Socialist Labour Party (UK)

Arthur Scargill founded the Socialist Labour Party in 1996 as a reaction to Tony Blair's rewrite of Clause IV in the Labour Party's constitution a year earlier, seen as a final rejection of a commitment to socialism. The SLP advocates the public ownership of leading industries privatised under Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher during the 1980s, with the policy being maintained by her successor John Major and then advocated by Labour Party leader Tony Blair in his re-write of Clause IV.

In 2004, a purge of a Marxist-Leninist faction, the previously external Association of Communist Workers, over the issue of relations with North Korea, led to the formation of the Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist–Leninist).[11]

The party attracted trade union figures such as Mick Rix and Bob Crow.

So far the party's only councillors have been defectors from Labour. In early 2014, three Labour councillors in Barking and Dagenham joined the SLP [12] though subsequently all lost their seats in the 2014 United Kingdom local elections to Labour.[13] Currently the party has four councillors on Hartlepool Borough Council, all defectors from Labour.[10]

The Socialist Labour Party campaigned for Britain to leave the European Union during the 2016 United Kingdom European Union membership referendum. The party also advocated a unilateral withdrawal without invoking Article 50.[14]

House of Commons of the United Kingdom

Election year	# of total votes	% of overall vote	# of seats won
1997[15]	52,109	0.2%	0
2001[16]	57,288	0.2%	0
2005[17]	20,167	0.1%	0
2010[18]	7,196	0.0%	0
2015[19]	3,481	0.0%	0
2017[19]	1,154	0.0%	0
2019	494	0.0%	0

At the 2001 general election, the party took about 3% of the vote in seats where it stood candidates.

The party received its highest share of the vote in an individual constituency at the 2005 general election, when it gained 14.2% of the votes cast in Glasgow North East.

The Socialist Labour Party did not contest the 2004 European Parliament election, but fielded a full list of candidates for England, Scotland and Wales in the 2009 European Parliament election, where it took 173,115 votes, or 1.1% of the national vote.[20]

The Socialist Labour Party ran 23 candidates in the 2010 general election, who received a total of 7,196 votes, less than 0.1% of the UK national vote. All lost their deposits. The best results were those of Kai Andersen in Liverpool West Derby (614 votes - 1.7%) and Ken Capstick in Barnsley East (601 votes - 1.6%). In the local elections held on the same day, Andersen also received 244 votes (4.2%) in the Croxteth ward of Liverpool and in 2012 received 410 votes (14.76%) coming second in the same ward.[21]

The Socialist Labour Party contested all electoral regions of the Scottish Parliament in 2011, increasing its share of the vote from 0.7% in 2007 to 0.9%. Most other political parties saw a decrease in their vote share due to the landslide victory by the Scottish National Party (SNP). The SLP beat all other left-wing opposition for the first time, as well as parties like the British National Party (BNP).

The Socialist Labour Party increased its share of the vote from 1.2% in 2007 to 2.4%, giving the SLP the second biggest percentage gain of the total votes cast in the election. It outperformed other small left-wing parties as well as the BNP. The SLP also received more votes than the Green Party in two of the five regions of Wales.[22] At the local elections on the same day the SLPs Kenny Spain received 251 votes (27%) coming second in the Rossmore ward of Cheshire West and Chester.[23]

Although the SLPs three councillors, defectors from Labour in the Borough of Barking and Dagenham, lost their seats, the party's vote in the local elections of 22 May showed an upward trend. Its highest votes were polled in Barnsley where Terry Robinson received 105 votes (8.5%) in Worsborough ward while Frank Watson received 178 (9%) in Stairfoot. Elsewhere, John Tyrrell received 392 votes (6.6%) in Birmingham's Handsworth Wood ward while Barbara Bryan received 129 (6.3%) in the Linacre ward of Sefton. [24]

In the General Election of 2015 the SLP stood seven candidates all in Wales. Its best result, with 697 votes (1.8%), was achieved in Torfaen by John Cox. In 2017 the best result from its three contests was won in Birmingham Perry Barr where Shangara Bhatoe received 592 votes (1.3%).

The party fielded only three candidates, all in the North West of England. Its share of the vote ranged between 4% and 9%. Its best result was registered in the Appleton ward of Halton, where a former Independent, Vic Turton, obtained 9.3% of the vote (97 votes).[25][26]

The SLP only stood one candidate, Kevin Cranney in Hartlepool.[27] Cranney gained 494 votes (1.2%)