The following article is a comment piece from the Trade Union and Socialist Coalition (TUSC)
The Spring Statement from chancellor Rachel Reeves announced further cuts in Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) benefits that the UK’s largest food bank provider, Trussell, described as “catastrophic”. About 3.2m people will lose an average of £1,750 a year, according to an impact assessment by the DWP.
As the currently suspended Labour MP Zarah Sultana said in the Commons after the statement:
Disability benefit cuts will push over 250,000 people, including 50,000 children, into poverty. Does the Chancellor – who earns over £150,000, accepted £7,500 in free clothes and took freebie tickets to see Sabrina Carpenter – believe Austerity 2.0 is the ‘change’ people voted for?
Truly, Labour isn’t Labour anymore. We need to use the opportunity of the May local elections to challenge Austerity 2.0.
The local election: time to send a message to Labour
Over one hundred candidates have been accepted by the TUSC steering committee to use one of the registered descriptions on their ballot paper in May’s council elections after the latest meeting of the committee on Monday – and, while the official nomination deadline is coming up fast, there’s still time for more.
This year, there are only elections in 23 councils after the government, in a completely undemocratic move, cancelled polls in nine councils pending re-organisation plans. Millions have been denied the chance to vote, on who should run their local services and on how their local councils should be organised – and what they think of the government’s new austerity agenda!
But that still leaves 1,600 seats or so being contested in the scheduled elections on 1 May, and in some council by-elections elsewhere, and in 101 of them there will be a clear socialist and trade union alternative to the establishment parties – plus a TUSC candidate in the contest for the Mayor of Doncaster.
The last time these particular seats were up for election, in 2021, there were 60 candidates who used a TUSC description on the ballot paper (and just 31 in the election cycle before that, in 2017). The greater interest in standing this time is another sign of the growing conviction that a new, mass, working class alternative must be built – and that you have to start somewhere.
And there’s still time for more trade unionists, anti-cuts community campaigners, protesters at the latest vicious attacks on disabled people – 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 ‘Continuity Tories’ New Labour Party in May.
Final Deadline to be a TUSC candidate
The final deadline for the steering committee to consider candidate applications has been extended to Sunday 30 March, with the TUSC National Election Agent – Clive Heemskerk, at [email protected] – needing to receive completed applications by then. But that will be really cutting it fine so applications should be sent in as early as possible.
The form to use a TUSC description can be downloaded here.
The current list of candidates planning to stand in May’s elections using one of the TUSC descriptions is now available here. Most candidates will appear on the ballot paper with the description Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition next to their name but a number are using the new Independent Trade Union and Socialist Candidate descriptor, including two former Labour councillors in Doncaster.
TUSC has no rich backers. Some supporters generously make standing orders of a few pounds a month to help our campaigns. If you haven’t done so, particularly if you are in an area that doesn’t have elections this May, please consider, if you are able, sending a ‘Tenner4TUSC’ via our donations page at https://www.tusc.org.uk/donate/
Featured image supplied
