John McDonnell, Secretary of the Socialist Campaign Group of Labour MPs and MP for Hayes and Harlington is standing for the Labour leadership under the slogan "another world is possible".
McDonnell's insistence that there has to be a principled challenge to Brown is something that all socialists should support.
showing for McDonnell would make it harder for the New Labour juggernaut to impose neo-liberalism at home and abroad.
McDonnell held the launch rally of his campaign September 7 in Manchester's Mechanics Institute with a platform that also included Tony Benn, Alice Mahon, and NUJ General Secretary Jeremy Dear.
The use of the Mechanics Institute was a conscious decision given that the TUC was A strong showing
for McDonnell
would make it harder for the New Labour juggernaut
to impose neoliberalism at home
and abroad founded in this building in 1868 and McDonnell is consciously aiming his campaign at trade unionists.
'Ordinary members' were counterposed to the Westminster elite with the strong implication that it is a lack of real democracy in the LP that has enabled New Labour to emerge.
The audience of over a hundred included solid contingents trom various unions particularly Amicus, NUJ and UCATT.
Most of the current leadership of the Labour Party in Manchester staved although the District political officer did attend and argued against a return to "old Labour as being a return to opposition.
The Manchester meeting is one OT series McDonnell organising across the country to mobilise support and debate out the policies needed for a challenge to Brown.
One of the biggest boosts to McDonnell's campaign came from a poll conducted by the Electoral Reform Society at TUC Congress, where 59 per cent of delegates backed John McDonnell.
Labour Party conference at the end of September saw the first breach in what has been a virtual news blackout of the campaign since its launch two months earlier, with some TV and radio coverage and a sympathetic piece in the Guardian from Journaust Ronan Bennett on September 26.
McDonnell addressed fringe meeting after fringe meeting during the week, which he says was a "real boost to the campaign".
He also complains that his attempts to be called to speak LO comerence itself were unsurprisingly ignored by the platform.
McDonnell also claims in his blog (www.john4leader.com) that many are rejoining the Labour Party in order to support his campaign.
During the conference, a focus group of Labour supporters convened by BBC Newsnight revealed that John was level-pegging with Gordon Brown.
Given the fact that John is Cooper Molly
John McDonnell at Grunwick Strike commemoration much less well known that anyone else in or potentially in the race, this is an incredible achievement.
In order to get on the ballot paper McDonnell needs the endorsement of at least 44 MPs.
The fact that he has backing from the Unity Gazette grouping in Amicus, both Broad lefts in the T&G, and from the CWU Broad Left ‚will hopefully act to increase The numbers prepared to break from the calamutous consensus that Gordon Brown is a friend of working people.
GWU General Secretary Tony Woodley's statement, at
Labour Representation Fringe meeting at Labour Party Conference T021 McDonnell "must be on the ballot " was also an important boost for the campaign.
All activists in affiliated trade unions as well as individual members of the Labour Party need to do everything they can to win backing for this campaign.
Any defeat for Blairism is a victory for the whole left.