The lessons for TUSC in the recent local elections

Overall I feel the recent elections were good to be honest for TUSC in many places we were standing for the first time. We may not have made a significant breakthrough but I am still confident our time will come.

Labour gained big numbers of councillors and control of councils again this is a last chance for labour if you like given to them by those who voted. This is no way an endorsement of the labour party and their slow cuts strategy but an anti Tory vote where people looked to punish the government including Tories and lib dems. This at the moment has meant labour has won big but unless they break from the base of capitalism they are based on they too will be carrying out the cuts and feeling the wrath of the anti cuts movement.
It is certainly going to be a very interesting period now with still only a estimated 9% of the cuts been seen so far many labour councils will have to make the cuts if they want to stay true to their capitalist masters. If they do break from this and do stand up for ordinary people and refuse to make the cuts all well and good that is what we want to happen but frankly from the evidence so far where labour control councils this does not appear to be the case at all.


If anything they seem to not even debate the cuts just interested in the speed of the cuts not the cuts passé. It is a good time for TUSC now we really have to keep our nerve and keep firm to our principles stand by what we’ve stood on and build on these elections.

Standing as broadly as we can in new areas building the TUSC name is key for this coming period between now and the next elections. We can’t just be seen as another party who is only seen at election time. We must be standing shoulder to shoulder with workers in struggle be that on strikes on demonstrations and mass movements as the crisis in capitalism will deepen there is no doubt about that.
As Marxists we see the struggle for a new society based on the needs of people over the profits of a few a process which can be and flow seeing our movement thrown back at times when other times we can advance consciousness and make gains. The recent elections have clearly given labour one last chance to prove they can stand up for ordinary people against the cuts. We know this won’t happen but people have to see this in action and will be betrayed. We have been told well why you don’t join the labour party to affect change from within. This is a dead end argument as we were in the labour party and were expelled for giving workers a voice. We are not prepared to sit in the labour party and sit by as the working class goes to hell in a handcart. We are actively trying to give a lead to workers and that alternative which is being searched for more and more.

As some commentators and others on the left think this will be the end for Tusk and the likes of Dave Nellist who unfortunately lost his seat to a new labour pro cuts candidate on Thursday but this is not the end if anything it is just the start and we will be there on the right side of the picket lines standing with ordinary workers who need our support against the boss’s

So onwards and upwards I say let labour show us what they are all about now as we will be watching closely and ready to expose them.