Your June 16-30, 2017 issue editorial “New Hope for Working People” says Jeremy Corbyn “campaigned as a socialist” and notes the “continuing popularity of Bernie Sanders”.
I went through the Labour Party Manifesto for 2017 and found, though it has many good things, it has no socialism. They promised to reverse some privatization. The investment bank they proposed is based on private capital. They promised promoting cooperatives and worker buy-outs, which are short of ownership by the working class as a class i.e. through the state. Even the Communist Party of Britain, which I think would be in the thick of it, has not said Corbyn campaigned as a socialist.
As for Bernie Sanders' popularity, alas Donald Trump enjoys continuing popularity as well. Bernie Sanders has endorsed Donald Trump's policy on North Korea, has demonized the elected leaders of Venezuela and Syria as “vicious dictators”, and uses air quotes when mentioning Israel's human rights violations. I think air quotes should be reserved for any suggestion that politicians like these are “socialist”.
Closer to home, the BC Greens have already told the BC NDP that card-check union recognition will “never happen”.
The myth that “working people reject the concept of socialism”, which your editorial said was “decisively disproven” by the Labour Party's performance (though it was a loss) in the UK election, and perhaps also by the NDP-Green Party accord (though the Liberals won the most votes), was disproved much earlier by veritable socialist revolutions in Russia and Cuba, among other places, and the popular support they enjoy. However, though it was disproved long ago, I think we will find this myth still has some life left, despite Corbyn, Sanders, and the BC NDP-Green accord.
Saleh Waziruddin (St. Catharines, Ontario)
