The Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC), an electoral alliance of which the Socialist Party is a part, has written an open letter to the Green Party to call on it not to stand a candidate against Jeremy Corbyn in the Islington North parliamentary constituency at the next general election.
The Socialist Party calls on Jeremy Corbyn to stand, following his exclusion as a Labour candidate, as part of a trade union-backed workers’ list of candidates in the next election.
To: Carla Denyer and Adrian Ramsay, co-leaders of the Green Party
We are writing to urge the Green Party to declare, at the earliest possible moment in accord with its democratic procedures, that it will not stand a candidate against Jeremy Corbyn if he decides to contest the Islington North seat independently of the Labour Party at the next general election.
We believe that the decision of Labour’s National Executive Committee (NEC) to debar Jeremy from standing again as a Labour candidate is not just about renouncing him as an individual but his radical policies too. Sir Keir Starmer, who instigated the NEC decision, had previously made it clear that the 2019 manifesto has been “put to one side. The slate is wiped clean.”
This includes not only the pledges to end private sector involvement in the NHS and renationalise Royal Mail, the water companies and public transport, or the promise to abolish university tuition fees. It also includes the significant commitments made to a ‘Green Industrial Revolution’, which were rated by Friends of the Earth as being the most impactful policies on the climate and ecological crisis of all the parties contesting the 2019 general election.
In this situation, where Starmer’s Labour is increasingly seen not as an alternative to the Tories but as an alternative Tory party serving the interests of the capitalist establishment, how other parties respond to a prospective independent candidacy by Jeremy Corbyn will be an important measure of where they too stand politically. Put simply, which side are you on?
We are aware that the Green Party has consistently stood a candidate in Islington North, not in 1983 when Jeremy Corbyn was first elected but in every contest since, including 2017 and 2019. But to stand against Jeremy again in the next election, rather than support him if he fights the seat against an imposed ‘Labour’ candidate, would be an unambiguous political choice in favour of the establishment and their parties.
Signed:
- Dave Nellist, TUSC national chairperson, former Labour MP 1983-1992
- Clive Heemskerk, TUSC national election agent
- Nicky Downes, NEU national executive committee (personal capacity)
- Hugo Pierre, Unison national executive council Black members rep (personal capacity)
- Adam Harmsworth, Napo national executive committee (personal capacity)
- Chris Baugh, PCS assistant general secretary 2004-2019
- Amy Murphy, Usdaw president 2018-2021
- Hannah Sell, Socialist Party general secretary
- Pete McLaren, TUSC individual members steering committee representative
- John Maher, System Change (formerly Resist)
