The latest meeting of the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) all-Britain steering committee was dominated by discussion on the next steps that could be taken to consolidate Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana’s call to establish “a new kind of political party”.

While it is not straightforward to move from the three-quarters-of-a-million or so ‘Your Party’ sign-ups to a democratically organised, mass vehicle for socialist, working-class political representation, the opportunities to do so are clearly there. 

Work must proceed urgently and the steering committee agreed to push on with the ‘Trade Unionists for a New Party’ campaign that has seen hundreds of trade unionists meet over the summer to discuss details of what to do in their own unions, following the 1,000-plus all-union meeting hosted by the TUSC chair, Dave Nellist, on July 21st (check out the meeting video at https://youtu.be/fTTmB-itr4U?si=CS3s5DEUioGeUzUg).

The 2026 elections

Another immediate task, the committee agreed, was to help to get the new party ready for the elections that will be held on May 7th, 2026.  This discussion centred around a briefing document prepared by the TUSC national election agent, Clive Heemskerk, Ideas About The Next Local Elections, available at https://www.tusc.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Ideas-about-the-2026-local-elections.pdf.

The main point emphasised was the enormous possibilities that are there.  The new party could win seats in the Scottish parliament and Welsh Senedd and councillors in almost every one of the seventy-plus English local authorities with elections in 2026.  In some councils it could expect to hold the balance of power after the May 7th polling day.  And even, in some of the authorities that are up for election in this particular four-yearly cycle, win majorities and form administrations.

This, however, the meeting agreed, represents both an opportunity and a challenge.  A substantial presence in local government for the new party could be a powerful bridgehead, a catalyst force, for a movement against the Austerity II agenda that the Starmer government is set on, compelled by the perilous position of British capitalism to further attack public spending including local council services.  But only if the new party and its candidates are clear on what needs to be done.

An anti-austerity stand

As the TUSC discussion document explains councils can make a difference, and have the powers to stand up to central government austerity.  Imagine the impact of even a handful of councils, and a bloc of new party councillors across the country backing them up, using their powers on housing, education, social care, leisure, children’s centres, transport and so on to transform people’s lives – and to combine together to demand the proper funding that local services need.

But the converse is also true, of the damaging impact that could be made if councillors go along with austerity, however reluctantly they do so.  It happened under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership of the Labour Party, when council Labour Groups remained as strongholds of the right-wing within the party.  The resulting continued experience of cuts being made by these town hall Blairites in the name of Labour undermined Jeremy’s anti-austerity message, particularly amongst working class voters in ‘left behind’ Labour constituencies.  The new party cannot afford a repeat, of the promise of a new politics turning into more of the same.

That’s why a discussion amongst supporters of Jeremy and Zarah’s ‘Your Party’ call on how to approach the 2026 local elections is a vital task; just as the new party supporters in Scotland and Wales will be discussing their election platforms for May.

No Cuts People’s Budgets campaigns

The TUSC discussion document is a contribution to the policy and campaign strategy debate that’s needed.  Drawing on previous work on how to prepare no cuts People’s Budgets including the presentation of alternative budgets by TUSC-supporting councillors – and the experience of the different component parts of our coalition in the trades unions and in leading an anti-austerity council in Liverpool in the 1980s! – in the first part it outlines how councils still have the power to challenge the government.  If, that is, the political will is there.

In the second part it looks at the policy pledges in the 2017 and 2019 Labour Manifestos which local councils have the power to implement now, without any new legal authority from Westminster, and asks: could they form the basis of a local elections manifesto for the new party candidates that TUSC hopes will be standing in May?  They certainly form a positive offer to stand on, building on the absolute commitment to resist austerity that must be at the new party’s core.

And lastly, the document discusses how the work can begin now to prepare for May even before the name, structures and other details of the new party are finalised – through campaigning for People’s Budgets to present to the January-February 2026 council budget-setting meetings.

Work which will still have value, even if the hurdles of legally registering a party and democratically agreeing candidates have not been overcome for May’s elections – and, hopefully for just one more time if that is so, it will be necessary for a coalition of different socialist, trade unionist and community forces to carry the fight to the capitalist establishment politicians at the ballot box. ■

The TUSC discussion document is, as it says, a discussion document, with the steering committee welcoming further contributions to the debate on the issues it raises.  Any views on its content, or alternative action proposals, should be sent to Clive Heemskerk at [email protected] by Friday 3rd October for them to be tabled at the next committee meeting.