John Hamilton

John Hamilton  (politician)
Born	John Nicholas Hamilton
Member of	Workers Party of Britain
WPGB candidate for Mayor of Lewisham

John Hamilton is a British member of the Workers Party of Britain who is standing for election as Mayor of Lewisham in the by-election on 7 March 2024.

Crispin Flintoff said:

"Local activist John Hamilton didn't want to climb the greasy pole of politics, but that's what makes him the ideal candidate for Mayor of Lewisham!"

Candidates

This is the full list of candidates:

• DACRES Brenda - Labour and Co-operative Party
• HAMILTON John Nicholas - Workers Party of Britain (WPGB)
• HERRON Michael - The Green Party
• LONG Nick - Independent
• MAINES Chris - Liberal Democrats
• MARTIN Maureen Maud - Christian Peoples Alliance
• QADAR Siama - Local Conservatives

Galloway's speech

George Galloway MP speaking in Catford in support of Workers Party of Britain mayoral candidate John Hamilton

George Galloway MP spoke movingly at a rally outside the Civic Suite in Catford South East London on 5 March 2024 in support of WPGB candidate John Hamilton.

Other speakers were Lubna Speitan, Rabbi Jacob Weisz and Jackie Walker.

Transcript

This is the transcript of George Galloway's speech:

"I'm not a stranger to this area. Some of my grandchildren were born in the hospital here. Some of my children and grandchildren live in this borough.

"So it was with great happiness that I agreed to come here from Parliament this evening to support John Hamilton for Mayor of Lewisham.

"Because of the reasons adumbrated so ably by others including John himself of course, elections are not the be all and end all. Winning elections is not the be all and end all.

"What is our duty is to stand up for what's right on any platform in any forum in any election that we possibly can.

"And ultimately as Rabbi Jacob Weisz said we will prevail, peace will prevail, justice will prevail. If not in our time then in the time of our children and their children.

"We have a duty. If you're a religious believer we have a judgment day at which we'll be asked what we did for justice, what we did for freedom.

"This is the latest campaign that we are in. We had an historic victory in Rochdale last Thursday night and I believe, I believe that politics has changed as a result.

"Not just of my victory but of the government's panicked response to it when uh little Napoleon Rishi Sunak with his elevator heels climbed on that hastily erected podium at the state's expense to make an attack on democracy and to make an attack on my constituents he showed the state of panic that now exists.

"And I can tell you, having just left Westminster in the last hour and a bit, that everywhere there is a shiver running along the benches in the House of Commons looking for a spine, looking for a spine to run up, and failing so far to find one. They are in a state of panic.

"Because what happened in Rochdale was not just a victory for the Workers Party of Britain but a defeat for the two establishment parties of the state.

"Both of the cheeks of the same backside got a kicking, got a spanking in the same evening. In the same hall. In the same town of Rochdale.

"Not only did they fail to win, they failed to come second. They only just came third and the Labour Party came fifth, or is it sixth?

"This is unprecedented never in the history of British politics have Labour and the Conservatives in the same election scored such a disastrous failure and suddenly they know that people despise them.

"The Sky News interviewer who asked if I might not respect the Prime Minister didn't appear to know that millions of us despise the Prime Minister. We despise the Prime Minister and we despise his opposite number, if anything, even more. Because I always say that the TV never run this - if there's any TV here - I promise you they won't run it.

"As Malcolm X said the wolf when it comes towards you you're in no doubt about its intentions. But the fox appears to be smiling although its intentions are precisely the same.

"We genuinely believe that the Conservatives and the Labour Party are disastrous for our people, disastrous for our country not just on war and peace, to which I'm about to turn, but on the living standards of our own people here at home. They really are two cheeks of the same arse. They follow the same economic policy. They have the same attitude to wealth and power in our own country.

"There is no lesser of two evils in this picture. I never believed in that approach to politics anyway. Because evil always wins, if you vote for the lesser of two evils.

"But now no one can seriously maintain that Keir Starmer is the lesser of two evils. I could make a good case that Keir Starmer is even more evil than Rishi Sunak and the Conservative Party that he supposed to be opposing.

"And here in local government the same is exactly true. Who can say that Sadiq Khan is better than Boris Johnson? They were both bloody awful Mayors of London for the ordinary people of this great metropolis. Who can say that Labour in Lewisham is better than the Conservatives? Will build more homes than the Conservatives? Will treat the working class in this borough better than the Conservatives?

"Somebody shouted me. But he would have a very difficult job of showing me the reasons why anyone should vote Labour on Thursday in this by-election.

"And I turn to the elephant in the room which a surprising number of people in politics imagine is something we can overlook, is something we can ignore. That will not affect the way we vote.

"You said it was controversial, John, your poster. But if you vote Tory or Labour you are voting for genocide. You are voting for the slaughter of Palestinian children and their mothers, their fathers, their brothers and sisters. That is a demonstrable fact. There is no difference at all between these two parties towards the slaughter occurring in Gaza.

"And I often ask myself the question: how is it possible that our hearts are broken every time we open our telephone and look at social media, look at the pictures and the videos? How is it that our hearts are broken while their hearts are so hard, so callous as to be scarcely human anymore? How is it possible that you can see a child with no legs, hanging on a hook? How is it possible that as the young lady just talked about the little girl Hind?

"How is it possible to listen to the video of her saying her prayers begging for mercy, begging to be saved when the Israeli Armed Forces - who call themselves the most moral army in the world - have already murdered her whole family. The little girl was in the car with all the dead bodies of her family and then they killed her as well.

"How is it possible to support that? How is it possible not to be moved by that and yet our leaders appear entirely unmoved? Maybe they don't look at the pictures, maybe they don't look at the videos but they seem oblivious to the fact that tens scores of millions of people in this country can't take their eyes off the slaughter they're completely broken-hearted about what's happening.

"And our politicians say when people vote against genocide parties that we are extreme. What's extreme about being opposed to genocide? What's extreme about being opposed to the killing of children and women?

"I tell you this it's our political class and the media that serve them it's they who are the extremists not us. We're the peace marchers, we're the peace protestors.

So I'm going to tell you bluntly if you vote for Labour or Conservative on Thursday in Lewisham, you have voted for genocide. You have turned your face away from little Hind, from little Sidra, hanging on the wall minus her legs.

"You've got an opportunity this week. I mean John Hamilton didn't drop in by parachute. He's been a fixture of politics in this borough for as long as I have been associated with it, which is more than 20 years.

"John Hamilton would be an admirable Mayor. He'd be a Mayor to be proud of. You'd be able to see him on the television and say 'I'm proud that he is my Mayor'. We're not asking you just to vote for anybody, we're asking you to vote for someone who really is somebody: John Hamilton for Mayor.

"On Thursday, get out and vote, get your families out, get your neighbours out, get your friends out and let's have a big vote for John Hamilton for Mayor of Lewisham. Thank you very much indeed."

Polling day

On 7 March 2024, Workers Party of Britain posted on X:

Today is polling day in the Lewisham Mayoral election. If you're in the area, please give your vote to @WorkersPartyGB candidate John Hamilton!

Vote for a Mayor who will work in the interests of the people of Lewisham!

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