Oscar Parry, Enfield and Lea Valley Socialist Party
We have had decades of establishment political parties telling us cuts to our public services and jobs are necessary, while the billionaires get ever richer.
No wonder trust in those politicians is at an all-time low. No wonder there is enthusiasm for Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana’s Your Party.
2026 elections
In May 2026, there will be elections for thousands of council seats in dozens of local authorities in England, as well as for the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Senedd. Your Party could win councillors in every authority, hold the balance of power and even win some councils. It is an opportunity to elect local councils to refuse to make cuts and instead say ‘make the super-rich pay!’
We could have councils funding free bus travel, introducing rent controls, building council homes, and reversing privatisation. Imagine councils providing breakfast clubs and free school meals, re-opening libraries and youth clubs. The council funding gap is £4.25 billion this year. But the combined wealth of the 350 richest people and families in the UK is £772.8 billion. The money is there, it’s in the wrong hands!
Even where there aren’t elections in 2026, councils must set budgets – and we should be demanding they include no more austerity cuts! The Socialist Party is calling on Your Party to bring together local trade unions, community campaigns, and socialist organisations to collaborate in drawing up no-cuts ‘people’s budgets’. Documents listing what our communities actually need, not just what the government tells us is ‘affordable’.
Budgets for us
Councils can use their borrowing powers and reserves to set no-cuts budgets as part of building a mass campaign for proper government funding for local services. That is a strategy supported by local authority trade unions Unite, Unison and GMB.
Your Party councillors defying austerity would need to mobilise mass support from the working class and trade unions – a counter to huge pressure to stick to the establishment’s austerity status quo.
Elected politicians, fighting on our side against the bosses for once, refusing to accept more cuts to our services. That can help to build Your Party as a mass party of the working class, and cut across support for the right-populist Reform.
The Socialist Party will be to the fore in putting forward a fighting socialist programme within Your Party, and making the case for the role of the organised working class to be central. Join us!
