A ‘Wales Trade Union Conference on the Crisis of Political Representation’, hosted by Cardiff Trades Council on 18 October, pledged to support only candidates and parties that will stand up for the working class.

That was the main conclusion reached by over 50 trade unionists from 11 unions who attended the conference backed by five trades councils in Wales, the Bakers Food and Allied Workers Union executive, the civil service union PCS Wales, and a long list of trade union branches, along with Disabled People Against Cuts and the campaign group ACORN.

The conference was promoted as a forum for trade union reps and members to discuss “the way forward for our movement after 15 years of austerity, cost-of-living crisis and racism”. It was prompted by deep concerns over Labour’s continued austerity programme, its scandalous attacks on the Birmingham bin workers, and its shameful response to the horrifying massacres in Gaza. It was originally conceived before Zarah Sultana and Jeremy Corbyn’s announcements about a new party, but the developments concerning Your Party obviously gave this event even greater relevance... (continued)

As Keir Starmer’s Labour government prepares for yet more austerity in the Autumn Budget, while Reform continues its rise in the polls, the need for a new working class alternative becomes ever more urgent.

But the moves to a new party suffered a setback in mid-September as disagreements within ‘Your Party’ emerged, inevitably amplified by the establishment media. And, while the show is now back on the road with membership opened (at https://in.yourparty.uk/users/sign_up) and the founding conference set for the end of November, the reconvened ‘Trade Unionists for a New Party’ meeting on Monday 13 October was aptly timed to discuss the role of the organised working class in these developments.

With over 570 registrants and over 300 screens taking part, including a number of watch parties, hundreds of trade unionists tuned in to discuss the way forward... (continued)

A successful Holyrood 2026 conference took place on Saturday October 4th in Glasgow on the theme of building a trade union, socialist and working class election challenge for the Scottish Parliament election next year.

Despite Storm Amy causing major transport problems, and with Glasgow’s main train station closed entirely, 80 people turned up the conference from all eight Scottish parliamentary electoral regions. 

The conference had been prepared over the last five months by a Conference Organising Committee. Decisions around speakers and the democratic organisation of the conference were reached by consensus at the COC.

The committee was made up of representatives from the Scottish Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (Scottish TUSC), Socialist Party Scotland, the Scottish Left Alternative (SLA), the Scottish Socialist Party (SSP), Collective Scotland (set up by activists around Jeremy Corbyn) and vitally, trade union reps in a personal capacity from Dundee City Unison, Glasgow City Unison, and the Unite Housing Association branch as observers. The Communist Party of Britain declined participation. 

A motion was discussed, debated and mostly agreed by the organising committee to put to the conference (see the final agreed version at the end), bar the final bullet point on where to stand on the demand of an independent socialist Scotland. This was further discussed in a lively and democratic debate at the conference which, at its end, agreed overwhelmingly to "help prepare a united socialist, trade union and working-class election challenge in as many parts of Scotland as possible for next May”... (continued) 

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, in the biggest changes in England since the 1970s – to make it easier, they hope, to carry out their austerity agenda to cut and privatise local public services by weakening local democracy.  They are pushing through the merger of district and county councils into larger and more remote single bodies and increasing the number of directly-elected ‘super mayors’.  In doing so, 66 councils that have scheduled elections for May 2026 but which are affected by reorganisation, may have them cancelled.

The same thing happened this year with nine council elections that should have taken place cancelled just weeks before polling day.  So for a second time in two years a full picture of where local elections will be held in England in May will not be clear until February or March.  This casual attitude to democracy is in itself another example of the increasingly authoritarian character of the Starmer government, and how it tries to hide from a reckoning with the electorate.

What we do know, however, is that elections will definitely take place for all 32 London borough councils and 40 other Metropolitan district and district councils.  And that also on the same day there will be Mayoral elections in Watford and the London boroughs of Croydon, Hackney, Lewisham, Newhamand Tower Hamlets. 

So our estimate is that May 2026 will see, as a minimum, at least 3,452 councillors elected in 1,537 wards.  And we have listed the councils concerned in what this year 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 on, 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... (continued)

The thousand-plus strong ‘Trade Unionists for a New Party’ meeting on July 21st, addressed by Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana just days before their mould-breaking call for a new alternative under the temporary banner of ‘Your Party’, is reconvening on Monday 13th October to discuss the next steps in the fight for working class political representation.

The moves to a new party did suffer a setback in mid-September with public disagreements amplified by the establishment media.  And, while the show is now back on the road with membership opened (at https://in.yourparty.uk/users/sign_up) and the founding conference set for the end of November, there is still work to be done, especially in the trade unions.

The July meeting agreed a series of follow-ups to discuss what needs to be done in each individual union to make sure that trade unions and trade unionists are at the core of a new anti-austerity and anti-war party.  

Ten meetings have been held in August and September – again with over a thousand trade unionists registering – with the general format being to work out model motions for union branches tailored to the particular situation in each union, with further meetings planned to assess progress later in the autumn. 

A round-up of the model motions or other action points at each of the union-specific follow-ups is available at https://www.tusc.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Model-motions-round-up.pdf .

But Monday’s reconvened meeting will be a chance for an all-union perspective to be debated, including hearing some of the arguments that have taken place in branches on the new party, and with the Independent Alliance group of MPs who are overseeing the formation process of the party invited to explain the progress so far. ■

Trade Unionists for a New Party – recall meeting

What now for the new party project? Time for a trade union-led reset?

Monday 13th October, 6-30pm

Register at https://bit.ly/ReconvenedTU4NewParty

● If you missed the original meeting on July 21st, hosted by Dave Nellist, the former Labour MP (1983-1992) and now the chair of the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC), you can watch the video at https://youtu.be/fTTmB-itr4U?si=CS3s5DEUioGeUzUg

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. ■

On 23 September, a meeting of transport union RMT activists was organised by London Underground Engineering Branch, Bob Crow’s old branch and the largest in the union with 3,200 members, under the title Your Party – What Is The Role Of The RMT?

The meeting was addressed by two former Labour MPs: Jeremy Corbyn, now an Independent MP, who along with Zarah Sultana has announced the launch of ‘Your Party’; and Dave Nellist, now chair of the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC). 

The RMT could play a significant role in getting a new working-class based party off the ground. After being expelled from the Labour Party in 2004 for supporting Scottish socialist election candidates, the RMT under Bob Crow’s leadership continued to campaign for an anti-austerity working-class political voice. Bob helped to initiate the No2EU-Yes to Democracy campaign against the neo-liberal policies of the European Union in the 2009 EU elections and then TUSC itself in 2010.

The RMT was formally represented on the TUSC steering committee for ten years from 2012. The RMT was also the first union to support Jeremy Corbyn’s campaign for the leadership of the Labour Party in 2015, with the biggest donation to his campaign after Unite, despite not being an affiliated union. And it was, of course, an RMT predecessor union, the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants, that was a key initiator of the Labour Party back in 1900!

It was therefore very important that this discussion took place between Dave, Jeremy, and reps, activists and leading figures in the union... (continued)

A conference to discuss how to achieve a working class, trade union and socialist election challenge for the Scottish Parliament elections in May 2026

Saturday 4th October, 1pm

At The Renfield Centre, 260 Bath Street, Glasgow, G2 4JP

Convened by a Conference Organising Committee made up of reps from the Scottish Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (Scottish TUSC), Collective Scotland, Socialist Party Scotland, Your Party Scotland, Scottish Left Alternative, the SSP plus leading trade unionists including from Glasgow City UNISON, Dundee City UNISON and others.

Register for the event here and details will be emailed to you.

Around 50 members, reps and activists attended a meeting for Public and Commercial Services (PCS) union members interested in Your Party on Tuesday 9 September.

This meeting was another in a series of follow-ups to the national trade union meeting on 21st July, chaired by Dave Nellist, the former Labour MP (1983-1992) and now the chair of the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC), and addressed by Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana shortly before they made the ‘Your Party’ announcement that has since then quickly gathered such massive support.

Former union Vice President Dave Semple chaired the meeting, which was addressed by current National Executive Committee (NEC) member Fiona Brittle, as well as receiving a specially recorded message from Jeremy Corbyn.

Key themes included the need for a workers’ party, with a basis in the trade unions, and the need for an active anti-austerity, pro-worker, socialist political strategy on the part of PCS.

PCS policy, agreed by the union’s delegate conference, is that the union can stand and support candidates who back the union’s campaigning programme: to “stand or support candidates in national elections that would help to defend members’ jobs, pay, pensions and public services”.  PCS has never stood a candidate but has occasionally supported Labour candidates – including some who have voted for cuts that harmed our members.  That needs to change, and now the opportunity is there... (continued)

The Napo For A New Party meeting on 1 September was the first of its kind since members had met to discuss how to build support for Jeremy Corbyn’s policies in the union when he was leader of the Labour Party.

This meeting was one of a series of follow-ups to the national trade union meeting on 21st July, chaired by Dave Nellist, the former Labour MP (1983-1992) and now the chair of the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC), and addressed by Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana shortly before they made the ‘Your Party’ announcement that has since then quickly gathered such massive support.

Napo represents workers in probation and family courts.  The meeting had a variety of attendees, with new young members alongside current and former vice-chairs and National Executive Committee members, retired members, and both probation and family court workers.

Attendees were keen to express anger at the Labour government.  Labour has continued Tory austerity, harming all public services including probation and the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service (Cafcass).  It has kept the repressive Tory anti-union laws that sabotaged Napo's ballot on industrial action.  We were just short of the 50% turnout threshold, but with over 90% backing strike action and 97% favouring action short of strike!

And members added that Labour has continued the horrendous Tory attacks on refugees and asylum seekers, diving headfirst into the racist rhetoric that was discussed at last year’s Napo AGM, with a panel on opposing racism.

Next steps in the union

The meeting mainly focused on practical aims.  Napo’s 2025 AGM on 16th-18th October will have a motion going to it from the Family Court Section that directly calls for discussion with other trade unions on establishing a new voice for the working class, Motion 21: ‘Enough is Enough – We Need New Political Representation’ (see below).

We agreed to build support for Motion 21 in our branches and to hold another online meeting to follow up on progress.  We also intend to hold a Napo For A New Party meeting at the AGM itself.

More Napo members have joined the group since that meeting, making it clear that the question of working-class political representation will be a feature at the AGM and in the union going forward... (continued)

The Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) national chairperson, the former Labour MP Dave Nellist, today praised the Socialist Students organisation for their campaign to organise walkouts in schools and colleges on Wednesday September 17 in protest at the obscenity of the Trump state visit to the UK.

“TUSC is a coalition of trade unionists, independent socialists with their own individual members’ section, and different organisations; including Socialist Students, which joined TUSC after their conference voted to do so, in 2024”.

“TUSC’s usual practice is to leave it to the component parts of our coalition to advertise their own successes but Socialist Students really should be congratulated on the campaign they have organised since Trump’s visit was announced in July, culminating in the Wednesday walkouts and protests in schools and colleges from Plymouth to Carlisle and all points in between.  As people in Gaza starve to death, and thousands are shot as they queue for food, Trump was invited to Britain by Keir Starmer to feast at a luxury banquet at Windsor Castle.  That obscenity could not go unanswered and Socialist Students rose to the challenge”. 

“When I was an MP I supported the 1985 school student strikes organised against Margaret Thatcher’s notorious cheap labour Youth Training Scheme – being denounced by the then Labour leader Neil Kinnock for doing so – and the Socialist Students’ campaign continues that tradition.  Once again young people are showing what needs to be done”.

For more information check out the Socialist Students website at https://socialiststudents.org.uk/  ■

Online meeting after the walkout: discuss the next steps

Sunday 21 September 12pm

Zoom meeting ID: 859 2586 9207

The latest meeting of the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) all-Britain steering committee was dominated by discussion on the next steps that could be taken to consolidate Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana’s call to establish “a new kind of political party”.

While it is not straightforward to move from the three-quarters-of-a-million or so ‘Your Party’ sign-ups to a democratically organised, mass vehicle for socialist, working-class political representation, the opportunities to do so are clearly there. 

Work must proceed urgently and the steering committee agreed to push on with the ‘Trade Unionists for a New Party’ campaign that has seen hundreds of trade unionists meet over the summer to discuss details of what to do in their own unions, following the 1,000-plus all-union meeting hosted by the TUSC chair, Dave Nellist, on July 21st (check out the meeting video at https://youtu.be/fTTmB-itr4U?si=CS3s5DEUioGeUzUg).

The 2026 elections

Another immediate task, the committee agreed, was to help to get the new party ready for the elections that will be held on May 7th, 2026.  This discussion centred around a briefing document prepared by the TUSC national election agent, Clive Heemskerk, Ideas About The Next Local Elections, available at https://www.tusc.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Ideas-about-the-2026-local-elections.pdf.

The main point emphasised was the enormous possibilities that are there.  The new party could win seats in the Scottish parliament and Welsh Senedd and councillors in almost every one of the seventy-plus English local authorities with elections in 2026.  In some councils it could expect to hold the balance of power after the May 7th polling day.  And even, in some of the authorities that are up for election in this particular four-yearly cycle, win majorities and form administrations.

This, however, the meeting agreed, represents both an opportunity and a challenge.  A substantial presence in local government for the new party could be a powerful bridgehead, a catalyst force, for a movement against the Austerity II agenda that the Starmer government is set on, compelled by the perilous position of British capitalism to further attack public spending including local council services.  But only if the new party and its candidates are clear on what needs to be done... (continued)