February has already been a busy month for the Trade Union and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) – as it not only hosted a convention of other left-wing parties and organisations, but also announced it was standing in yet more seats in this year’s elections.
TUSC: standing over 120 candidate at May’s elections
First, the agenda of the TUSC all-Britain steering committee held on 14 February was a particularly full one. Agreeing a second round of candidates for the local elections on 2 May, it took the tally so far to 123 councillor seats to be contested by TUSC, across 21 local authorities:
Local election candidates, general election applications, and a model trade union motion.
This month's #TUSC steering committee report at https://t.co/Zjtb4XyKqa pic.twitter.com/aeZjL0cpqe— TUSC (@TUSCoalition) February 18, 2024
The TUSC said:
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 and 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?
Before this, representatives of twelve different campaign groups and socialist organisations met in Birmingham on Saturday 3 February in a “Convention to Organise a Working Class Challenge” at the general election.
A working-class convention
Initiated by 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 here), 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.
A full report of the convention is available here:
Convention agrees on plan for united general election challenge to Sunak and Starmer. Representatives of 12 campaign groups + socialist organisations met in Birmingham to organise a working-class challenge at the General Election.
For a full report, see https://t.co/e6Md6dYAeW pic.twitter.com/oNEho8tW4n— TUSC (@TUSCoalition) February 7, 2024
There also time for you to get involved and become a TUSC candidate.
Become a TUSC candidate
The next steering committee meeting to approve candidate applications will take place on 13 March, with completed application forms needing to be received by the TUSC national election agent – Clive Heemskerk, at cliveheemskerk(at)socialistparty.org.uk – by Saturday 9 March in order to be placed on the agenda for this meeting.
In the full report of the steering committee, available here, you will find links to download:
- An application form to be a TUSC local election candidate.
- The guide for election candidates and agents.
- Core policies for the local elections.
- The list of 105 councils where elections take place in May.
- An application form to be a general election candidate.
Make sure you’re following TUSC on X and Facebook.
Featured image via TUSC
