Socialist Green Unity Coalition

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The Socialist Green Unity Coalition is an electoral alliance formed by leftist parties and political organisations in Great Britain prior to 2005 parliamentary election.^[1] After the 2005 election the coalition continued to operate as a liaison and co-ordinating body but has not extended its remit much beyond electoral co-ordination. It was established after the Respect Unity Coalition (which the SGUC constituent organisations regard as little more than a vehicle for the Socialist Workers Party) rejected requests to discuss an electoral arrangement to avoid clashes in 2005 (despite the fact that Respect had offered such an arrangement to the non-socialist Green Party).

The largest single component is the Socialist Party, which contested the 2005 election as Socialist Alternative in Bootle, Brighton Kemptown, Bristol North West, Cardiff South and Penarth, Coventry North East, Coventry South, Leicester West, Lewisham Deptford, Newcastle East and Wallsend, Sheffield Heeley, Stoke-on-Trent Central, Swansea West, Wakefield, Walthamstow, Wythenshawe and Sale East.^[2]

Other participating organisations include the Alliance for Green Socialism (standing under their own name), Alliance for Workers Liberty and Socialist Unity Network (both standing as Socialist Unity) and the Democratic Socialist Alliance, whose candidates in 2005 were also members of the United Socialist Party.^[3] Many of these organisations were in the previous Socialist Alliance before it became dominated by the SWP who dissolved it in February 2005.

All the SGUC member organisations campaigned on a common platform including calls for an end to privatisation, for defence of the welfare state, an end to poverty and for full employment.^[1] The SGUC also gave greater priority than most of its individual members to the question of the environment and building a sustainable economic system - largely due to the influence of the Alliance for Green Socialism.

Coalition members stood against the Green Party in some constituencies (because the Green Party would not negotiate an electoral arrangement to avoid such clashes) but agreed not to compete with the Respect Coalition or the Scottish Socialist Party. It received over 12,000 in 2005 votes and did not come close to winning any seats and only succeeded in holding its deposit in one seat, Coventry North East. Following the election, the coalition agreed to remain in existence for future elections and to run a campaign in support of fair pensions. It stood candidates in the United Kingdom local elections, 2006.^[4]