HE DECISION by Dave Vellist and Terry Fields tr stand against official labour candidates after being expelled by the party was more than vindicated by their votes.
Dave Nellist in Coventry South East more than poll, whilethe winning Labour candidate got ast over & n Nellist's immense popularity ment and voters was reflected thousands of people who the MP voted for the official Labour candidate, worried by the prospect of the Tories get ting in.
In Liverpool Broad Green, where the political polarisagone much deeper than Coventry, Terry Helds scored nearly 6000 votes, , around 14 per cent of the poll.
Poll tax
Jailed poll tax campaigner Tommy Sheridan got more than K00 voted in Glasgow Pollok, over 19 per cent of the All these scores are remarkable for non-Labour candidates seen as part of the far left. While Nellist and Fields had the advantage of being the sitting Labour MPs, Sheridan's vote represents the depth of disillusionment with the poll Sunday, on the theme of 'Scotany potential left candidate faces the insuperable obstacle of the undemocratic requirement that they be proposed by at least 50 MPs.
The election for a new leader Votes justified campaigns by Fields and Nellist tax, and Labour'sabject performance in Scotland in refusing astrous consequences of new But by slipping through the new election proccatre, i the wake of the Benn-Heffer leadership challenge, the right wing has prevented the bility or a democratic discussion and debate.
How should the left re spond? First, the push for aspe rial one-day conference in the eariv summer to elect a new leader should be resisted. This is a shot-sun procedure designed to close down democracy.
Second, the Campaign Group MPs and other left leaders should follow the the new realist right.
It is vital in the new situation that the voice or the let is heard, and that the debate is not confined to the narrow space between Bryan Gould and John Smith.
Third, the left should launch a campaign in thelabour move ment for the right to stand. The dure is part and parcel of continuing strong-arm new realist leadership party. Whether or not a campaign for the right to stand was successful, it would point the finger and expose what the right wing is up to. SINN FEIN leader Gerry Adams' defeat in West Belfast at