The budget presented by the new chancellor John Healey on 28th October couldn’t have been clearer.  This was a Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves-continuity production, signalling that this government will continue to put the interests of big business and the rich elite ahead of the needs of workers, young people, and the environment.

Average household income is set to be lower in real terms by the end of this parliament in 2029-30 with a bigger fall than in any other equivalent period since 1962, while the budget confirmed the squeeze on public services will continue.

As for students and young people, as the National Union of Students (NUS) said in announcing their decision to back the N20 international youth strike, the budget “does nothing” for them, ignoring calls to change the unfair student loans system in England, slowing the growth of the minimum wage for people aged 18 to 20 – breaking a manifesto promise – and giving no relief to the funding crisis in universities and colleges. 

And yet, amongst other goodies for big business, £1.25 billion in public funds was given as a subsidy to Rolls Royce, the fifth-biggest company in the FTSE 100 stock exchange, even as it spends £9 billion or so this year on share buybacks to benefit its wealthy private owners. 

What was it that Andy Burnham said about ‘ending 40 years of neo-liberalism’? About the rich getting everything and the working class and young people nothing?

Meanwhile £3 billion of cuts were announced to the Energy department’s budgets for heat pumps, warm homes insulation and other greenhouse gas emission reduction schemes – not to help save the planet but to pay for higher military spending. 

The youth walkout on November 20th – N20 – will show the growing opposition there is to what such status quo establishment politics offers.  As do the national strike ballots under way of the members of the PCS civil servants union, the UCU members in further education, the probation workers organised by NAPO, and the BMA hospital consultants.  But the question of how workers and young people can be politically represented is still to be answered. 

Starting at the council elections on May 6th next year, which will be the biggest set of local contests that have taken place since the 2024 general election, with nearly 10,000 councillors being elected in England, Scotland and Wales (see the TUSC 2027 Elections Directory).

Reviewing the TUSC model

That is why recent discussions at the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) steering committee have included questions raised by individual committee members and constituent organisations about the effectiveness of the current ‘TUSC model’ of organisation and its electoral interventions. 

The participants in TUSC have never conceived the coalition as being the new, mass vehicle of political representation that the working class needs as an alternative to the establishment parties.  Instead TUSC has been seen as a means to campaign – including at election times – for a new mass party to be created; and that it requires more authoritative forces to act than those presently participating in the coalition, above all left-led trade unions, to bring such a party into being.  But still, within that framework, the TUSC model should be reviewed for the 2027 local elections and discussion had on how a different approach might be more able to unite the left and/or achieve greater electoral success.

To help progress the discussion it was agreed at the October meeting of the TUSC steering committee to produce a questionnaire; not just for those participating in TUSC but – and possibly more importantly – for those sympathetic to the goal of achieving independent working class political representation but who currently stand outside the coalition. 

Views from both individuals and the collective thoughts of organisations are welcome and will be brought together in a report to be published on the TUSC website in December.

The structure of the questionnaire

How to structure a questionnaire is a question in itself.  An open-ended general request for thoughts on ‘Why has TUSC failed to breakthrough?’ is not a wrong approach per se but might not necessarily focus the arguments or point a way forward.  Interestingly, when that question is put to a chatbot, the AI overview generated comes back with “five key factors behind TUSC’s struggles” namely: (i) The dominance of the Labour Party; (ii) Shifting tactics during the Corbyn era; (iii) Limited trade union participation; (iv) Electoral thresholds and media exclusion; (v) Left-wing fragmentation and sectarianism. 

This list of possible reasons why TUSC has not achieved a breakthrough is obviously not exhaustive.  It does not deal, for example, with the question of whether the ‘consensus rule’ within the How TUSC Functions procedures is a sufficient anti-capture safeguard for smaller organisations to participate as equals without having their identity subsumed.  In other words, to overcome the problem of ‘left-wing fragmentation and sectarianism’.

Or, in another example of other issues to discuss, whether appearing on the ballot paper as ‘Independent’ rather than with a working class and socialist descriptor is a better way to achieve electoral success.

But nevertheless, while recognising their limits, we have kept the five AI identified themes in the questionnaire (and the AI generated wording – not ours – introducing them) as not a bad place to start.  Along with the opportunity to respond to the generic question too: all in the hope that, unlike AI, the collective intelligence of trade union and socialist activists can also provide answers to how to overcome these and other perceived problems with the TUSC model.

To complete the questionnaire please download it as a Word document (here) and return it in the same format, as that will make it easier to compile the final report.  Responses should be sent to [email protected],uk (the TUSC National Election Agent) by Friday 27th November to guarantee inclusion in the final report.  ■

The questions

Below are the questions included in the survey, with the opportunity to comment and suggest a way forward on each theme.

1. The dominance of the Labour Party: Most British trade unions and working-class voters historically view the Labour Party as their primary vehicle for political representation. Convincing unions to break away and fund alternative projects faces deep-seated resistance, legal hurdles regarding political funds, and the problems of winning in a first-past-the-post election system.

2. Shifts during the Corbyn era: TUSC suspended its general election campaigns in 2017 and 2019, choosing instead to step back and support the election of a Jeremy Corbyn-led Labour government. This on-again, off-again participation disrupted momentum and branding continuity.

3. Limited trade union participation: While the RMT rail union provided foundational backing for a long time, major unions have not systematically looked to build a new mass party on the scale required to rival establishment machinery.

4. Left-wing fragmentation and sectarianism: The left in Britain has been marked by frequent splits, disagreements and competing alliances. For instance, the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) left TUSC in 2017, and other efforts to build broader coalitions like Left Unity, the People’s Alliance of the Left or mergers like Transform collapsed or left TUSC isolated due to disagreements regarding the inclusion of different organisations and electoral tactics.

5. Electoral thresholds and media exclusion: TUSC has frequently struggled to field the high volume of candidates (such as the 840-candidate threshold in 2026 for official election broadcasts) required to break through national media blackouts and challenge the two-party system.

6. Other reasons why TUSC has failed to breakthrough: Are there any other reasons that you or your organisation believe explain why TUSC has failed to breakthrough?  And are there concrete examples in the context of Britain today that show how they could be remedied?