Saturday's visit by Respect MP George Galloway to Wigan is set to become the launch pad for a new 'Left of Labour' campaigning and electoral bloc of progressive organisations, trade unions, community groups and individuals across the North West at the next local and General elections, according to local Respect Party organiser Stephen Hall.
"What started as a Wigan Borough affair in the shape our proposed alliance around the "People's Charter", a Charter which is supported by several national trades unions and people such as Tony Benn, has with George Galloway's support, provided the momentum for a re-alignment of progressive political forces throughout the North West way beyond what we could have ever envisaged.
"Members of the Respect Party, Green Party, the Socialist Party and the Socialist Workers Party in addition to many other groups and individuals are now working more closely together not only in the Wigan area, alongside locally based organisations such as the Community Action Party which previously was the largest opposition group on the Council, but across the region, and plans are already underway to roll out what we doing in the Wigan Borough, or something very similar to it, across the North West.
"It is a very positive development and can only add greater credibility to what we are doing in the Wigan Borough were we are wanting to fight all three parliamentary seats in the General Election and all 25 wards in the local Council elections.
"But what we are wanting to build is not simply a united electoral bloc, but a fighting alliance which will champion the day to day interests of ordinary people between now and the next elections; which will lead the fight against Council cutbacks, job losses, school closures, rent and council tax rises and the like, and in so doing help head off at the pass the recent electoral success of the BNP.
"Many ex-Labour people wrongly see the BNP as standing up for their interests in the face of Labour's abject betrayal of them over fifteen years or more, whereas the reality is a vote for the BNP is akin to jumping out of the frying pan into the fire. What we want to provide is a real alternative to Labour and all the other parties like the Tories and Lib-Dems who represent the most well off. One which really does champion the interests of ordinary people as whole, whether they be employed, unemployed, pensioners, students, or whatever and regardless of their colour our creed.
"We can get whatever we want if we stand up and fight for it, there is no mightier force on earth than the us ordinary folk if we unite together, and that's what we want to see in the Wigan area, genuine "People's Power" brought to bear not only to beat the fascists of the Hitlerite BNP, but to beat the sell-out merchants who call themselves New Labour, and the traditional parties who stand up for the rich and well to do, as one of the last things we could also do with right now is another Tory Government."
Speaking on the platform alongside George Galloway on Saturday at Pemberton Central Labour Club (1.00pm start) will be Coventry Socialist Party Councillor and former Labour MP Dave Nellist, Community Action Party and former Wigan Council opposition leader Peter Franzen, Bolton South East Green Party prospective parliamentary candidate Alan Johnson, and Nahella Ashraf of the Socialist Workers' Party.
Stephen Hall a candidate for the Respect Party in last year's local elections in Atherton, who will also be speaking on the platform, is a potential prospective candidate for the new alliance in the Leigh Constituency at the General election, where he was a former Trades Council President and a member of the Labour Party for 25 years. If selected as a candidate he would face sitting Labour Health Secretary Andy Burnham.