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.
This year the application form to use a TUSC description in local elections includes a question about whether the Green candidate in the ward “has spoken publicly against austerity”. And, if so, whether they have “signed the trade union petition to Zack Polanski” (at https://c.org/r55nStyRBm) which asks the Green Party leader to ensure that “no candidate shall appear on the ballot paper on behalf of the Greens who has not made a public commitment to vote against all cuts and closures to council services, jobs, pay and conditions”.
The dialogue that this has generated has already been important in clarifying what councillors can do and what a real anti-austerity stand means. This includes the exchange with the Green councillors in Sheffield, who form part of a cuts-making council administration in the city, reported at https://www.tusc.org.uk/22189/16-02-2026/are-sheffields-green-councillors-right-that-theres-nothing-they-can-do-about-cuts/.
Also in Yorkshire the Leeds Green Group – which includes the Green Party deputy leader Mothin Ali – officially responded to a letter from a TUSC-constituent organisation inquiring about the Leeds Green candidates’ position on no cuts budgets.
“In the Leeds Green Party we are against cuts in services, rent rises and rises to council tax” the reply began. But “this all being said”, it went on, “the Green Party of England and Wales do not currently hold the balance of power in Westminster, despite our ambition to do so” and “sometimes it will be unavoidable to vote in favour of council tax rises to avoid cuts”. And then, inevitably, “we can’t commit to always oppose any cuts to services, as much as we would love to”. (See Leeds correspondence for the full exchange). That is just not good enough to avoid a challenge at the ballot box.
But the official letter was not the unanimously agreed position of Greens in the city. The Green Party candidate in Moortown does support a no cuts position and has signed the petition to Zack Polanski, so there will not be a candidate using a TUSC ballot paper description in that ward.
Similarly in Peterborough, in the East of England, the steering committee heard that the application for a TUSC Certificate for the Fletton and Woodston ward was being withdrawn after the Green Party candidate Ed Murphy, a former member of Unison, also signed the petition and took supplies to get others to join his stand. In Hornsey ward in Haringey council in London, a Green candidate has taken a similar stance, and will not be challenged by TUSC. In Liverpool, where there are no elections this year, the deputy leader of the Green councillors group, the Unite member Martyn Madeley, has also signed, adding his voice to the call.
These are the first set of elections being fought since Zack Polanski won the Green Party leadership last summer and, if the Greens’ substantial presence in local government could be pushed into taking an anti-austerity stand – and a protest movement was organised to back this up – who could categorically say that Starmer and the chancellor Rachel Reeves wouldn’t be forced into another U-turn?
A widescale councillors’ rebellion could open up a new front but it won’t be achieved by giving councillors and candidates who won’t rebel a free run on May 7th. That’s why any trade unionist, working-class community campaigner, anti-war activist or individual socialist who wants to fight back should join the socialist election challenge as a candidate in May – while there’s still time! ■