A draft report of the performance of the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) in the May local elections is now available at https://www.tusc.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/2024-Draft-Results-Report.pdf.

Prepared by the National Election Agent, Clive Heemskerk, it will be debated at the next meeting of the TUSC all-Britain Steering Committee taking place on Wednesday May 15th before a final version is published, continuing the tradition established by TUSC since 2011 – of printing the detailed results of every candidate that appeared on the ballot paper under the coalition’s name – on the basis that no serious political advance can be made without an honest accounting of strengths and weaknesses.

The report does not aim to provide an analysis of the TUSC election campaign in the wider context of the fight for a broader vehicle of working class political representation, as the consolidation of the Labour Party as the political representatives of big business under Keir Starmer continues apace. 

But what report does show, argues Clive, is that the TUSC 2024 election campaign has been the best since the relaunch of the coalition in September 2020, after the hopes raised by Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership of the Labour Party had led TUSC to suspend its electoral activity.

The highlights of the campaign were the results in Southampton council’s Bevois ward and the Deepdale ward in Preston, with the TUSC candidates’ scores of 32.2% and 31.3% respectively rattling the local Labour Party as our ‘No to cuts! No to war on Gaza!’ message struck home.  Bevois was the safest ward for Labour in Southampton before May 2nd – but not now!

And there were, more modest, gains elsewhere.

While speculation mounts on whether Rishi Sunak could be forced into a summer poll, Thursday’s local elections across England will give millions of people the opportunity to show what they think about all the establishment politicians, Sunak and Starmer alike.  If you believe that it is time to vote for something different, why not start on May 2nd?

An updated list of all the anti-cuts, anti-war candidates standing on Thursday that the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) is aware of is available here (https://www.tusc.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Final-List.pdf).  They include the candidates appearing on the ballot paper under the TUSC name but also, from page eight, others – standing as independents, or for parties not yet part of the TUSC umbrella – who have been recommended for support for their anti-austerity, anti-war stance. 

Together the 344 council candidates listed here surpass the number of council candidates being fielded by Reform on Thursday, officially occupying the position of the fifth-biggest party in the May elections.  There is an anti-cuts, anti-war option available in 321 wards in those councils with scheduled elections on Thursday, nearly one-in-six.

This impressive stand shows what could be done if all those who want to build a working class alternative to the establishment parties find the means, while respecting their differences, to work together to a common goal.  A lesson for the general election, whenever it is held. ■

Results reporting

Individual results will be published on social media as they come in; and a full report of the campaign, with the detailed results of every TUSC candidate, will be prepared for the next TUSC all-Britain steering committee meeting on Wednesday May 15th.

A draft version will be posted early next week and, after discussion at the steering committee, published on the Candidates Page as a public record – as has been TUSC practice every year since 2011.

Postal voters received their election packs in mid-April.  But in the six wards being contested by Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) candidates in the Hertfordshire borough of Broxbourne they were given ballot papers which were missing the TUSC Against Cuts ‘party emblem’. 

The bold TUSC Against Cuts logo is a clear signifier of the policies TUSC candidates fight for.  It stands out on ballot papers against the Labour rose, the Conservatives’ tree emblem, and the Liberal Democrats’ bird-in-flight symbol.  But not on the original papers prepared in Broxbourne.

Realising its mistake – candidates’ have a legal right to have the emblem of the party they are standing for printed on the ballot paper – the council has sent out replacement postal vote packs and correctly ruled that any of the original ballot papers that are returned will not be counted.  But obviously people apply for postal votes for various reasons, including being away from their home, and some electors will inevitably have lost the chance to vote.

And the question remains.  Why was the TUSC emblem omitted in the first place?  Not just from one candidate’s ballot paper, but from all of the TUSC candidates in Broxbourne, contesting a majority (six) of the borough’s ten wards?  On the other hand, the two UKIP candidates in the borough had their emblem included – out of the grand total of 14 council candidates that UKIP is standing across the whole of England on May 2nd compared to 280 for TUSC. 

Possibly this is an example of how bias in wider society can be reflected in AI programmes!  But more likely, some sentient being at some point made the decision to include the establishment parties’ emblems on the ballot papers (including UKIP), but not the TUSC one.

As it becomes ever clearer that a Starmer-led government will not represent the interests of working class people in Britain or internationally, ever-growing numbers are looking at what the alternative should be at the ballot box. 

But while welcome attention is being generated by declarations of prospective general election campaigns and candidacies against the Westminster consensus politicians, the date of that election, of course, is still not known. 

In the meantime however millions of people will have the opportunity to vote in May – in the local elections taking place then.  The Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) is standing in nearly one-in-seven of the council wards with scheduled elections this year. 

But we know that there are other candidates who should also be supported who are standing outside of the TUSC coalition umbrella at this stage.  So alongside the TUSC candidates’ list below we are publishing them in a separate list – to together produce the most comprehensive a list as possible of where you can vote for stop the cuts, stop the war candidates on May 2nd! ■  

The Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) is standing 279 candidates across 55 authorities in May’s elections in England, including a candidate in the directly-elected mayoral contest in Salford and four constituency seats for the London assembly.

Nominations closed on April 5th, and the full list of candidates that made it onto the ballot paper is available at https://www.tusc.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Final-list-of-candidates.pdf, with the council candidates presented in a regional breakdown.

Two hundred and sixty-eight of the TUSC council candidates are standing in tier one or two local authorities with scheduled elections this year – 49 out of the 107 councils in that category.  There is also one TUSC community councillor listed, seeking re-election in May. The remaining five council candidates are contesting by-elections that have been called to coincide with the May polls.

Overall, 13.8% of the council wards with local elections this year (263 out of 1,904, nearly one-in-seven) will have at least one TUSC candidate on the ballot paper, contesting 10% of the seats available – three times as many as in the 2023 local elections. 

This is a significant achievement for a coalition without any mainstream national media coverage, particularly when compared to the millionaire-funded Reform Party, which has only been able to find 323 council candidates to represent it.

Every TUSC candidate is committed to stand up to the establishment parties, including Reform, who have all shown themselves to be virtually indistinguishable when it comes to representing the interests of working class people – in domestic policy and foreign policy too.  The TUSC core policy platform for our May 2024 council candidates can be found at https://www.tusc.org.uk/20023/13-01-2024/tuscs-core-policy-platform-for-the-may-2024-local-elections-2/. 

The summary, however, is simple – every one of them will be a stop the cuts, stop the war candidate in the May 2nd polls! ■

There are other candidates who will be taking a similar stance on May 2nd who, while not on this occasion appearing on the ballot paper under the TUSC banner, will be supported by our coalition.  These include the 33 council and one Police and Crime Commissioner candidates standing for the Workers Party of Britain, which has observer status on the TUSC all-Britain steering committee.  Also, amongst the 500 or so ‘Independents’ standing this year, there are a number who could be properly described as anti-cuts and anti-war candidates; headed by Jamie Driscoll – regularly referred to in the establishment media as ‘the last Corbynista in office’ – who is standing to become the Mayor of the new North East Combined Authority.  We are currently collating information on these and will publish as comprehensive a list of alternative candidates as possible in the coming days.

Two hundred and forty candidates have been approved to stand on behalf of the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) in May’s local elections after the latest meeting of the TUSC all-Britain steering committee on March 13th. 

The candidates will be contesting four constituency seats for the Greater London Authority, the directly-elected Salford city mayor, and council wards in 44 first or second-tier local authorities – just over 40% of the 105 local councils with elections this year.

And there’s still time for more trade unionists, anti-cuts community campaigners, stop the war on Gaza protesters, and socialists from different parties or none, to join what will be the biggest working class left-of-Labour challenge to Sir Keir Starmer’s Tory-lite New Labour party in May.   

The final steering committee meeting to approve candidate applications will take place just before Easter, with completed application forms needing to be received by the TUSC National Election Agent – Clive Heemskerk, at [email protected] – by Saturday 23rd March in order to be placed on the agenda.

The application form to be a TUSC council candidate can be downloaded at https://www.tusc.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/2024-Application-form-Cllr.docx (if you are having difficulty opening this link, try copying it into your browser). 

There is also available an explanatory TUSC Guide for Election Candidates and Agents on the resources page, at https://www.tusc.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/TUSC-Guide-for-Candidates-Agents-2024.pdf and a list of the 105 councils where there are elections in May at https://www.tusc.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/2024-Elections-Directory.pdf. 

The TUSC core policies for the local elections, the minimum policy commitments expected from TUSC candidates, can be found at https://www.tusc.org.uk/20023/13-01-2024/tuscs-core-policy-platform-for-the-may-2024-local-elections-2/. 

The March 13th TUSC steering committee, meeting just two weeks after the Rochdale by-election, discussed a number of other important matters too, including a report on their future plans from a representative of the Workers Party of Britain, who attend committee meetings as observers.  Further reports on the decisions made will be published here soon. 

But in the meantime, the full list of council candidates agreed so far can be found at https://www.tusc.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Candidates-list-to-24-03-13.pdf

The Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) has announced its support for George Galloway’s ‘insurgent campaign’ against the establishment politicians in next week’s Rochdale by-election.

The TUSC national chairperson Dave Nellist, a former Labour MP backbench colleague of George Galloway from 1987-1992, said:

“On February 29th there is no other choice that trade unionists, socialists, and all those that want to  protest at the slaughter in Gaza, could make in the Rochdale by-election than to vote for George Galloway, the only anti-war, pro-Palestinian, anti-austerity alternative to the establishment parties appearing on the ballot paper”.

“The recent Kingswood and Wellingborough by-elections showed the hatred that exists towards the Tories but there was not enthusiasm for Sir Keir Starmer’s Tory-lite New Labour Mark II party.  That would have been shown in Rochdale too, even if Labour had not withdrawn its support for its own candidate after the official nominations had closed”.

The agenda of the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) all-Britain steering committee held on February 14th was a particularly full one.  Agreeing a second round of candidates for the local elections on May 2nd, it took the tally so far to 123 councillor seats to be contested by TUSC, across 21 local authorities.

Already it is clear that this will be by far the biggest working class left-of-Labour challenge to Sir Keir Starmer’s Tory-lite New Labour party at the May local polls.  But the message went out that there is still time to join the coalition of trade unionists, stop the war on Gaza protesters, community campaigners, and socialists from different parties or none, standing together under the TUSC umbrella on the ballot paper.  What is stopping anyone who wants to fight back from taking a stand?

The next steering committee meeting to approve candidate applications will take place on March 13th, with completed application forms needing to be received by the TUSC National Election Agent – Clive Heemskerk, at [email protected] – by Saturday 9th March in order to be placed on the agenda for this meeting.

Two independent socialists, Pete McLaren and Tom Allen, have been elected to represent the TUSC Individual Members’ section on the TUSC All-Britain Steering Committee for 2024.

TUSC is a coalition with an all-Britain steering committee comprised of representatives from its constituent organisations alongside leading trade unionists, sitting in a personal capacity.  Individual members of TUSC who are not members of a constituent organisation, who organise their own national meetings and online consultations on TUSC matters and other issues, also have places on the committee.

For 2024 the two individual members’ representatives will be Pete McLaren and Tom Allen.  Their candidate nomination statements are published below.

Representatives of twelve different campaign groups and socialist organisations met in Birmingham on Saturday 3rd February in a Convention to Organise a Working Class Challenge at the General Election. 

Initiated by the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) last year with an appeal to different organisations to discuss the possibility of a joint election challenge to both the Tories and Sir Keir Starmer’s rehashed Tony Blair-style ‘New Labour’ party (see https://www.tusc.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Invite-to-organise-convention-October-2023.pdf), TUSC was joined as a co-host of the Convention by the Socialist Party, the registered political party System Change (formerly Resist), the Campaign for a Mass Workers Party, the TUSC Independent Socialists group, and the Socialist Students organisation, with a presence on forty campuses across Britain. 

Joining them in Birmingham – in person and on zoom given the ASLEF train drivers’ strike – were representatives from six further organisations.  These included the registered parties, the Social Justice Party and the Workers Party of Britain, the newly-formed Transform party, and the Organising Corbyn Inspired Socialist Alliance (OCISA) campaign group, who are promoting a single independent left candidacy for Sir Keir Starmer’s Holborn & St Pancras constituency seat. 

Representatives of twelve different campaign groups and socialist organisations are meeting this weekend (on Saturday 3rd) in a Convention to Organise a Working Class Challenge at the General Election. 

An agenda document has now been released by the Convention Arrangements Committee, which is available at https://www.tusc.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Convention-Agenda-document.pdf.

The Convention will start with an opening session which has been given the title, ‘Do we want a common election challenge? And is it possible?’.  Participating in this discussion will be the Convention co-hosting organisations – the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC), the Socialist Party, System Change (formerly Resist), the Campaign for a Mass Workers Party, the TUSC Independent Socialists, and Socialist Students – alongside the newly-formed Transform Party, the Social Justice Party, the Workers Party of Britain, and the Organising Corbyn Inspired Socialist Alliance (OCISA) campaign group who are promoting a single independent left candidacy for Sir Keir Starmer’s Holborn & St Pancras constituency seat.

The January meeting of the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) all-Britain steering committee approved the first batch of candidates to contest the local council elections on May 2nd, kicking off the year in which a general election must be called – if, indeed, as is possible, it isn’t actually held on the same May 2nd date.

Thirty-eight candidates were agreed at the January 10th meeting, a record for TUSC at this early point in the nomination process, reflecting a growing determination that Sir Keir Starmer’s Tory-lite New Labour party should not be left unchallenged at the ballot box. 

An initial agenda has been agreed for the 3rd of February ‘Convention to Organise a Working Class Challenge at the General Election’, with seven organisations now committed to attending and others still consulting members through their appropriate structures.

The premise of the Convention has always been that a general election challenge by trade unionists, socialists and campaign groups to Sir Keir Starmer’s new New Labour party is a politically legitimate goal to organise towards.  So a debate on whether there should be candidates standing against Starmer’s Labour at all will not be part of the agenda. 

But the scale and character of the challenge, including whether a common stand is feasible or desirable and how it would be organised, are matters for discussion.  And that’s what the Convention agenda has been set to achieve.

Following the declaration in November by the Scottish government that it “will not co-operate with establishing any minimum service orders here” (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-67344306), Sheffield city council has become the next public authority to state that it will use “the discretion not to issue work notices” in the Tories’ new Minimum Service Levels Act, in order to defend workers’ right to strike.

This was the result of a debate initiated by the socialist councillor Sophie Wilson at the full council meeting held on December 6th. 

Sophie, a Labour Party parliamentary candidate in the 2019 general election who now sits as an independent in the 84-seat authority, had submitted a motion to commit the council not to issue ‘work notices’ in any disputes that it is involved in.  These are the notices employers are empowered to issue to individual workers by the Minimum Service Levels Act to instruct them to continue working during a strike.

Sophie’s motion also called for the Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer to pledge that “an incoming Labour government [would] reverse fines and other measures taken against any union under the terms” of the Act.  With a union potentially losing its protection from liability and subsequent claims for damages from non-compliance with the Act, or facing action for contempt of court, realising such a commitment would be an important blow against the anti-union law.

Outline details have been agreed for a broad Convention of campaign groups and socialist organisations considering standing candidates in the general election – to organise a common working class challenge for the contest that will take place at some point in 2024.

The Convention date has been set for Saturday 3rd February, in Birmingham at a venue to be announced.

The TUSC all-Britain steering committee had invited around thirty campaign groups and socialist organisations to co-host a gathering to discuss an election challenge (see https://www.tusc.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Invite-to-organise-convention-October-2023.pdf) and had received replies from organisations representing 14 of them by the time of its meeting on November 22nd.

Five organisations so far have agreed to be Convention co-hosts – the Socialist Party, System Change (formerly Resist), the Campaign for a Mass Workers Party, Socialist Students, and the TUSC Independent Socialists section – with the Social Justice Party and Just Stop Oil still consulting, and the interim committee of the new Transform Party not in a position to make a decision before their now-completed inaugural conference on November 25th. 

A Convention Arrangements Committee (CAC) has been agreed, composed of the five organisations and the TUSC officers – which, however, is still open to those who subsequently decide that they wish to co-host the event.

The Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) has announced the core policies platform that every candidate who wants to stand for the coalition in the May 2024 council elections has to accept as their minimum commitment to voters.

The council elections that will take place on 2nd May next year will not be another routine set of polls for seats in the local town hall.  They will be the last round of local elections before the general election, that must be called no later than December 2024 – if the contest to decide who will end up in Number Ten Downing Street is not, as it could be, held on the same day.  

Whenever the general election is actually held, the councillors that we elect in May 2024 will effectively be our communities’ negotiators with the new government – for the funding we need to protect, improve and expand our vital local public services.  

But this will be against the backdrop of a funding crisis for councils – and the clear signalling from the Autumn Statement debates that all the establishment parties in parliament will continue the austerity squeeze on public spending.

That’s why every vote for a Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) council candidate, and every additional volunteer prepared to stand as a TUSC candidate, will be the clearest possible counter-signal we can give in the May local elections – whoever ends up in Number Ten, we want fighting councillors in our town halls!

The Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) stood in the by-election for the Mayor of Hackney that was held on November 9th.

The TUSC candidate was the national trade union organiser Annoesjka Valent who, before taking up her current position, worked for nearly seven years for the council and represented Hackney workers as a local shop steward. 

Labour retained the Mayor’s position with a 49.8% vote share but its actual vote fell by 17,575 from its score in the regular election in May 2022.  By-election turnouts are generally lower, but Labour’s vote was still down – by 4,121 – from a previous Hackney mayoral by-election in 2016, when it also won a 68.9% vote share. 

The Green Party was the main beneficiary of the discontent with Keir Starmer’s Labour that this result showed, coming in second.  But local TUSC supporters were happy with Annoesjka’s very creditable 1,265 votes, a 3.4% share, in TUSC’s first showing in a mayoral election in Hackney and the first in the borough run under first-past-the-post – rather than the previous supplementary vote system of first and second preferences.

Below is a report of the campaign by Brian Debus, the Hackney and Islington TUSC convenor. ■

With Keir Starmer showing every day that a government he leads will be another version of Tony Blair’s ‘New Labour’ complete with its Iraq war-style echoing of US foreign policy – the latest example being the suspension of the Labour MP Andy McDonald after his speech at last week’s mass demonstration against the war on Palestine – the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) has issued an urgent call for a broad convention to organise a working class challenge at the forthcoming general election.

The TUSC all-Britain steering committee meeting on 25th October agreed to invite all campaign groups and socialist organisations considering standing candidates at the general election to co-host a convention to discuss details.  TUSC has previously contacted more than twenty campaign groups and socialist organisations to discuss their thoughts about the general election.  

The aim is not for another debate on whether an election challenge is a good idea or not, but to get down to practical organisation.  The time for decisions is coming.

The letter of invitation is printed below, and is also available as a PDF at https://www.tusc.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Invite-to-organise-convention-October-2023.pdf  ■

The Labour Party’s Manifesto at the 2019 general election, under the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn, committed an incoming government to “immediately suspend the sale of arms to Saudi Arabia for use in Yemen, and to Israel for arms used in violation of the human rights of Palestinian civilians”.

A Corbyn-led government, the Manifesto went on, would also strive to “secure justice and accountability for breaches of human rights”, listing, as an example, “the illegal blockade of the Gaza Strip”. 

More broadly, the Manifesto said, “Labour is committed to a comprehensive peace in the Middle East based on a two-state solution – a secure Israel alongside a secure and viable state of Palestine”. 

“There can be no military solution to this conflict”, it continued, and “all sides must avoid taking action that would make peace harder to achieve.  That means both an end to the blockade, occupation and settlements, and an end to rocket and terror attacks”.  To press for a resolution, “a Labour government will immediately recognise the state of Palestine”. 

The Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) is on the ballot paper in the by-election for the Mayor of Hackney taking place on November 9th – but immediately faced censorship of its message by the Labour-run East London council.

The TUSC candidate is national trade union organiser Annoesjka Valent who, before taking up her current position, worked for nearly seven years for the council and represented Hackney workers as a local shop steward.  Since moving on she has still been involved as a Hackney resident in local struggles against council cuts.

But when TUSC handed in our text for the official Mayoral address booklet, that goes to every household in the borough, our effort to contrast Annoesjka’s record with that of the Labour candidate, councillor Caroline Woodley, was censored by the council.

There are many examples of slashed council jobs and services made by the right-wing Labour council as it has implemented budget cuts worth over £200 million since 2009.  But one particular case was the attempt made in 2021 to close down the Fernbank and Hillside children’s centres – led by the council cabinet member responsible, Caroline Woodley. 

So, in making the point in our Mayoral address – in the original wording – that this election “will decide who negotiates for our borough with both the Tory government and a likely Keir Starmer-led Labour government” implementing austerity, we asked: “Will our borough be best represented by the Labour candidate who tried to close Fernbank and Hillside children’s centres? Or by the TUSC candidate, a member of the Socialist Party, which supported the campaign that saved them and has fought every cut?” 

What could possibly be wrong in saying that?  Unless you want to obscure the role of local Starmer-supporting Labour councillors in passing on Tory cuts and what that says about how they will act in the future?  And that’s what the amendments forced on the TUSC election address did.

As Annoesjka says: “As Mayor I would be a shop steward fighting for the residents and workers of Hackney, not a manager passing down austerity from the Tories or Starmer’s Labour”.  And, despite the obstacles, that will be the message that the TUSC campaign will deliver!  ■

You can check out Annoesjka’s election address – as finally approved by the council! – at https://www.tusc.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/Hackney-mayoral-address.pdf

And go to https://www.tusc.org.uk/donate/ to make a donation to the campaign, putting in the message bar, ‘Hackney Mayor’.