Polls are shut - where now?

Jim Jepps

The polls have closed in the UK, the mad rushing about and stress is over, and thank goodness for that.

These election results are an opportunity for us to appraise the current position of the left in the UK (and elsewhere) and help develop a strategy to move forwards. It's a time that we can use to take a look at our overall strategy - what is working and what isn't - what our long term approach is and how do we forged a unite left organisation from here.

Pride and self importance have no role in political analysis and the Socialist Unity site will, over this week, attempt to bring the left not only the results in as clear and concise way as possible - but will also refuse to be part of any polarised debate which either automatically attacks certain parties or automatically defend groups simply to justify our previous position.

Over the coming weeks there will be meetings up and down the country where socialists will debate the nature of these results and what their implications are - if we can help with that then we will - and we'd like to invite our dear readers to comment and contribute to the debate on this site so that the movement can thrash out these issues in a clear, open and democratic way.

As we get out our bumper book of election facts and sift through its pages, we'd do well to remind ourselves that this is only an election and not the beginning nor the end of political struggle - but at the same time let's look facts in the face.

The media consensus is that Labour have taken a drubbing - but are we matching the speed of the fall of the house of Blair with a corresponding rise on the left? At the end of the day we need to use these results to help ourselves come to grips with a key question - why do we stand in elections in the first place?