Independent Working Class Association
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The Independent Working Class Association (IWCA) is a minor political party in the United Kingdom that aims to promote the political and economic interests of the working class, regardless of the consequences to existing political and economic structures.<ref>Independent Working Class Association – national website</ref> It has been most successful in the Blackbird Leys and Wood Farm estates of Oxford and had a councillor on Oxford City Council until 2012, but was ultimately deregistered with the Electoral Commission in November 2020.<ref name=":0" />
FoundingEdit
The IWCA was formed in 1995 by several organisations but primarily Red Action and Anti-Fascist Action.<ref>A DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE, Red Action</ref> Initial sponsors included Communist Action Group, Colin Roach Centre, Open Polemic, Partisan, Red Action, the Revolutionary Communist Group and Socialist Parent.<ref>IWCA leaflet, 1995</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> The founding groups argued that the likely election of a New Labour government would entrench the legacy of Thatcherism and further diminish the political influence of the working class.<ref>1985–2001: Anti-Fascist Action (AFA), libcom.org</ref> The IWCA describes its ideology as stemming from the trade union collectivism of the 1970s.<ref name=law/> It has received support from some anarchists,<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> but it criticises the contemporary socialist movement,<ref name=pepper/> describing it as "hopelessly middle class – and obsessed with Identity Politics".<ref>Introduction to Beating the Fascists 2010, by Sean Birchall. Freedom Publishers</ref>
From 1998, the IWCA formed groups in Birmingham, Oxford, Glasgow, the London boroughs of Islington and Hackney, and a few other areas. In 2003, it launched as a national organisation.<ref>IWCA National Launch Template:Webarchive</ref>
The IWCA slogan is "working class rule in working class areas",<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> and its policies are based on door-to-door surveying of people and asking them what are the problems where they live, then trying to work out ways of resolving them. In Birmingham and Oxford this meant working with local people on issues of anti-social behaviour, and in Hackney around, for example, school closures.
Electoral performanceEdit
IWCA got some of the best results ever in UK politics of independent radical candidates,Template:Citation needed and several elected in Oxford. In the 2002 Oxford City Council elections the IWCA achieved the election of a local councillor, Stuart Craft, with more than 40% of the vote in Northfield Brook ward.<ref name="IWCA election results, May 2002">IWCA election results, May 2002</ref><ref name="slur">"Leaflet slur costs £15,000 Template:Webarchive", thisisoxfordshire, 5 January 2006</ref> Three more candidates received over 20% of the vote in the local elections in London, in Heaton and Gooshays wards in Havering, Clerkenwell ward in Islington and Haggerston ward in Hackney.<ref name="IWCA election results, May 2002"/><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> They won 22% in Bunhill ward in London in a by-election in 2003.<ref name="pepper">A class act in Oxford", Red Pepper</ref><ref name="overshadows">Template:Cite news</ref>
The IWCA was able to raise the £20,000 required for participation in the 2004 London mayoral election and nominated Lorna Reid,<ref>In The Footsteps of Heroes Template:Webarchive</ref> a resident and advice worker on the Highbury council estate. Her campaign focused on opposing anti-social behaviour by funding youth facilities and cleaning up estates, establish community restorative justice schemes, local drugs detox centres and progressive local taxation.<ref>London mayoral candidates 2004, Guardian Unlimited</ref> Reid came ninth with 9,542 (0.5%) of the first preference votes and 39,678 (2.1%) of the second preferences.<ref>GLA Mayoral Results Template:Webarchive, Royal Borough of Kingston-upon-Thames</ref>
In the local elections that took place on the same day, the IWCA picked up two more seats on Oxford City Council.<ref>Labour loses Oxford City Council, BBC News, 11 June 2004</ref> Maurice Leen contested the seat of Oxford East for the IWCA in the 2005 UK general election,<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> receiving 892 votes (2.1%).<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
At the 2006 local elections, they stood six candidates<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> and gained a further seat from Labour, taking their total to four.<ref>Labour suffers Oxfordshire losses, BBC News, 5 May 2006</ref> However, they lost two of their Oxford council seats to Labour in May 2008.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> One of their councillors, Jane Lacey, stood down in 2010 to continue as a community campaigner, saying that she was disillusioned by the politics of the council.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
In 2008, the Thurrock branch of the IWCA contested the seat of Stanford East and Corringham Town ward and came last with 98 votes, down from last with 144 votes in 2007 and behind the BNP's 344 votes.<ref>Thurrock council election results Template:Webarchive</ref>
In March 2012 Stuart Craft, the last remaining IWCA local councillor in Oxford, announced to the Oxford Mail that he would not stand again in the May elections, after ten years as an IWCA councillor. He said, "I couldn't stand on people's doorsteps any more, telling them we were going to change things when that wasn't going to happen."<ref name="‘Class hero’ councillor to quit">Template:Cite news</ref>
The party was deregistered with the Electoral Commission in November 2020.<ref name=":0">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
HistoryEdit
In summer 2004, the Hackney branch of the IWCA split away to form Hackney Independent.<ref>'Hackney Independent' in Hoxton by-election, Workers Liberty</ref> <ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> In 2006, the Oxford branch of the party won a libel action against Bill Baker, Deputy Leader of Oxford City Council, who had posted defamatory material alleging the IWCA had links to violent extremists and Irish Republican groups to homes in Donnington Brook in the run-up to the 2005 local elections. The IWCA, represented in their suit by Carter-Ruck, said it would use the £15,000 it collected in damages to fund their 2006 campaign.<ref name="slur" />
In 2009 the two IWCA Oxford councillors missed a meeting at which an above-inflation rise in council tax of 4.5% was decided, due to work and family commitments. A tied vote was decided by the casting vote of the Labour Lord Mayor.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
CampaignsEdit
The IWCA has adopted tactics of community action to tackle anti-social behaviour, which has led to it being accused of vigilantism.<ref name="pepper"/> In contrast to many other left-wing groups, the IWCA actively campaigns on crime affecting working-class people and a lack of services.<ref name=law>Template:Cite book</ref> It campaigns on issues of local concern such as council housing stock transfers, muggings<ref>Template:Cite newsTemplate:Dead link</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> and inner-city regeneration,<ref>What should the Socialist Alliance say about crime?, Workers Liberty</ref> and against social harm due to drug abuse.<ref>Template:Cite newsTemplate:Dead link</ref> The group has also argued that many racial issues are symptoms of the wider issue of social deprivation, and for taking a stance against what it describes as multiculturalism in the belief that it encourages segregation.<ref name="pepper" /><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
Cultural ImpactEdit
With its notable electoral results in Oxford in the early to mid-2000s, the IWCA is briefly mentioned in Patrick Keiller's 2010 film Robinson in Ruins, which explores the social, political and natural history of Oxfordshire and its surrounds.