In its April 2nd edition The Observer published an article by Andrew Anthony, a journalist at the Sunday paper’s sister publication, The Guardian, since 1990, under the heading, ‘Jeremy Corbyn’s last stand: should he run and could he win?’

The article included a reference to “when Militant-supporting MPs Dave Nellist and Terry Fields were deselected as Labour candidates in 1992”.  By using the word ‘deselected’ – a specific procedure in the Labour Party when local party members have the opportunity to remove their sitting MP – rather than the correct term, which is ‘expelled’ (by the national party over the heads of the local members), the article is misleading. 

Andrew Anthony, who was around at the time, should know this.  Terry and Dave were prominent parliamentary representatives of the mass campaign of non-payment of the poll tax, the critical factor behind the resignation of Margaret Thatcher in November 1990.  Terry was actually jailed for 60 days for refusing to pay the tax in solidarity with his working class constituents who couldn’t pay.  Labour, under Neil Kinnock, ‘opposed’ the poll tax verbally but, much like Sir Keir Starmer’s ‘disagreement’ with austerity today, went along with its implementation.

But if Andrew Anthony had genuinely forgotten what happened at least a ‘progressive’ publication like The Observer would print a corrective letter, surely?  The late Terry Fields is not here to defend himself but Dave Nellist, a member of the Socialist Party, the Militant’s successor, and the chair of the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC), is.  And so Dave sent a letter for The Observer’s April 9th edition, setting the record straight but also urging Jeremy to stand as a candidate in the next general election. 

But encouraging in any way a bold stand against the capitalist establishment’s austerity consensus is a little too much for its ‘liberal’ media arm.  So we are publishing Dave’s letter below.  Because The Observer wouldn’t. ■

TUSC’s local election campaign in Leicester, Britain’s tenth biggest city, has won the support of three former Labour councillors, who will be appearing on the ballot paper under the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition name and logo on May 4th.

TUSC’s stand against the austerity consensus of all the establishment parties is headed by Steve Score, the candidate for the city’s directly-elected mayor.  Steve’s election address, which will be included in the booklet that will go to every household in the city, can be viewed at http://www.tusc.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Steve4Mayor-election-address.pdf

Also standing as TUSC candidates are former Labour councillors Wayne Naylor (in Braunstone & Rowley Fields ward) and Barbara Potter (Humberstone & Hamilton), and the sitting councillor Ruma Ali, who was one of the 19 Leicester councillors who were removed as Labour candidates by the national party just weeks before the elections.

Days before the outrageous decision of Labour’s national executive committee (NEC) to bar Jeremy Corbyn from standing for the party again, 19 Leicester councillors were informed that they too were no longer eligible to stand as Labour candidates, in this case in the upcoming local elections on May 4th.

Another councillor, Gary O’Donnell, had already left Labour after voting against the cuts budget proposed by the city’s right-wing Labour mayor, Sir Peter Soulsby, and a huge hike in district heating charges on a number of estates. 

Not all of the 19 councillors now excluded by the national Labour Party have by any means adopted the same anti-austerity stance, even within the Labour Group of councillors.  Old scores between different groups of right-wingers are also being settled in this purge.  But what is clear is that, in the name of allegedly ‘cleaning up the party’, even the mildest left-wing dissenting voices have now been silenced.

In this situation the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) all-Britain steering committee has offered a hand of solidarity to the debarred councillors, sending them a letter following our meeting on March 22nd.  In particular, as the letter explains, offering them a way to overcome the problem they faced, if they still wished to stand in May’s election, of how best they could describe their position on the ballot paper.

The 4 May elections in England will see contests in 229 councils.  The Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) will be standing candidates in hundreds of seats to say that there is an alternative to Tory and Labour public service cuts and council tax rises.  

Published below is a shortened and edited version of the opening contribution made by the TUSC national chairperson Dave Nellist to the discussion on the core policies platform (the common ground between all those who want to stand as TUSC candidates in the May local elections) at the TUSC conference on 4 February:

“There should be nothing inevitable about the poverty and suffering that has impacted working-class families by the cost-of-living crisis”.

“We know that trade unions are winning victories against individual employers.  But there is another force within society that could be part of the working-class fightback: local government itself.  As someone who spent 14 years as a Socialist Party councillor on Coventry City Council, I took inspiration from several battles of the past”.

“For example, Poplar council in east London in 1921.  There, Labour councillors defied the government, the courts, and the Labour Party leadership.  They called for the council to receive more income to tackle the area’s high unemployment, hunger and poverty, and to raise council workers’ wages, including equal pay for women workers.  Three of the policies in the TUSC platform for May’s elections (see below) directly echo their struggle”.

The Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) steering committee has approved the first batch of 86 candidates to contest the local council elections in May – and appealed for more to come forward, not least to send a clear message to Sir Keir Starmer after his announcement that Jeremy Corbyn will not stand again for Labour, that socialists are not going away at election time!

Starmer is not just removing Jeremy Corbyn from the revived Tony Blair-style New Labour party but his policies challenging ‘the rigged system’ too.  Everything is being done to reassure the establishment that their free market, profit-before-people system – capitalism by its proper name – will be safe in New Labour’s hands.

Some may argue that even Starmer-type Labour politicians are at least more susceptible to our concerns than the Tories.  But actually, they will only ‘look over their left shoulder’ if they feel challenged there.  On the picket line, certainly, but also at the ballot box – starting in May.

The 2023 conference of the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) is being held at London’s Birkbeck College on Saturday 4th February.

The conference, open to all TUSC supporters to attend, will discuss plans for both the general election and the local elections taking place in May 2023.

Under the title, ‘Starmer’s heading for Number Ten: What should we do at the general election?’, the opening session of the conference will include a broad discussion on what attitude trade unionists and socialists should take to the next general election, that must be held no later than the end of 2024.

The November meeting of the All-Britain Steering Committee of the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) agreed to step up preparations for the elections coming up in the period ahead.

These include the 2023 local elections in England which will see over 7,500 councillors elected (see the TUSC directory at https://www.tusc.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/473.pdf for the councils going to the polls in May), a bigger battleground in terms of seats to be contested than in either 2021 or 2022. But also, of course, there is the general election, which must be called by the end of 2024 but may well be held much earlier.

With the Labour Party on course with its plan to have a full list of its general election candidates in place by spring 2023, one proposal the TUSC steering committee agreed was for local delegations to be organised to Labours prospective parliamentary candidates (PPCs) to see where they stand on the policies needed to meet the cost-of-living crisis that we face.

A model letter to Labour PPCs was approved highlighting six policy areas where the pledges made in the 2019 general election manifesto under Jeremy Corbyns leadership would go far in beginning to reverse the capitalist political establishments austerity agenda. Sir Keir Starmer, we know, has made it clear that he has put the last manifesto to one side. The slate is wiped clean. There is no prospect of radical change there.

But where do the local candidates stand? And if they cant commit to even the policies that many of them were elected on just three years ago, how can they expect not to be challenged at the ballot box by trade unionists, socialists and anti-austerity campaigners who will?

The Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) has stepped up its campaign to get a serious discussion going amongst trade union members, community and social movement campaigners, and socialists from any party or none, on how a working class alternative can be put in place for the next general election.

The autumn tour of TUSC-hosted forums under the heading, Enough is Enough! But what do we do at the ballot box?, has kicked off with successful meetings in Southampton, Wakefield and Newcastle. Further dates have been organised (see https://www.tusc.org.uk/events) and the TUSC steering committee is offering support to anyone prepared to get something going themselves if there isnt a meeting nearby.

This includes supplies of the TUSC leaflet (see https://www.tusc.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/476.pdf to view the text, and https://www.tusc.org.uk/resources for how to order) and a model letter to trade union branches - from the TUSC national chairperson and former Labour MP, Dave Nellist, and the TUSC national election agent Clive Heemskerk - which is available at https://www.tusc.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/477.pdf.

The October meeting of the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) All-Britain Steering Committee agreed a draft core policy platform for TUSC candidates in the local council elections that will take place in May 2023.

With the Tories imploding before our eyes attention has rightly been focused on preparing for the next general election. The steering committee also heard a report on the series of TUSC-hosted meetings being held this autumn under the heading, Enough is Enough! But what do we do at the ballot box?. These aim to provide local forums to discuss how a working class alternative can be put in place for a general election. (See the Events page at https://www.tusc.org.uk/events).

But while the only certainty about the date of the general election is that it must be called by December 2024, we do know that over 7,900 local councillors will face election in six months time. (See the TUSC directory of the May 2023 elections at https://www.tusc.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/473.pdf). With local authorities responsible for over one fifth of all spending on public services, the local council elections are an important arena in which a fight for the socialist policies needed to meet the cost-of-living crisis could be carried on. That is the theme of the draft core policy platform below agreed by the steering committee.

The September meeting of the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) All-Britain steering committee has agreed to a series of public discussion meetings to be held over the autumn months under the heading, 'Enough is Enough! But what do we do at the ballot box?'.

The aim is to provide forums on as wide a scale as possible to discuss how a working class alternative can be put in place for the next general election.

In her first speech as prime minister Liz Truss said she would go to the polls in 2024: with December that year being the last date the general election could be called. But facing the economic, political and social storms ahead with a 'mandate' from just 81,326 Tory party members - less than half the number of workers on strike against the cost of living crisis only days before her elevation - it could well be a lot earlier than that.

September sees the release of a new book by Chris Williamson, the former Labour MP for Derby North, titled Ten Years Hard Labour and billed as 'the inside story of the Miliband and Corbyn years and how they led to the Labour left's demise'.

Chris was suspended from the Labour Party in February 2019 following comments he had made at a meeting in Sheffield that Labour under Jeremy Corbyn's leadership was being "demonised as a racist, bigoted party". Partly because it had been "too apologetic" in its response, he argued, particularly given that it had "done more to address the scourge of antisemitism than any other political party".

His suspension was lifted by Labour's national executive committee on 26 June, with a formal warning given, meaning that he would still be eligible to be chosen again by his local party as a parliamentary candidate for the next general election. But this was too much for the right-wing majority within the Parliamentary Labour Party and, two days later, he was re-suspended.

One thing is clear from the ferocious 'debates' between the rival factions in the current Tory leadership contest following the resignation of Boris Johnson: whoever wins the 'I am more Thatcherite than you' race, a new programme of austerity attacks on public services is very much on the agenda.

And local councils, responsible for over a fifth of all spending on public services, will be on the frontline again - including Labour-led councils, 125 of them, which alone control budgets of at least £82 billion providing vital services to over 29 million people.

But with the Tories split and in such obvious turmoil, there really should be no excuse for those councils in particular to refuse to go along with new austerity demands and instead act to defend local services and immediately mitigate the cost of living crisis.