Elections Follow

THE TWO parliamentary by-elections highlight the continuing centrality of Respect’s challenge to New Labour.

NEW LABOUR has called snap by-elections in Leicester South and Birmingham Hodge Hill for 15 July. The government is desperate to minimise the damage to its vote.

THE PEOPLE of east London made sure the London Assembly and European Parliament elections will go down in history. In a result that will have shocked establishment politicians right up to Tony Blair, Respect swept across the boroughs of Tower Hamlets and Newham.

THE LABOUR Party, the party of government for the past seven years, received its lowest share of the vote since the First World War in the 10 June elections. The Tory party, the oldest and most successful conservative party in any parliamentary democracy, suffered an effective split in its voting base as the UK Independence Party (UKIP) took many of its natural supporters.

ACCUMULATED BITTERNESS with Labour and alienation from the main parties burst out in last week's elections. For the first time more than half of those who voted did not back one of the two main parties.

TONY BLAIR has always sought his "place in history" and now he has achieved it-by steering Labour to one of its worst ever electoral perfomances. In last week's council elections Labour came third with just 24 percent. The European elections were, it is true, different. They were even worse. Here Labour polled only 23 percent.

THIS WEEK'S Socialist Worker is a must for everyone who has been involved in the Respect campaign or who voted Respect. It gives the results, the analysis and the arguments about the future that you will not read anywhere else. You can't rely on the BBC-they switched from the elections to Top Gear just as the European results were coming out!

The Respect vote around the country Lindsey German, Respect candidate for London mayor, wins fifth place-beating the British National Party and others London mayoral elections (first preferences)

THE ELECTIONS across Europe showed the same phenomenon-people punishing the government, whether it was centre right or centre left. In France the opposition Socialist Party took 30 percent of the vote as the right wing governing party of president Jacques Chirac slumped to 16.8 percent.

"ELECTIONS 2004. The year we break through." That was the boast on the Nazi British National Party's (BNP) website throughout the election. Instead they suffered a big setback last week. The BNP's leader Nick Griffin had invited the French Nazi Le Pen over to Britain in April to plan how they could work together when Griffin became MEP for the north west of England.

TONY BLAIR is trying to explain away Labour's humiliation in the 10 June elections by portraying it as a passing "protest vote" against the war in Iraq. He had been trying endlessly to "move on" from Iraq. Now New Labour is prepared to talk about the war-but only to dismiss the views of its opponents. Nevertheless, the government is now admitting that the Iraq war is a major reason for its unpopularity.

THE CONFERENCE of the PCS civil servants' union last week saw complete opposition to the New Labour government's plans for pay, job cuts and pensions. Over the last year the union has grown to 310,000 members from 292,000 last July. That's because we have fought over issues such as pay. The left overwhelmingly won recent elections to the national executive.