“The local elections taking place on Thursday May 1st should be about choices”, is the opening line of a new campaign leaflet published today by the all-Britain Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) steering committee.
“Should we fund our public services properly or stand aside while the super-rich get ever richer?”, the leaflet goes on (see the PDF at https://www.tusc.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Local-elections-leaflet.pdf). “Should those we elect represent our interests? Or put the top 1% first – the tiny minority who own more wealth than all the rest of us together in the ‘bottom 80%’?”
“The establishment parties don’t give us that choice though”, it continues. “After 14 years of Tory policies, what real change is being offered by Keir Starmer’s Labour government? It has even weakened its promise to curb the ‘non-dom’ super-elite, who live here but pay less tax than us. Meanwhile Reform, also led by millionaires, are Tories on steroids, only concerned to divide working class people so that it’s harder for us to fight back”.
The leaflet, aimed for areas where there will be candidates using one of the TUSC descriptions on the ballot paper in May, explains why TUSC candidates are different.
“TUSC was set up by the late Bob Crow”, it says. “A legendary trade unionist, no one could doubt whose side he was on! And we’re continuing that tradition in May’s elections”.
The TUSC guarantee
TUSC is an alliance of working-class fighters prepared to stand up to the establishment politicians at election time. Each candidate has their own independent record and views as a trade unionist, a community campaigner, an anti-war protester, a pensioner hit by Labour’s winter fuel allowance cut, or a student fighting for free education.
But all candidates are pledged to the TUSC six guarantees, what voters should know that any councillor elected under the TUSC banner will do:
* Oppose all cuts and closures to council services, jobs, pay and conditions; or their privatisation or transfer to social enterprises or ‘arms-length’ management organisations which are the first steps to privatisation.
* Reject council tax, rent and service charge increases for working-class people to make up for cuts in government funding.
* Vote for councils to set no-cuts budgets and fight for the money needed from the government to make up any shortfall.
* Refuse to co-operate with any commissioners or ‘envoys’ appointed by the Labour government to attempt to impose cuts on local services.
* Support only democratically debated local Climate Emergency plans that create new employment, build flood defences, and improve air quality and the local environment, while protecting the jobs, pay and living standards of all workers.
* Fight for united working-class struggle against racism, sexism, and all forms of oppression. Back all workers’ struggles against government policies making ordinary people pay for the crisis.
“If we don’t vote on May 1st one thing is sure: nothing will change”, the TUSC leaflet concludes. “But the election is a chance to protest by voting TUSC for socialist change, and sending a message to Starmer, Farage, and the rest of the establishment politicians”. ■
The leaflet is one-sided only, allowing local candidate and campaign details to be printed on the reverse. Supplies are available to candidates gratis via the TUSC National Election Agent. But donations are encouraged (at https://www.tusc.org.uk/donate/), including from areas where there aren’t elections this year, so that the message can be spread as widely as possible – there can be an alternative.