Greens select SWP watermelon for Wythenshawe & Sale East

The Green Party have selected a typical watermelon (green on the outside, red on the inside) as their candidate for the Wythenshawe & Sale East by-election. Further education lecturer (what else) Nigel Woodcock is their man of choice who wrote this letter to Socialist Worker, in which he said:



Nigel Woodcock, Green Party
watermelon candidate

In Marxist terms, society is divided into two basic classes. Most of us are forced to sell our labour, so we are working class. The distance between the working class and the “middle class” is tiny when compared to that between the broad mass of people and the ruling elite.....We have a critique of capitalism and elite power. The Green Party is one where socialists can operate. It is misleading to say that we believe in “individualistic solutions” to the problems we face. Solutions must be collective and must start with global economic justice....This is not instead of collective solutions based on mass movements and redistribution of wealth, but as well as. We do not believe that the SWP advocates wastefulness or other unethical behaviour from its members....We have a bright future ahead of us and hope to be key players in creating a society with a redistributive agenda. We’d like to be alongside you in this struggle.

Quite apart from his support for the rape apologists at the SWP, he also administers an anti-Sun newspaper Facebook group. Other interesting Facebook groups he belongs to include a whole host of vegan and vegetarian groups - no wonder he looks like he needs a decent steak - and the Morning Star reader's group: the Morning Star being the UK's communist daily newspaper. Interestingly, he also belongs to the EDL group, but I dare say we won't see Hope not Hate attacking him for that.

On Twitter, he follows (of course) the SWP, UAF, Socialist Resistance, Green Left and a host of other extreme left wing causes.

What could local resident expect if they were to defy common sense and elect a true working class hero from, erm, Maidenhead in Berkshire? There's a group on Facebook called 'We want a congestion charge in Manchester'. Woodcock is the sole member.

We can only suppose that the Green Party had little choice but to choose Woodcock. He's the only Green Party member north of Watford with a job, and those deposits are hard to come by for elections!

Green Party and former Labour Cllr Ian Driver - revolutionary socialist - at Margate demo

In Margate, it wasn't just Labour.

Meet Thanet Green Party councillor - and prospective parliamentary candidate - Ian Driver.

Driver is a what many Greens turn out to be: a watermelon. Green on the outside, red on the inside. Previously the publisher of a blog called 'Red Thanet'. Naturally, he also has close links to the Labour Party, having been elected originally as a Labour councillor. A supporter of Revolutionary Socialism, he is a close associate of Bunny la Roche who is pictured next to him: she is a member of the SWP, CPGB, UAF and supports the rapist lead Love Music, Hate Racism campaign. She was a speaker at a UAF meeting organised in Margate, heading the bill with Labour councillor Will Scobie.

Here's what a Thanet local by the name of Tom Clarke had to say about Ian Driver on a blog:

"Quite incredibly, Ian Driver, on his own Red Thanet blog, talks of snouts in troughs because councillors may hold office at severalk levels. Well, if we just discount the value of progressive experience for the moment, let us examine Driver's own record.

He stands for Ramsgate Town and Thanet District councils for Labour, thus becoming a double hatter in his terminology and securing himself some £4,000 a year in the process. He then turns his back on Labour, having used their machine to get the seat and allowance, but promptly sells his soul and his vote at TDC back to them again in return for a chairmanship carrying another £8,000 per year. That secured, he then turns his back on Labour yet again and decides to run against them in the KCC elections.

Is this really a man the electorate can trust and is his snout not equally in the trough. Think about it and his grand jesture to resign his Ramsgate and Thanet seats, costing us further elections in the process, why not resign now? Why didn't he resign either the Ramsgate Town or Thanet Dist5ict seats earlier if he feels so righteous about double hatters. Then, and this is the big one, what is his chance of taking the Ramsgate KCC seat or will he just split the Labour vote, he is. after all, unlikely to take any from the Tories. Hence his grand jesture is just the usual posturing or have we already forgotten what he was going to do as Kent's Police Commissioner and then could not even raise the deposit.

Since many of the anonymous commentators mark me down as a Tory, you would think I would be happy to see Driver splitting the Labour support in Ramsgate. Wrong, I would be much happier to see clowns and chancers like this one totally out of local politics."