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On Saturday the Socialist Equality Party campaigned in Holborn and St Pancras with a stall on Camden Road. Tom Scripps, 28, is challenging Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer and is the only candidate advancing asocialist programmefor workers and young people againstcapitalism and war.

Hundreds of copies of the SEPelection manifesto were distributed outside Sainsburys and near Aldi on Camden High Street. The SEP is fielding Scripps in London and 25-year-old Darren Paxton in Inverness to build a socialist anti-war movement based on the international working class.

The SEPs election statement alerts the working class to NATOplans to escalate their proxy-war in Ukraine into a direct military confrontation with Russia: The SEP is using this election to break the conspiracy of silence maintained by the capitalist media, the major parties, the trade unions and what passes for the left over the acute dangers facing the working class. We intend to build a socialist alternative.

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Dozens of workers, youth and retireesstopped and spoke with SEP campaigners. The stall, with its large placards denouncing Labours support for the Gaza genocide and NATOs proxy-war in Ukraine, attracted interest throughout the day, despite heavy rain at times.

Mali, a self-employed worker, pointed to the SEPs election manifesto and said, The first thing I agreed with when I saw you was no to the Gaza war and build an anti-war movement. That is why I am supporting Tom. I dont know his background, but I believe in those words. I believe in justice in the world, and peace in the world.

The people who are dying in Gaza and Ukraine are the same people. The Americans are pushing the western countries into war. I agree there is a connection to the war in Gaza and Ukraine.

Mali has attended all the mass protests in London against Israels slaughter in Gaza. He linked Britains support for genocide to thecriminalisation of protest and free speech: Democratic rights includes the right to say what you want. These protests are not antisemitic as they are saying. If you look at many of the normal Israeli peopleIm not talking about the Netanyahu government, but the peoplethey are against the war. They dont want anything to do with genocide.

I agree that Starmer is just as much a war criminal. I dont know any more of any difference between the Labour and Conservative parties.

Mali took some of the manifestos to share with his family and friends.

A young workertoldSEP campaigners, I have been to all the marches on Gaza, and I was shocked, shocked when Keir Starmer, my MP, agreed that Israel had the right to stop Palestinians receiving water and food. Starmer is a lawyer and knows human rights, and he has broken humanitarian rights so much.

He led what was in effect a coup against Jeremy Corbyn in the Labour Party yet Corbyn being nice is also his biggest downfall. He would not fight them.

I work seven days a week with only a morning off. I am for the whole political set-up to be swept away and replaced with a socialist society where what is needed is given. I am interested in this campaign.

Hawie, a musician from Camden, took a copy of the SEPs election manifesto and told an SEP volunteer: I havent heard that take before, about the mobilisation toward war with Russia. Im following lefty discussion all over the place, on Twitter, YouTube discussion, I havent heard anything like that before.

There seems to be a lot of talk around allowing Ukraine to strike territory inside Russia, and possibly other countries such as Poland, so everythings moving toward escalation. Ill have a look at your website certainly. I wasnt planning to vote Labour, and I was thinking that Feinstein was a good alternative, but maybe Ill think again.

Hawiehad supported Corbyn as leader of the Labour Partyin 2015: I was pleased that someone seemed to be steering the Labour Party back in the direction worthy of its name, closer to its origins coming out of the labour movement. He described Starmers Stalinist tactics in purging thousands of left-wing members from the party. But he was also critical of Corbyn for leaning into that and refusing to challenge his attackers. He should never have given in to the Labour Party.

The campaign team encountered widespread opposition to the Gaza genocide, but there was little awareness of NATOs push for direct military confrontation against Russia. Several young people expressed surprise at the Zelensky regimes imprisonment of our comrade, the Ukrainian socialist Bogdan Syrotiuk for opposing the war.

I thought Zelensky was in favour ofdemocracy, a youth said in surprise, after an SEP member explained his role incancelling elections, arresting youth for resisting the draft, imprisoning left-wing opponents, banning strikes and promoting fascist wartime leaders such as Stepan Bandera, who played a leading role in the Holocaust.

He took a leaflet and expressedsupport for Bogdans struggle for the unity of Russian and Ukrainian workers against the war.

Outside Aldi, an SEP member was confronted by an angry member of the public who mistook us for the Labour Party. He demanded to know why Labour had supported members of Ukrainesfascist Azov battalion being invited into the UK parliament.

An SEP campaigner quickly explained our opposition to the Labour Party, but said he was right to be alarmed over Labourspromotion of fascists. He took a manifesto and said he would read it with interest.

Outside Sainsburys the SEP encountered volunteers campaigning for Independent Andrew Feinstein and handing out flyers. One of their campaign managers approached us and accused the SEP of splitting the left vote before walking off.

Feinsteins election flyer and website does not mention the word socialist, while the Gaza genocide is referencedjust once, as a call for divestment by Camden Council.

While Feinstein is runningas an Independent, he represents the Collective group formed last month by supporters of Jeremy Corbyn and self-billed as the first organised mass movement of the left outside ofthe Labour Party.

Until recently a member of the Labour Party,Feinsteinholds up as his model Corbyns leadership of the Labour Party and bases his programme on the five demands of Corbyns Peace and Justice Project: a pay rise for all, green new deal with public ownership, housing for all, tax the rich to save the NHS and welcome refugees in a world free from war.

Election leaflets produced by Feinstein in the constituency promote a crass anti-political party localism and municipal politics, with statements such as, An Independent candidate serves only local people, not political party agendas and I want Camden to thrive again.

Such a perspective conceals the implications of imperialist genocide and war, austerity and the rise of the far-rightprocesses rooted in the breakdown of world capitalism, radicalising millions of workers and young people around the world and demanding a political solution fought for by a socialist party.

LikeCorbyns election platform in neighbouring Islington North, Feinsteins campaign is calibrated to appeal to popular hostility toward Labours right-wing programme, while blocking a socialist and revolutionary challenge to capitalism by the working class.

His sole reference to Starmer is not that he supports genocide and should be tried as a war criminal, but that he views residents as a stepping stone to power. Feinstein concludes, We deserve an MP who is active locally and shares our moral values.

The SEP is intervening in the British general elections to politically educate the working class and youth in the struggle against war and for socialism, in direct opposition to the pro-capitalist politics of Andrew Feinstein and the Corbynite left. We urge workers and youth everywhere to read our election manifesto andjoin the SEPs campaign.

WSWS Review

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This review examines the response of pseudo-left political tendencies internationally to the major world political events of the past decade.

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Socialist Equality Party election campaign wins support in Holborn and St Pancras, London - WSWS