Leanne Wood of Plaid Cymru campaigns for re-election in The Rhondda. Photo, Andrew Dowling
“WE CANNOT AFFORD ANOTHER 5 YEARS OF MANAGED DECLINE- THE NEXT SENEDD REQUIRES URGENT, DRAMATIC POLICY CHANGES ON POVERTY, CARE, CLIMATE CHANGE, HOUSING AND DEMOCRATIC ENGAGEMENT.”
Even to someone who is perpetually depressed by Welsh politics, the forthcoming Senedd elections surely represent a nadir.
For starters, it should not be happening under such limited circumstances when postponing it for even a month would have allowed all parties an equal shot at it. An election with such limited time to canvass in person and with so little coverage blatantly favours the incumbents and those with money who do not need to canvass.
Yet there has barely been any outcry, presumably because all the major parties believe that they are in with a shot. Democracy is evidently not as important as the chance of power.
Despite lowering the voting age to 16, there has been hardly any attempt made to engage young people, or even to register them, something which seems all the more cynical following a year where young people have been repeatedly demonised and their futures threatened by Welsh Government policy.
And even with the very real threat of the ultra right wing Abolish the Welsh Assembly party gaining a foothold in the Senedd, Wales’ crippling partisanship has meant there has been no attempt to mount a broad electoral front to encourage tactical voting to stop this happening.
There are 23 candidates standing in these elections who do not even live in Wales. It is a damning indictment of devolution and the structural weaknesses of Welsh democracy that Welsh politics has become a gold rush for chancers and careerists from outside Wales looking for an easy 68k a year to sit as wreckers in our parliament.
All this has unfolded against a surreal, corrosive backdrop of ‘team wales’ Covid nationalism, where the success of the vaccination programme has led to the shocking failures of the Welsh government during the pandemic being memory holed in real time by the credulous Welsh political class and even elements of the Welsh left.
In any fair society with a functioning public sphere, a party which has presided over proportionately one of the highest death rates in the UK (and therefore the world) would be viewing these elections as a death knell. Instead, they are bizarrely and unjustly going into them with a spring in their step.
Despite recent polls which predict a Labour bounce, however, it is certainly not unreasonable to believe the Conservatives may replicate their successes in England and take marginal seats like Bridgend, Vale of Glamorgan, Brecon & Radnorshire and Clwyd South.
Confronting British chauvinism
At the wider UK level, Boris Johnson has emerged from this crisis in an incredibly strong position and looks to have solved, at least temporarily, the crisis of the Tory party. Despite the Covid crisis providing organised labour with unprecedented leverage, the left across the UK in contrast has emerged from the pandemic the weakest it has been in generations. The Labour party is led by a spineless, Tory-lite buffoon– possibly the worst labour leader in living memory– and major trade union leaders openly mock the idea of going on strike.
A permanent Tory majority for possibly the next generation at least, combined with a gutless union leadership means that some very bad things, exemplified by the authoritarian policing bill, the internal market bill’s attack on devolution look set to begin to flow towards Wales and Scotland like lava.
For socialists, this election therefore represents one of many defensive rear-guard actions that will need to be fought in the coming years across the UK as the state becomes more openly authoritarian. Given the aggressively unionistic element of the current Tory administration, any Welsh Government’s ability and will to confront and withstand the wider Tory onslaught has to be considered just as much as domestic policy making.
‘Standing up for Wales’ within this context therefore must be more than a hollow slogan but an essential electoral pillar of resistance to Tory hegemony and aggressive British chauvinism.
But people who want uncompromising left opposition to Tory rule – the same people who were energised by Jeremy Corbyn – will be disappointed if they are looking for a new political project to support in this election.
In terms of policy, it is a measure of how far to the right Welsh politics has shifted that not a single party will countenance tax rises for the wealthy, despite tax policy being one of the major levers available to governments wanting to change the balance of power. Both Plaid Cymru and Labour are committed to the Welsh form of PFI, the disastrous ‘mutual investment model’, which would see local authorities in Wales saddled with huge debt to private companies for financing public infrastructure. Both the social democratic parties are wedded to the damaging orthodoxy of ‘growth’ as a narrow measure of economic success. Both essentially represent different fractions of the new Welsh middle classes- neither represent the working class.
Plaid have also come in for deserved criticism for their failure to stamp out instances of transphobia, something which will have invariably cost them votes from left leaning people who might otherwise naturally gravitate towards the party.
Nonetheless, there is a qualitative difference between the two social democratic parties, both in terms of personnel and ideas, which all socialists should recognise. Plaid Cymru are standing at least 7 republican socialist candidates, including Leanne Wood, Wales’ foremost socialist. Labour by my count have only 2 left candidates standing. Plaid’s manifesto, for all its problems, nonetheless contains a number of significant policies which would be genuinely transformative for working class people: a national care service, universal free childcare, expansion of free school meal eligibility, moderate but progressive reforms of drug policy, the reform of council tax, the lowering of house prices and rent caps, and universal basic income.
In addition to these policies, independence for Wales is the only realistic option of obtaining a better, socialist society. The UK is an innately reactionary, undemocratic state, and breaking apart this rotten edifice is inherently progressive and should be supported by all socialists. Plaid’s unequivocal commitment to independence is therefore very important.
As for Labour, their actions during the pandemic have revealed their true nature. Their repeated favouring of business and landlords rather than tenants and other working class people; the public money handed over to Amazon and to Wales’ richest man as poor people struggle to eat; their attempts to blame working class people for the crisis. Although Welsh Labour are skilled at deploying progressive ‘radical’ rhetoric, a small amount of research into any policy area reveals a right wing party that is totally committed to neoliberalism, always prioritising the needs of capital over the working class.
The results of these ‘business friendly’ policies are all around us: poverty in Wales has climbed to eye watering levels whilst big businesses and property developers have made out like bandits with Welsh Government subsidies.
On top of their neoliberalism, their repeated deference to the Tory Government in Westminster throughout Covid represents a crippling ‘kamikaze unionism’ whereby regardless of how many times the Tory Government rides roughshod over Wales, standing up to them cannot be countenanced, because this would be ‘nationalism’.
Labour’s back of a fag packet manifesto is insultingly weak, and sums up the arrogance of a party and movement with no ideas or ambition. Their one standout policy idea- a medical school for North Wales- was previously rejected out of hand because it was put forward by Plaid. Their refusal to countenance the nationalisation of social care in their manifesto despite the appalling experiences of the pandemic is particularly shameful.
The failed mantra of austerity
Shaken by the scale of opposition to his refusal to expand FSM eligibility, Mark Drakeford has started to openly adopt the language of austerity. During the election campaign he has branded Plaid’s more progressive policies as ‘unaffordable’ and repeatedly stated that we should ‘live within our means’. Despite expert recommendations and despite recognising the damage that Universal Credit does to Wales, Drakeford has rejected calls to devolve welfare.
In the past few months the Welsh Government attempted to make huge cuts to the National Library of Wales and has begun a new round of school closures. Labour politicians have also begun engaging in predictable attacks on the idea of independence and ‘nationalism’ using old tired tropes common during the seventies.
This all gives us a depressing insight into what a majority Welsh Labour Government would bring: no radical attempts to tackle poverty; a continued deference to the Tories in Westminster and acceptance of austerity. More cuts, more closures, more poverty. In terms of intergovernmental relations, Welsh Labour’s blind faith in the British state and refusal to engage with the reality of the death of Labour in England means they will continue to roll over in any confrontation with the Tories. Ironically their unionism denies them any form of leverage, therefore making future attacks on devolution more likely.
Towards a culture of dissent
Therefore whilst a Tory majority is certainly a nightmare scenario, a Labour majority is a close second.
We cannot afford another 5 years of managed decline- the next Senedd requires urgent, dramatic policy changes on poverty, care, climate change, housing and democratic engagement.
A Labour majority would be a pyrrhic victory akin to Macron’s ‘victory’ in France 4 years ago, and would merely lead to a deepening of the underlying conditions that have brought us to this precipice full of ‘morbid symptoms’ in the first place.
For these reasons, socialists should not vote for Labour unless they are in a Tory/Labour marginal. All socialists should at the very least vote for either Plaid Cymru or the Greens on the regional list– this is the best chance of keeping Abolish and UKIP out of the Senedd.
In the dire circumstances the left finds itself in, unfortunately the best case scenario for these elections is a Labour-Plaid majority, with progressive AMs in Plaid obtaining ministerial positions in a coalition. This at least gives a chance for the implementation of a number of Plaid’s better policies, such as the national care service. Plaid’s lack of a unionist death drive crucially means that pressure would be put on the Welsh Government to push back more against Tory attacks on devolution and not roll over. It will help keep the issue of independence front and centre in the Senedd which is key to making it a mainstream idea.
An independence referendum will not happen in the next 5 years, but the prospect of a mass movement towards independence itself acts as a form of leverage when negotiating with Westminster.
However, even if a Labour-Plaid coalition does materialize, then this will only be the start. Electoral politics is just one small part of the coming struggle, and we cannot put our faith in middle class parties. Given the scale of the challenges the left faces across the UK there is an urgent need for socialists of all stripes- including the Welsh and Scottish independence movements- to come together to fight against Tory authoritarianism.
In Wales, we need to urgently develop a culture of dissent and criticism rather than ‘team Wales’ nationalism that allows the failures of the Welsh Government to go unquestioned and unpunished.
The Welsh independence movement, the progressive elements of the Labour movement, tenant’s unions, the left in Plaid Cymru, Black Lives Matter, LGBT campaigners, the environmental movement and Welsh language campaigners will all need to overcome divisions and come together to put pressure on the next Welsh Government to take radical action on poverty and injustice and to stand up against the Westminster Government. Previous campaigns show that when we do this we can win.
The writer is a member of Undod and hosts the Desolation Radio Podcast
