Nominations for Your Party Central Executive Committee (CEC) elections closed on 16 January. The Socialist Party wrote to those in the interim leadership of Your Party – the Independent Alliance MPs including Jeremy Corbyn, and Zarah Sultana – on 7 January, asking for clarification on the rules for the election, and whether or not they should be interpreted as excluding members of the Socialist Party being able to stand. So far, at the time of publication, the Socialist Party has not received a response. Read that letter here.

Consequently the Socialist Party Executive Committee agreed to Dave Nellist and April Ashley putting themselves forward in regional seats, to seek the required 75 ‘endorsements’ from individuals to appear as candidates in the election. However, on 19 January, Dave and April received an email from Your Party Returning Officer Andrew Jordan informing them that they have been judged ineligible to stand. Appeals have been submitted.

We publish Dave and April’s statements.

---

Dave Nellist

West Midlands County Councillor (Labour), Coventry South East – 4 years, 1982–1986

MP (Labour), Coventry South East – 9 years, 1983–1992

City Councillor (Socialist Party), Coventry, St Michael’s ward – 14 years, 1998–2012

Current national chair, Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC)

Member, Unite (and antecedent unions), 52 years and the Socialist Party.

• When MP, only took skilled worker’s wage, as calculated from union figures across 10 Coventry factories – donated half MP’s salary to labour movement causes;
• one of first MPs to introduce Private Members Bill for a national minimum wage;
• led successful parliamentary campaign to extend Disability Living Allowance, benefiting parents of 4,000 severely disabled babies;
• parliamentary spokesperson for All Britain Anti-Poll Tax Federation;
• awarded Backbencher of the Year 1991;
• when MP, spoke at 1,500 public meetings and each year in top 10% of Labour MPs’ voting records.

Expelled by Labour in January 1992 over promise to follow Terry Fields MP to jail by refusing to pay Poll Tax (later widened to ‘bringing the Labour Party into disrepute’ by association with Militant Tendency).

Narrowly lost seat in the 1992 general election – winning 10,551 votes.

After Parliament, worked five years for local solicitors on debt and welfare advice; including winning cases that resulted in the release of jailed poll tax nonpayers.

Until retirement in 2017, worked 20 years for Citizens Advice, Coventry.

Dave says: “Conference decisively rejected a ban on dual membership. Jeremy and Zarah have consistently said Your Party will be different, fully controlled by its members. Let members vote for whom they want on the CEC – no bans decided in secret!

“My immediate priority on the CEC will be to work to put trade unions at the heart of building our new party – and to campaign for the widest anti-austerity and anti-war challenge in the 2026 elections.”

---

April Ashley

I am a member of the National Executive Council (NEC) of public sector union UNISON, which has over 1.3m members. First elected to the NEC in 2009, I was re-elected as the female black members’ rep in 2025, topping the poll with 28,792.

I have worked in local government in Southwark since 1994, in housing and now adult social care. I have been a UNISON member throughout those 32 years campaigning on pay, pensions, funding cuts, and for a fighting union that stands for members and a socialist alternative.

My union branch roles have included steward, housing convenor, Black members officer, and assistant branch secretary. In 2020, I was the first Black person to become UNISON Branch Secretary in Southwark. Our branch won against private profiteer Veolia on workloads.

I also play a leading role in Southwark Trades Council, as secretary previously and now chair.

I have fought for a political voice for the working class, standing as an anti-austerity, socialist candidate in elections at local government, London Assembly, and general election levels.

I am a lifelong anti-racist and solidarity campaigner, in the 1980s organising in the South Africa Labour Education Project and the movement against apartheid; then the Youth Against Racism in Europe protests following the murder of Stephen Lawrence and the campaign that confronted the British National Party in the 1990s, closing down their headquarters; protesting against the English Defence League in the 2010s; building Black Lives Matter; and today organising Windrush solidarity campaigning in UNISON.

I am a Socialist Party member. I am aware that Your Party rules are currently being interpreted to say that candidates can’t be a member of another national political party, but I and others believe this doesn’t apply to the Socialist Party which supports Your Party and its aims.