The latest meeting of the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) all-Britain steering committee confirmed its backing for Your Party and urged TUSC supporters to join up (at https://in.yourparty.uk/users/sign_up) to help ensure that a new political voice for the working class can be firmly established.

This follows our statement in July warmly welcoming the moves to a new party to that point (see https://www.tusc.org.uk/21778/17-07-2025/tusc-offers-full-backing-to-moves-towards-a-new-party/) which included the independent responses of the different component parts of the TUSC coalition and its steering committee.

One question that has been raised however, since the Your Party membership portal was opened on September 24th, is what should TUSC supporters make of the website wording that to join, “you must be over 16, resident in the UK, and you cannot be a member of another national political party”? 

Many parties, in fact, have similar disclaimers that set the broad boundaries of their organisations, with details of how this applies spelt out within their constitutions. The Green Party does, for example, but with an exception allowing members of other parties to stand for the Greens, or Green Party members to stand for other parties, “in cases of joint candidacies”.

Even the undemocratic Starmer Labour Party has procedures – a decision of the party conference or its national executive committee “in pursuance of” a conference decision – to declare parties or political organisations “ineligible for affiliation” or “inimical with the aims and values of the party”.  And, of course, it has a dual membership agreement and electoral arrangement with the Co-operative Party, itself an independent party registered with the Electoral Commission.

Your Party, on the other hand, at this stage has not agreed a constitution – including any stipulations that may be made about dual membership, affiliations etc.  And, as far as elections are concerned, TUSC has a proven record of standing aside in the 2017 and 2019 general elections when Jeremy Corbyn was leader of the Labour Party.  We only resumed our electoral activity in 2020, after Starmer’s ascent to the Labour leadership.

No TUSC supporter then, the steering committee was agreed, should be deterred from joining Your Party and playing their part in realising the goal of our coalition from its formation in 2010, for the re-establishment of socialist, working class political representation in a new mass workers’ party. ■