The Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) has produced a 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 necessary for anti-austerity campaigners not just to say ‘no cuts’ but to explain how councillors could defy the government and defend local public services. 

This report – 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 (see the 55-page briefing document at https://www.tusc.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/450.pdf). ■

The Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) directory of the elections taking place in May 2025 has now been published and is available as a PDF at https://www.tusc.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/Elections-2025-directory.pdf.   

The directory, an annual production by TUSC referenced once as a resource 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 – a tool for forward planning in the battle to get a socialist, anti-austerity alternative onto the ballot paper next May in the first big electoral test of the Starmer Labour government and its ‘tough choices’ Austerity 2.0 agenda.

There are a record number of candidates standing in this general election – showing the growing disenchantment with the establishment politicians and their parties.

In addition to the forty candidates standing on behalf of the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) on July 4th – the full list of whom can be found at https://www.tusc.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/TUSC-candidates-on-July-4.pdf – there is a range of other anti-war, anti-austerity independent and smaller party candidates appearing on the ballot paper. 

Local TUSC supporters, and the different organisations participating in our coalition, will want to campaign for many of these candidates, particularly in areas where there is no TUSC candidate standing nearby – while still promoting their own policies and organisations as they do so, and the TUSC central purpose of supporting alternative candidacies which will take forward the process of establishing a new mass vehicle for working class representation after July 4th. 

It is possible to do this.  But there are election rules that must be followed.  Both to avoid bringing the campaign of the candidate you are supporting into a breach of electoral law (potentially invalidating the result); and to avoid local TUSC supporters themselves risking prosecution.

The TUSC all-Britain steering committee has produced a guide, Campaigning For Other Anti-War and No-Cuts Candidates, available at https://www.tusc.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Guidance-on-Third-Party-campaigning.pdf, that shows how this can be done. 

It includes a model letter to the alternative candidate that you wish to support – that can be adapted to the local situation – but which is the necessary first step before any leaflets can be produced or meetings organised.

Talk of ‘election law’ can “seem a bit daunting”, the guide concludes, “but it shouldn’t be”.  As it says, “the advantage of such arrangements is that organisations supportive but independent of a particular candidate can run their own campaign in an election period – which they wouldn’t otherwise be able to do – but then ‘strike together’ with the alternative candidate at the ballot box”.

“Local TUSC groups and participating organisations in our coalition should be confident to do so, seeking further advice if needs be from the TUSC National Agent”. ■

The Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition’s All-Britain Steering Committee has produced a summary guide for candidates and election agents looking to contest the local council elections taking place in 2024 on Thursday May 2nd.  This is available as a downloadable PDF at https://www.tusc.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/TUSC-Guide-for-Candidates-Agents-2024.pdf   

The guide contains information on the official regulations governing the elections, based on publications produced by the Electoral Commission, along with some tips and pointers drawn from the previous experience of TUSC election campaigners. 

As well explaining the official election rules, the guide also includes information on the procedures agreed by the steering committee on how to become a TUSC candidate. 

There will be just over 2,000 councillors elected in May 2024 – see the TUSC elections directory for where the elections are (at https://www.tusc.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/2024-Elections-Directory.pdf).

These will be the last council elections before the general election – if both elections are not, in fact, held on the same day.  With no deposits needed to stand in a local election, the question is: why couldn’t YOU be on the ballot paper to help build an alternative to the establishment parties?  The guide shows how it can be done.

The Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) All-Britain Steering Committee has republished the Preparing a No Cuts People's Budget briefing document we first produced in January 2016.

The new briefing document is available as a PDF at https://www.tusc.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/450.pdf.

Now Sir Keir Starmer has revived Tony Blair's New Labour, once again working class voters face being effectively disenfranchised. But the crisis of local public services has not gone away and the need for a fighting alternative is even greater. The re-published TUSC briefing, new and updated, is a contribution to building that alternative.