COMMUNISTS are standing in the May council elections with a programme, “Communities fit for working-class people,” that offers a way out of constant capitalist crisis, with a renewed sense of purpose and determination.

Thousands of print copies are now being circulated on high streets, online and through letter boxes, backed up by a series of podcasts on housing, education, combatting crime and rebuilding communities, facing up to inflation and “levelling up.”

As one would expect, the Communist Party puts forward the case for socialism, but there is something very interesting happening in the way this is articulated. As a result of its growth since its centenary in 2020, the party has attracted a new generation of members, with backgrounds in community and trade union activism, and with knowledge of how the basics of socialism can be argued for, at local level.