Vote TUSC on 4 May

We need a new party! And most people agree.

61% of people think the UK “needs a completely new type of political party to compete with the Conservatives and Labour for power”, according to the Edelman trust barometer.

Tories have spent the last decade destroying our public services. Keir Starmer’s Labour promises a government led by him will be one of “fiscal restraint” – code for more cuts.

The last time the Lib Dems were in power, it was to assist the Tories to begin the austerity onslaught. And the Greens have shown their true colours as part of cuts-making alliances in the Scottish parliament, and in a number of councils.

In most of the council seats up for election on 4 May, voters will choose from a spectrum of candidates, none of who are prepared to fight the Tory government for the funding our communities need.

But in over 250 seats, including every ward in Sheffield, Coventry, Plymouth and Southampton, as well as mayoral candidates in Mansfield and Leicester, and many more places too, working-class fighters are standing as part of the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC).

TUSC candidates, which include many Socialist Party members, pledge to “oppose all cuts”, and “support all workers’ struggles against government policies making ordinary people pay for the crisis, and for inflation-proof pay rises” (see TUSC core policy platform at tusc.org.uk).

A vote for TUSC on 4 May will send a message that we are not prepared to take more of the same – attacks on workers, our communities and services.

We need a new type of party – a mass workers’ party, armed with a socialist programme. Standing socialist, anti-cuts fighters in the local elections is a step in the process of helping to bring one into existence.

A workers’ list of candidates backed by the trade unions to contest the next general election, would be an even bigger step towards creating the kind of mass party we need.

And Jeremy Corbyn – who has been barred from standing as a Labour candidate by Keir Starmer – should stand at the next election, outside of Labour, too. If Corbyn launched a new party with the unions, it could have 100,000 members in a week.

Go to tusc.org.uk to find a full list of candidates standing for TUSC

Read more about TUSC’s election stand, and what’s happening in Labour, on pages 2, 6, 7 and 10.