The Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) has organised an evening Zoom meeting on Monday June 12th to outline the coalition’s thinking about the next general election (meeting details below).

The national TUSC officers – TUSC chairperson Dave Nellist, the former socialist Labour MP (1983-1992), and the TUSC national election agent, Clive Heemskerk – will report on the plans discussed to date by the TUSC All-Britain Steering Committee, with plenty of time available to question them.

Some of the issues that will be considered are contained in the recent letter sent to radical campaign groups and socialist organisations to discuss their plans with TUSC for the next general election (see https://www.tusc.org.uk/19275/24-05-2023/tusc-makes-new-appeal-to-left-wing-groups-to-discuss-general-election-plans/). 

These include the idea of local constituency campaigns for a workers’ candidate – rather than necessarily an early selection of parliamentary candidates – including organising delegations of trade unionists, student organisations, social movement campaigners etc to the local Labour prospective parliamentary candidate (PPC), to see where they stand on the policies in Labour’s 2017 and 2019 manifestos under Jeremy Corbyn.  A model letter to PPCs is available at https://www.tusc.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/479.pdf.

But there will be other issues to look at too.  Such as how to use the May 2024 local elections as a ‘dry run’ for the general election (even if the general election is held on the same day, which wouldn’t be known until March).  Or the question of the ‘fair media coverage threshold’, which actually also applies for local elections too, the options on ballot paper descriptions, and so on. 

Useful information on these points is contained in the TUSC Directory of Elections in 2024 (available at https://www.tusc.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/Elections-Directory-2024.pdf) and the original steering committee election planning briefing document prepared last summer (see https://www.tusc.org.uk/txt/475.pdf).

On the latter document, which includes as an appendix the TUSC core policies for the 2015 general election, it should be noted that the steering committee has produced a new draft core policy platform for 2024 (see https://www.tusc.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/TUSC-draft-GE-platform-for-2024.pdf) which we have circulated for comment in the letter to other organisations.

If there are any specific questions you would like to ask before the meeting you can e-mail Clive Heemskerk at [email protected] but there will also be plenty of opportunities on the day.

Preparing for the general election: a Zoom discussion on TUSC’s plans

Monday 12th June, 7pm

Meeting ID: 876 5528 2138