We explain why and how socialists should back Michael Lavalette in the elections for the Your Party leadership body (the CEC)

The election process requires candidates to get endorsed by members (75 endorsements for regional seats, 150 for public office holder seats).

Michael Lavalette from Counterfire is standing in the ‘public office holder’ section. There are 4 places in this section of the vote. We urge everyone to endorse Michael.

The endorsement period is open until Thursday 29 January.

Michael is standing to:

1.⁠ ⁠Unite the party. We should aim to build a powerful broad alliance around the core political demands that unite us, from improving living standards to justice for Palestine, from championing wealth taxes to opposing racism.

2.⁠ ⁠Develop roots in our communities. We must build a strong presence in local communities through campaigning on issues that matter to millions of working-class people.

3.⁠ ⁠Empower the branches. We must immediately recognise branches and provide them with membership data and funds to become local centres of organising.

As of Sunday morning, Michael had 1990 endorsements – a fantastic score for someone who isn’t on either Jeremy’s or Zarah’s slate. Jeremy (over 4000 endorsements) and Zarah (over 3000 endorsements) are out in front, but Michael is in the mix with those on Zarah’s and Jeremy’s slates. 

If you are a YP member and haven’t yet made any endorsements, we urge you to endorse Michael.

The more endorsements he gets, the better he will be placed for the election.

Whilst pushing the endorsements up, we also need turn to think about the actual voting period.

Voting proper will open at 9am on 9 February. Even if you have endorsed a candidate you need to go back to your membership portal and vote for them!

If you join YP before 4 February, you can vote. So don’t delay, register today!

Michael has had endorsements from Ken Loach, Andrew Feinstein, Stephen Kapos and Lindsey German. We have included them as attachments. Can you share these across your social media? Can you share these in relevant WhatsApp groups?

Remember there are 4 places in the ‘public office holders’ section, so we are asking people to ‘Give one of your 4 votes to Michael’.