Workers Party media release
When election time comes around every three years it seems that there is never any shortage of people on the left busy telling workers that they have to be ‘realistic’ and lower their horizons to whatever crumb is on offer in the electoral circus.
The object of the exercise becomes not how to advance an alternative to the existing system but how to soften the blows within the existing system (although that didn’t work too well in 1984 when the left urged people to vote Labour and the blows got ten times worse).
The Workers Party says that it’s precisely that approach that has gotten us in the sorry, weak situation the left is in today in NZ (and throughout the First World).
If all the energy that has gone into propping up rotten Labour parties over the years went into creating a real alternative (not recreating Old Labour, but creating an anti-capitalist alternative), the working class and the left would be a lot closer to winning the war.
In the meantime, serious leftists perpetuating a situation in which Labour is perceived as the only possibility is not helpful to workers ever advancing beyond an acceptance that only crumbs can ever be on offer.
The Workers Party believes that there has to be a break with Labour and it has to be a complete break with Labour – not one that lasts 35 months and then, as soon as an election looms, is put aside – if workers’ liberation is ever going to be on the agenda. Otherwise we just keep going round and round in cycles of Labour and National.
Party vote Workers Party on November 8 – because workers should be running the country!