constituency but a very close affiliation to the Israel lobby that includes being director of We Believe in Israel (as disclosed by Al Jazeera’s investigative series ‘The Labour Files’).

In 2022, asked directly if he believed the United Nations was antisemitic because its security council had said that “Israel’s establishment of settlements in Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem, had no legal validity”, Akehurst responded: “Yes.”

Elsewhere, in posts on social media which are still live, Akehurst has claimed that video footage appearing to show child victims of an attack on Al Shifa hospital in Gaza was “staged”.

Click here to read more in an article entitled “Luke Akehurst: Labour pick ‘extremist’ Israel lobbyist for safe seat” published by The National on May 30^th.

You can donate to Chris’s campaign via this crowdfunder: https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/chris-bradburn-for-north-13-9e/backers#start

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4. Tanushka Marah – Hove & Portslade

With a wealth of experience working with communities across the Brighton and Hove area, Tanushka will bring some real values back into politics. As a community theatre director, Tanushka has spent her life listening to people. Now she is ready to take your voice to Westminster.

To volunteer for Tanushka’s campaign, contact tanushkamarahcampaign@gmail.com

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5. Shockat Adam – Leicester South

Meet Shockat Adam, the new MP for Leicester South – or very likely to be. Shockat has been preparing for the election since January and he has the people of Leicester South behind him. Hear how Shockat plans to deliver change and to represent the voice of constituents in Westminster.

If you’d like to volunteer: contact@shockatadam.org | 07592 101 371

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6. Jabu Nala-Hartley – Oxford East

Jabu Nala-Hartley is a former Oxford councillor who was brought up under apartheid in South Africa. She has inspired thousands of people with her rousing speeches at National Demonstrations for Palestine. Here she talks about what led to her standing as an Independent candidate in Oxford East, where she is taking on Labour MP Anneliese Dodds, who abstained on a vote for a ceasefire in Gaza.

Jadu’s crowdfunder is here: http://jabucampaign.uk

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7. Jody McIntyre – Birmingham Yardley

Jody McIntyre has put himself forward to stand in Birmingham Yardley against Jess Phillips. He says: “I was shocked and dismayed to discover that our local MP in Birmingham Yardley, Jess Phillips, is a member of Labour Friends of Israel. For the last six months, we have witnessed tens of thousands of innocent men, women, and children in Gaza being brutally murdered. Yet at the same time, our local representative, Jess Phillips, is a ‘friend of Israel’. This is unconscionable.”

To donate to Jody’s campaign, please follow this link: https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/jodymcintyre

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8. Alexander Martin – Edinburgh South

Independent candidate Alexander Martin explains his reason for standing as a candidate in Edinburgh South against Shadow Secretary of State for Scotland, Ian Murray, who left a corporate dinner to vote against a ceasefire in Gaza.

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9. Leanne Mohamad – Ilford North

Leanne Mohamad is the granddaughter of Palestinian refugees, who were expelled by militias during the Nakba of 1948. She is standing against one of Keir Starmer’s key allies, the current Shadow Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, Wes Streeting. She says: “Gaza has brought about an awakening, now we have to use our rage and bring it to the ballot box”.

Labour’s shadow health secretary has a long history of supporting Israel going back to his days at the National Union of Students—and has been rewarded handsomely for it.

Writes Matt Kennard in an article published by Declassified UK on June 4^th, which details at length how Wes Streeting, who described the ICJ case against Israel as a “distraction”, has been financed to the tune of £30,000 by the Israel lobby. The same piece also reminds us that:

[Streeting] accepted £175,000 in donations from companies linked to private healthcare, raising concerns that he would further privatise Britain’s National Health Service (NHS).

For more information about Leanne Mohamad visit her official campaign website: https://www.leannemohamad.co.uk/about

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10. Pamela Fitzpatrick – Harrow East

Pamela Fitzpatrick was a Labour councillor in Harrow for many years and was Labour’s parliamentary candidate for Harrow East in the last General Election. Now she is standing as an Independent and is hopeful she can beat the sitting Labour MP, Gareth Thomas.

You can donate, volunteer or join Pamela’s campaign at http://pamelafitzpatrick4harrowwest.com