Over 300 candidates will be standing with a clear working-class, socialist identifier in May’s elections, after the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) all-Britain steering committee approved 114 new applications to use a TUSC-registered description on the ballot paper at its most recent meeting on March 30th.

This takes the total number of candidates using one of the TUSC descriptions in the English local elections to 287 across 59 councils, including three mayoral candidates, alongside a challenge in six Scottish parliament seats and two Welsh Senedd constituencies – but with further council candidate applications anticipated as negotiations with groups of local independents and individual anti-austerity Greens continue.

Although the timetable is tight, as the TUSC steering committee stressed – with the final deadline to submit the official paperwork to council officers being April 9th – a ‘late applications procedure’ was agreed to give every opportunity for candidates to come forward and join what will be the sixth-largest bloc of candidates in the elections.

An application form for a legally necessary Certificate of Authorisation to use one of the TUSC descriptions on the ballot paper is available at https://www.tusc.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/2026-Application-form-Cllr.docx and should be returned the TUSC National Election Agent – Clive Heemskerk, at [email protected] – as soon as possible.

Some Green candidates back an anti-austerity fight… but others don’t

The committee heard that a common reason for candidates delaying submitting their application is that discussions with local Green Party candidates are still ongoing in many council areas… (continued)