As the Tories discuss their public spending cuts plans to make working class people pay for the Covid crisis the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) national steering committee has set out the core policies TUSC candidates will be committed to fight for in next May's local council elections.

TUSC is an electoral coalition, offering the opportunity to trade unionists, community campaigners, socialists and others to stand candidates under a common anti-austerity banner distinct from the mainstream, establishment politicians.

The core policies are the minimum basis on which someone can stand as a TUSC candidate rather than 'Independent' - the only legal alternative if you are not endorsed by a registered political party - which doesn't say whether a candidate supports austerity and cuts or not.

The Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) national steering committee today condemned the suspension of Jeremy Corbyn from the Labour Party, and pledged to fight Keir Starmer's 'resurgent Blairism' - including at the ballot box next May.

At the same time it welcomed new members to the coalition steering committee from the national executives of five different trade unions - and the former Labour MP Chris Williamson, who was himself suspended in 2019, and prevented from defending his Derby North seat as a Labour candidate in last year's general election.

The TUSC national chairperson Dave Nellist, also a former parliamentary colleague of Jeremy Corbyn when he was an MP from 1983-1992, said:

The Scottish Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) steering committee has organised a conference on November 7 to prepare a socialist challenge for the Scottish parliament election in May 2021.

We are inviting trade unionists and trade union organisations, socialists and socialist organisations who are interested in helping to build that election challenge to take part.

If you would like to participate and/or your organisation would, please let us know.

Organising locally. Photo Bob Severn

The Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) national steering committee, meeting on October 7th, has issued an appeal to those considering standing under the TUSC banner in next May's elections to start organising locally now as best they can within the Covid restrictions.

The Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) national steering committee today called on London Mayor Sadiq Khan to stand up to the Tory government and refuse to carry out any more cuts as a new funding crisis faces the city's Transport for London (TfL) authority.

TUSC, co-founded in 2010 by the general secretary of the RMT transport workers' union the late Bob Crow, has consistently argued that local authorities have the potential power to compel the Westminster government to provide the necessary funding for decent public services. And sitting at the centre of the city's arteries there is no more powerful local authority than TfL led by the London Mayor - if only there was the political will to fight.

The TUSC national chairperson Dave Nellist, a Labour MP from 1983-1992 and a former backbench colleague of Jeremy Corbyn, said:

The Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) national steering committee, meeting on September 2nd, has agreed to resume standing candidates in elections, starting in the contests scheduled for next May.

TUSC was established in 2010 to enable trade unionists, community campaigners and socialists from different parties and none, to stand against pro-austerity establishment politicians under a common banner and an agreed platform of core policies. Within that framework hundreds of TUSC-authorised candidates had stood in elections, polling over 375,000 votes between them - until 2018.

TUSC had already re-calibrated its electoral activity after the unexpected but warmly welcomed victory of Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader in 2015.

The November 2018 meeting of the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition national steering committee has agreed to suspend all TUSC electoral activity until further notice.

The TUSC name and logos can still be used in campaigning activity by local TUSC groups and the coalition's component organisations, but from now on the legally required certificates of authorisation needed for the TUSC name and emblem to appear on election ballot papers will no longer be issued by the TUSC national election agent.

This decision follows a period of discussion within TUSC around proposals submitted over the summer by the Socialist Party, one of the founding organisations of the coalition, to re-set the role of TUSC three years after the election of Jeremy Corbyn as Labour Party leader (see http://www.tusc.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/425.pdf).

Fighting council cuts

The Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) has published its third annual report on the level of reserves held by Labour-led councils across Britain. This is a series started following the September 2015 election of Jeremy Corbyn as Labour Party leader on an anti-austerity platform.

Presenting a statistical profile of all the 125 Labour-led councils in England, Scotland and Wales, the report reveals "the substantial resources of the local state under the control of the Labour Party" - which, the introduction argues, would make them "a potential counter-power to the Tory government" if councillors were prepared to fight.

The TUSC report, entitled How much reserves have they got?, is available as a downloadable PDF by clicking http://www.tusc.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/427.pdf

The Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) directory of the elections taking place in May 2019 has now been published.

This directory, an annual production of TUSC which has previously been referenced by the House of Commons Library, provides a breakdown of the councils with statutory elections scheduled for the year ahead, the number of councillors up for election, and the current political control in each council listed.

It also includes a list of Labour councillors who signed the Open Letter in support of Owen Smith's leadership coup attempt against Jeremy Corbyn in 2016 who are councillors in local authorities with elections next May.

The directory is available as a PDF, by clicking http://www.tusc.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/426.pdf

The Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) national steering committee has launched an appeal to help meet the legal costs of Chris Fernandez, the local election agent for eight TUSC candidates at the 2016 council elections in Derby, who earlier this year was imprisoned for 'electoral fraud'.

A full account of the case is available at http://www.tusc.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/413.pdf but in essence Chris was judged guilty of misleading members of the public on the electoral register into signing TUSC candidates' nomination papers in the 2016 local elections. The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) argued and won on 12 out of 14 counts that people believed they were signing a petition against the closure of Derby's Moorways swimming pool and not a local election nomination form.

Chris categorically denied setting out to mislead anyone but, before the trial, was put under enormous pressure to admit to something he hadn't done and not contest the case. And now, scandalously, after having serving four months in prison, he has been hit with a bill for £8,847 for exercising his right to protest his innocence. Chris had applied for legal aid but, because he lost the case, he now has to pay a contribution to the costs.

This autumn marks the third anniversary of Jeremy Corbyn's stunning victory in the Labour leadership contest that rocked the capitalist establishment.

In the aftermath of the 2015 result the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) recalibrated its activity and has debated continually since then how best to push forward the new possibilities opened for socialist and trade union politics.

This July the Socialist Party, one of the founding organisations of TUSC, submitted a discussion paper to the TUSC national steering committee outlining a number of new proposals it felt were necessary to re-set the role of TUSC for the period ahead. This is now being published in a TUSC Discussion Bulletin by the steering committee for comment and consideration by all TUSC supporters and interested friends. The Discussion Bulletin is available at http://www.tusc.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/425.pdf

Southampton rebel councillor Keith Morrell, re-elected with a thumping majority

The Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) stood 111 council candidates in 33 authorities in the local elections on May 3rd, contesting 101 wards.

The stand-out result was the victory of TUSC national steering committee member Keith Morrell, one of the three Putting People First group of anti-cuts councillors that sits on Southampton council. The next best score was recorded in Kirklees council's Crosland Moor & Netherton ward, with TUSC winning 701 votes for a 14.2% share. The best performance in a single council was achieved in Waltham Forest, with TUSC polling 2,841 votes across the 12 wards (out of 20) contested there.

A report of the campaign, with details of the full results of every TUSC candidate, has been prepared by the TUSC National Election Agent (see the draft report at http://www.tusc.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/424.pdf), and will be discussed at the next TUSC national steering committee meeting on May 23rd.