Independent Working Class Association
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The Independent Working Class Association (IWCA) is a small working class political party in Britain with the avowed aim of promoting the political and economic interests of the working class, regardless of the consequences to existing political and economic structures.
It was formed in 1995 by several organisations, including some segments of Anti-Fascist Action and Red Action, who 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.[1]
From 1998, the Independent Working Class Association formed groups in Birmingham, Oxford, Glasgow, the London boroughs of Islington and Hackney, and a few other areas, and were rewarded with the election of a local councillor in Oxford in 2002, with candidates coming second in local elections in the Clerkenwell (2002) and Bunhill (2003) wards in London. In 2003, the IWCA was launched as a national organisation, and claims to have since attracted many former members of the Labour Party, although the Hackney branch split to form Hackney Independent.
The IWCA was able to raise the £20,000 required for participation in the London mayoral election, 2004 and nominated Lorna Reid, a resident and advice worker on the Highbury council estate. Reid came ninth with 9,542 (0.5%) of the first preference votes and 39,678 (2.1%) of the second preferences. In the local elections that took place on the same day, the IWCA picked up two more seats on Oxford city council, removing Labour's majority, while in the 2006 local elections, they gained a further seat.
The IWCA has adopted controversial tactics of community action to tackle anti-social behaviour. It has also campaigned on other issues of local concern such as council housing stock transfers, muggings and inner-city regeneration.
The group has been criticised for declining to take positions on international issues, arguing 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.
