The September meeting of the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) all-Britain steering committee discussed the latest developments regarding ‘the Collective’ network, planning for the next round of scheduled statutory elections that will take place in May 2025, and two upcoming council by-elections in Coventry and Dundee which TUSC will contest, including the TUSC chairperson Dave Nellist fighting his old council seat in Coventry’s St Michaels ward.

For the item on TUSC’s discussions with the Collective, a network of ‘those on the left who seek to build the foundations for a new political party’ including important figures from Jeremy Corbyn’s time as Labour leader, the steering committee had before it a briefing document (at https://www.tusc.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/TUSC-Briefing-on-the-Collective.pdf) produced by the TUSC national agent, Clive Heemskerk. 

This gave a report of the discussions of the Collective attended by TUSC from before the general election which have developed further with the production in August of a draft strategy document by the core group, entitled Beyond GE24: Rebuilding a Mass Socialist Movement as a Foundation for a New Left Political Party. 

This is still very much an early draft before publication – and so only a summary has been given in the TUSC briefing – and what degree of support there is for its proposals is still to be determined.  That obviously affects how viable or not it is to form a new party to a set timetable in early 2025.  Or whether, as the TUSC representatives argued, a systematic campaign to establish the need for a new party in the trade unions, alongside continuing local community struggles and ongoing social movements, is more likely to achieve our shared goal. 

But the steering committee strongly welcomed the fact that the discussion has begun and agreed that TUSC should seek to continue its positive but not uncritical engagement in the Collective network.

Contesting the 2025 local elections

Given the current stage of these developments the steering committee also agreed that, while TUSC would always consider suspending its electoral activity as it did in the 2017 and 2019 general elections under the conditions of Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party leadership, at this stage it should plan for candidates to stand under the TUSC name in the 2025 local elections.

These contests will be the first big electoral test of the Starmer Labour government and its ‘tough choices’ austerity agenda but, being mainly county council elections, it will be a different terrain than both the 2024 local elections and July’s general election, including the demography (see https://www.tusc.org.uk/21160/06-09-2024/the-next-election-battlegrounds/).  TUSC has stood in these seats before though and will be able to organise a significant challenge next year – contributing, it is to be hoped, to the widest-possible united, anti-austerity, anti-war election stand.

Updating the local elections core policies

One thing that the steering committee agreed must be reviewed however is the core policies platform that TUSC currently has for local council elections, to take into account the new context of the Labour government and its legislative programme.  The core policies platform is not an all-encompassing list of every possible policy that someone who stands for election using the TUSC name must campaign on.  That is not how TUSC operates; as an inclusive coalition with its banner available to be used by any working-class fighter prepared to stand up to the capitalist establishment politicians at election time. 

Instead, the individual trade unionists, community campaigners and social movement activists – or socialists who are members of different parties or not – who want to appear on the ballot paper using one of the TUSC descriptions and emblems, control their own campaign.  There is no ‘all-powerful committee’ dictating what they can or cannot do!  What the core policies platform does represent, however, is the minimum policy commitment someone must make if they want to be a candidate using the TUSC name and logo.  

When reviewing what should be in the platform – for local councils on this occasion, not for parliament with its different legislative powers, for example, on nationalisation – one way of approaching it would be to ask: is this particular policy so central to a socialist electoral challenge to Starmer’s New Labour that if a prospective candidate did not agree to it they shouldn’t be allowed to stand for TUSC? 

Current local election core policies to ‘oppose all cuts and closures to council services, jobs, pay and conditions’ and ‘fight for united working-class struggle against racism, sexism and all forms of oppression’, for example, obviously are defining commitments that every TUSC candidate must make. 

But what about opposition to or support for sustainable and socially just development on the ‘grey belt’ land that will be made available under the new government’s planning bill, for example?  Or the ‘pylons or underground power cables’ debate?  These are important issues but should they become a core policy that determines whether someone can be a TUSC candidate in a council election or not?  That’s the type of discussion that’s needed.

The current core policies platform for local council candidates can be seen at https://www.tusc.org.uk/20023/13-01-2024/tuscs-core-policy-platform-for-the-may-2024-local-elections-2/ and the steering committee will be reviewing it at our autumn meetings.  All suggestions for what an updating of the platform should include are welcome and should be sent to the TUSC national election agent, Clive Heemskerk, at [email protected], by Friday 11th October.

Coventry and Dundee by-elections

The last discussion at the steering committee was to approve an application to stand as a TUSC candidate by Dave Nellist for a council by-election in Coventry’s St Michaels ward; which Dave had represented as a socialist councillor for 14 years from 1998-2012 and as an MP from 1983-1992.

Council officers had initially proposed to the Coventry political parties that the by-election should take place on October 31st during school half-term, to minimise disruption at the primary schools used as polling stations.  But somebody, probably the Labour Party realising that this would have been the day after Rachel Reeves’ ‘new austerity’ budget and that newly-arriving students would have had time to register to vote, triggered it for October 10th instead, fearful of momentum gathering behind Dave as the only viable challenger to Labour.  But whatever, the battle is on.

The meeting also offered its solidarity to the by-election campaign in Dundee council’s Strathmartine ward, where the autonomous Scottish TUSC steering committee is standing a local NHS worker and UNISON trade union activist Donald Macleod against the SNP, Labour and the Lib Dems, none of whom have voted against the over £100 million of cuts made to council services in Dundee over the last twelve years.  The Strathmartine contest is on October 3rd and information on the campaign can be got from Scottish TUSC on 07927-342060 or the election agent, Jim McFarlane, on 07760-662214. ■