The Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) All-Britain Steering Committee has produced a new guide for candidates thinking about contesting the local council elections taking place in 2026 on Thursday May 7th. 

An annual publication, this year the guide includes an explanation of how TUSC will be working with Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana’s Your Party to ensure the widest-possible co-ordinated presence of socialist working class anti-austerity and anti-war candidates in May’s contests.  This is in the context that the 2026 local elections will be a unique challenge for Your Party, as recognised in the party’s founding documents, given the “time constraints” of the official nomination process for the elections and “the absence of agreed branch structures” for the new party with its first elected leadership not taking office until March.

As the guide states, as a result “there will almost certainly be Your Party supporters who want to stand as a clear anti-austerity, anti-war socialist candidate but will not be able to be agreed as an official Your Party candidate in time”.

It goes on, however, that “they will be more than welcome to use one of the TUSC descriptions to distinguish themselves from right-wing or non-political ‘Independents’ on this occasion if they wish”, and explains how that can be done.

The guide also contains information on the official regulations governing the elections, based on publications produced by the Electoral Commission, along with some tips and pointers drawn from the previous experience of socialist election campaigners. 

There will be around 4,342 councillors elected this May and, with no deposits needed to stand for a local election seat, the question is: why couldn’t YOU be on the ballot paper to help build an alternative to the establishment parties?  The guide shows how you can. ■

The 2026 Guide for Candidates and Agents in the Local Council Elections is available as a downloadable PDF at https://www.tusc.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/2026-Guide-for-Candidates-Agents.pdf

An application form to use the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition name and emblem on the ballot paper, or any of the other eight descriptions TUSC has registered with the Electoral Commission, is available at https://www.tusc.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/2026-Application-form-Cllr.docx

As meetings of Your Party supporters take place around the country one of the immediate tasks we face is to get ready for the elections that will be held on 7th May next year – now just over six months away.

Having said that, working out exactly where there will be elections in 2026 is not as straightforward as it sounds!  Yes, there will be contests for the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Senedd in May.  But whereas every autumn for over a decade now, the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) has produced a directory of the council elections to be held the following spring as a planning resource for local campaigners, this time, however, no such certainty is possible.

That’s because Keir Starmer’s New Labour Mark II government is imposing ‘reorganisation’ plans on local government – to make it easier, they hope, to carry out their austerity agenda to cut and privatise local public services – and some councils affected may have their scheduled elections cancelled.

So this year we are publishing what is a (very) Provisional Directory of the May 2026 Local Elections, available at https://www.tusc.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Provisional-2026-elections-directory.pdf  

There may eventually be more elections than we have included here as definitely taking place, probably many more.  But what there certainly will be is a significant enough electoral opportunity for Your Party supporters, trade unionists, anti-war protestors and working class community campaigners to organise to give their verdict on the Starmer government and put forward at the ballot box the socialist alternative that we need. ■

The Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) All-Britain Steering Committee has republished the Preparing a No Cuts People's Budget briefing document we first produced in January 2016.

The new briefing document is available as a PDF at https://www.tusc.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/450.pdf.

Now Sir Keir Starmer has revived Tony Blair's New Labour, once again working class voters face being effectively disenfranchised. But the crisis of local public services has not gone away and the need for a fighting alternative is even greater. The re-published TUSC briefing, new and updated, is a contribution to building that alternative.