A conference of the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) is taking place this Sunday, February 2nd, from 11am to 1-30pm on Zoom. 

The event is open to all and meeting ID details can be got by registering at bit.ly/TUSC25conf.  There is no conference fee but donations to support TUSC’s work are always welcome, and can be made at https://www.tusc.org.uk/donate/

The conference has been convened under the heading, ‘Fighting for a new party under the Starmer government. And what role for TUSC?’, as the need for a working class political alternative to the Tory-lite New Labour government becomes clearer by the day.

The following platform speakers from the constituent components of TUSC will introduce the single plenary session, alongside a representative of Collective, a network involving key supporters of Jeremy Corbyn from his time as Labour leader who are now seeking to build the foundations for a new left political party.

Dave Semple, PCS Vice President (personal capacity)

Hannah Sell Socialist Party general secretary

Suzanne Muna Unite NEC member (personal capacity)

Andrew Jordan The Collective secretariat group

Tom Allen TUSC Individual Members’ section

Tom Porter-Brown Socialist Students

The event will also discuss how to achieve the biggest possible socialist challenge at the first widescale electoral test of the new government, the local elections to be held in May 2025, including what the minimum core policies platform should be that candidates will need to commit to in order to use one of the TUSC names and emblems on the ballot paper.  There will be plenty of time for thoughts, contributions and questions.

The conference agenda document, including a draft platform for the May 2025 elections – our ‘six guarantees’ – is available at https://www.tusc.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Conference-agenda-document.pdf ■

“Exactly which English local council elections will go ahead on Thursday 1st May is still unclear at this point”, says the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) national election agent, Clive Heemskerk, responding to the latest government announcement on January 15th about the fate of May’s polls.

But, he adds, anyone considering standing against the establishment parties in any of the 31 councils originally scheduled for elections this year, who wants to use one of the TUSC descriptions on their ballot paper, “shouldn’t hold back from sending in their TUSC candidate application form” as soon as possible.

An attack on democracy

Labour’s English Devolution White Paper, published in mid-December, proposed a wholesale re-organisation of local government, signalling its intent to merge many districts councils into larger, less accountable, single bodies – known as unitary authorities – and increase the number of directly-elected mayors.  It also gave the option to county councils facing elections in May this year to apply to postpone those contests if they could show they could carry out re-organisation plans by 2026. 

TUSC is a coalition with an all-Britain steering committee which reflects its character as an inclusive alliance. 

The steering committee includes official delegates from the trade unions and socialist organisations currently participating in the coalition and other individual leading trade unionists, with their own constituency within their union but not officially representing it on the committee, sitting in a personal capacity.

Other individuals who are independent socialists, but who are not members of a constituent organisation, also have places on the committee, elected by the TUSC individual members. The current Individual Members’ reps are Pete McLaren and Tom Allen, whose 2024 candidate nomination statements can be seen at https://www.tusc.org.uk/20288/15-02-2024/tusc-individual-members-representatives-elected-to-steering-committee-for-2024/.

If you want to stand as an Individual Members’ representative on the TUSC steering committee you can self-nominate by submitting a maximum 250-word candidate statement to Clive Heemskerk at [email protected], by 12 noon, Monday 27th January.

The statements will be made available at the TUSC conference on Sunday 2nd February and there will be an online ballot held subsequently if the number of nominations receives requires one.

The Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) steering committee has agreed the agenda and timetable for a conference to be held on Zoom on Sunday February 2nd.

The conference has been convened under the heading, ‘Fighting for a new party under the Starmer government. And what role for TUSC?’, as the need for a working class political alternative to the Tory-lite New Labour government becomes clearer by the day. 

The event will also include a discussion on how to achieve the biggest possible socialist challenge at the first widescale electoral test of the new government, the local elections to be held in May 2025. 

The October meeting of the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) all-Britain steering committee agreed a new TUSC report examining the broad financial position of the 32 local authorities that will form the ‘election battleground’ for the first scheduled ballot box test of the Starmer government in May 2025.

With the Tories controlling the majority of these councils, against the backdrop of Labour’s new austerity agenda it will be even more necessary for anti-austerity campaigners – between now and the May elections – not just to say ‘no cuts’ but to explain how councillors could defy the government and defend local public services if they wanted to. 

The TUSC report – entitled How Much Reserves Have They Got? and available at https://www.tusc.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/2025-Reserves-Report.pdf – provides the detail for the battleground councils to supplement previously published TUSC material on how it is possible to prepare a no cuts People’s Budget if the will is there (see especially the 55-page briefing document at https://www.tusc.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/450.pdf).

Below we publish extracts from the introduction to the report by Clive Heemskerk, the TUSC National Election Agent. ■

It is with great sadness that we have learnt of the passing of Joe Simpson, the deputy general secretary of the Prison Officers Association (POA) and a firm friend of the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) over many years.

Determined to take the fight against the ban on prison officers’ right to strike onto the political plane, and resist prison cuts and privatisation plans too, Joe stood as a TUSC candidate in the 2012 Greater London Assembly elections and joined the TUSC all-Britain steering committee in the same year, sitting in a personal capacity.  He also stood as a TUSC parliamentary candidate in the 2015 general election.

Joe was an implacable opponent of Tony Blair’s ‘New Labour’ and its policies defending the interests of the capitalists against the working class – policies continued under Gordon Brown and Ed Miliband – but saw the possibilities of change in a socialist direction under Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour leadership.  In the same spirit, the TUSC steering committee as a whole agreed to recalibrate our electoral activity during this period, not contesting either the 2017 or 2019 general elections.

But with Starmer’s ascent to the leadership in 2020 and the revival of ‘New Labour’ in its new guise, Joe enthusiastically agreed to speak at the conference to relaunch TUSC in February 2021, held on zoom during the Covid pandemic.  

The loss of his voice in defence of working class interests is a painful blow to us all but others will have to come forward to pick up the banner. ■

The TUSC national chairperson Dave Nellist adds: "Joe was a true giant of the workers' movement, a man of immense strength both physically and in his convictions.  His dedication to militant trade unionism and socialist change was unwavering.  He inspired all who knew him.  It was a privilege to work alongside him, both locally and nationally.  His loss will be deeply felt within the trade union and socialist movement".

The September meeting of the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) all-Britain steering committee discussed the latest developments regarding ‘the Collective’ network, planning for the next round of scheduled statutory elections that will take place in May 2025, and two upcoming council by-elections in Coventry and Dundee which TUSC will contest, including the TUSC chairperson Dave Nellist fighting his old council seat in Coventry’s St Michaels ward.

For the item on TUSC’s discussions with the Collective, a network of ‘those on the left who seek to build the foundations for a new political party’ including important figures from Jeremy Corbyn’s time as Labour leader, the steering committee had before it a briefing document (at https://www.tusc.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/TUSC-Briefing-on-the-Collective.pdf) produced by the TUSC national agent, Clive Heemskerk. 

This gave a report of the discussions of the Collective attended by TUSC from before the general election which have developed further with the production in August of a draft strategy document by the core group, entitled Beyond GE24: Rebuilding a Mass Socialist Movement as a Foundation for a New Left Political Party. 

This is still very much an early draft before publication – and so only a summary has been given in the TUSC briefing – and what degree of support there is for its proposals is still to be determined.  That obviously affects how viable or not it is to form a new party to a set timetable in early 2025.  Or whether, as the TUSC representatives argued, a systematic campaign to establish the need for a new party in the trade unions, alongside continuing local community struggles and ongoing social movements, is more likely to achieve our shared goal. 

The Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) has published its annual directory of the statutory elections for the year ahead, this time the English local council elections scheduled to be held on Thursday 1st May 2025 (available at https://www.tusc.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/Elections-2025-directory.pdf).  These contests will be the first big electoral test of the Starmer Labour government and its ‘tough choices’ Austerity 2.0 agenda.

The dire financial situation facing councils and the vital local public services that they provide made it onto the pre-election ‘shit-list’ prepared by Starmer’s advisors of the early problems that an incoming government would have to deal with. 

The first meeting since July 4th of the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) all-Britain steering committee was dominated, naturally enough, by a discussion on the outcome of an historic general election and what it could mean for the prospects of a revival of mass working class political representation in the period to come.

The meeting debated the draft review of the election – The 2024 General Election Fact File –prepared by the TUSC national election agent Clive Heemskerk, which listed the TUSC results and those of the anti-war, anti-austerity independents, the Workers Party of Britain and other lefts, in the context of the broader trends revealed by the election. 

With detailed statistics illuminating the shallow levels of support for the new government; the growing alienation from the political institutions of capitalism since the 1990s; and the historic shift away from Labour by workers and others from a Muslim background as a portent of future movements to come, the report asks: is there any “stable social base for the coming second age of austerity, privatisation, war and climate crisis retreats that the Starmer government will attempt to impose on us?”  And what opportunities does that create to build a new, mass workers party that can unite all sections of our class?

That the July 4th general election was an historic moment is now a commonplace in media commentary.  But what exactly is ‘historic’ about it is being consciously blurred.

Now the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) is publishing a statistical review of the election – The 2024 General Election Fact File – a draft report prepared by the TUSC national election agent Clive Heemskerk for the first post-election meeting of the TUSC all-Britain steering committee taking place on July 17th.

Including the TUSC candidates’ results, after discussion at the steering committee it will be published on the website’s Candidates Page as a public record – as has been TUSC practice for every election we have stood candidates in since 2011.

The Tories are heading for an historic defeat on Thursday July 4th and no trade unionist, anti-war on Gaza demonstrator, working class community campaigner, climate protester, or socialist activist will be sorry to see them go.

But it is also true that none of those voices will find representation in the Sir Keir Starmer-led Tony Blair-style New Labour government that is set to enter Downing Street on July 5th.

That is why the most important vote that can be cast on Thursday – where it is possible to do so – is for those candidates who could play a part in building a new mass working class political opposition to the new occupants of Number Ten.

And with Jeremy Corbyn standing as an Independent in Islington North, leading a band of anti-war and anti-austerity candidates including those from the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC), the Workers Party of Britain, and others, there will be the option in many constituencies to do just that. 

The full list of TUSC candidates standing is available at https://www.tusc.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/TUSC-candidates-on-July-4.pdf.

Other candidates

It is true that the challenge to the mainstream capitalist establishment parties has not been as widespread and organised as it could have been... 

The Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition – TUSC for short – is standing forty candidates in the general election on Thursday 4th July.

Here is our easy-read Manifesto designed for learning-disabled or English-Second-Language (ESOL) voters.

Just click: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1kCiHzXS7OisTBlIzY73As1DWC-m0sVWWj_t-Q1eV27k/edit?usp=sharing

You can find more information about voting from Mencap by clicking

https://www.mencap.org.uk/help-and-advice/all-about-voting