Marching to save the NHS, photo Mary Finch

Marching to save the NHS, photo Mary Finch   (Click to enlarge: opens in new window)

Jane Ward and Ali Cook, Wiltshire Socialist Party

On 7 September, Wiltshire Socialist Party held our first campaign stall in the centre of Salisbury. Considering it has always been a Conservative safe seat, we were expecting a hostile reaction.

Apart from a few glares, this was not the case! We got an amazing response. It completely exceeded our expectations.

We campaigned on the NHS and also on kicking the Tories out. So many people stopped to talk. ‘We need to get rid of Boris now’ was a recurring theme.

There was also support for Corbyn and his policies, but it was tempered with real disappointment over his inability to be firm and decisive. We talked to Labour members who said there was an urgent need to throw the Blairites out of the party.

There were also some interested younger people, rightly afraid of the state of the NHS, who made donations and bought newspapers.

One man paused at our stall and then walked off. He then reappeared half an hour later and said he had walked home but came back because he had some questions.

What is socialism, are all members of the Labour Party socialists, and what did we think about Brexit? He thought our view on Brexit was clear, honest and correct. He was frustrated by all of the main political parties, and left exclaiming that he liked our position and would look into the Socialist Party further.

In two hours we sold 17 copies of the Socialist, which people were keen to read, and collected £16 for the Socialist Party fighting fund. To end a brilliant stall, a man who called himself a Trotskyist stopped and recited the poem ‘Say not the Struggle Naught Availeth’ before buying a paper and giving a generous donation.