The 2023 conference of the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) is being held at London’s Birkbeck College on Saturday 4 February.

The conference, open to all TUSC supporters, will discuss plans for both the general election and the local elections taking place in May. 

Under the title, ‘Starmer’s heading for Number Ten: What should we do at the general election?’ the opening session of the conference will include a broad discussion on what attitude trade unionists and socialists should take to the next general election, that must be called no later than the end of 2024.

This will be followed, in the afternoon, with specific sessions on the TUSC core policy platforms – a list of minimum commitments that voters could expect from someone elected under the TUSC banner, while leaving room for the candidates from the different parts of the coalition to control their own campaigns.

There will be two draft platforms to discuss – for the May 2023 local elections and, separately, the minimum core policies TUSC candidates would stand on in the next general election. 

The core policies platforms

The local elections will see over 7,900 council seats contested (see the TUSC directory of the May 2023 elections at www.tusc.org.uk/txt/473.pdf).  With local authorities responsible for over one fifth of all spending on public services, these elections are an important arena to fight for the socialist policies needed to meet the cost-of-living crisis.  That is the theme of the draft core policy platform agreed by the TUSC all-Britain steering committee in October, previously published on the website and now available as a PDF at www.tusc.org.uk/txt/484.pdf

The general election platform was finalised by the steering committee at our December meeting after a series of discussions, using as a ‘default’ baseline the TUSC core policies for the 2015 general election (TUSC did not contest the 2017 and 2019 general elections with Jeremy Corbyn as the Labour leader). The draft document can be read at www.tusc.org.uk/txt/485.pdf.

The conference will also see the election of steering committee members representing the individual independent members of TUSC.

TUSC conference

  • Saturday 4 February, 11am to 4-30pm
  • Room B34, Birkbeck College, Malet Street, London WC1E 7HX
  • The conference registration fee is £10 waged and £2 unwaged or low-waged, for both in-person and Zoom attendees, and there will be a capped pooled fare of £15 (which means that if your transport costs are greater than £15 you can get the difference back, although please do what you can to keep the costs down)