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Following boundary changes, the Labour MP Beth Winter must fight for her chance to stand in the next election. One of the only socialist MPs in Wales, Winter has championed recent strikes and often refused to toe the party line under Starmer. But she faces a hostile party leadership who are intent on driving the left into isolation. 

By SC Cook. Cover image: Beth Winter introduces Mick Lynch in Aberdare early this year, by Adwitiya Pal 

“We are all here today, brought together by a very serious issue, which is the cost of living crisis, to discuss how it has impacted the community, who’s responsible, who should be sorting it out and what we can do about it.” 

This was Beth Winter’s opening address to the congregation that had gathered in Aberdare’s St Elvan’s church, on 21 January earlier this year. They had come not to hear not religious leaders, but political ones.

Winter was introducing the RMT general secretary, Mick Lynch, who she had invited to speak amidst the biggest strike wave in years, in an event that harked back to a time of large scale working class struggle in places like Aberdare.

The Cynon Valley MP spoke about how the south Wales valleys, where she has spent her life, “work hard to defend the rights of workers and the working class to improve our lives”, and hit out at the “billionaires raking it in and paying dividends funded by our bills.”

There was rapturous applause from the packed out crowd, who also heard from the local reverend, local trade unionists, small charities, Mick Lynch himself of course and to top it all off, a male voice choir. 

But months later, Winter’s future as an MP, and one of the only socialist parliamentarians in Wales, has been thrown into doubt in a process the MP has called undemocratic. 

At an emergency meeting on Saturday 13th May, called with just three days notice, the Welsh Labour Executive made the decision to hold an immediate and rapid election contest, with no in-person hustings, to decide who will be the Labour candidate at the next general election. 

Beth Winter, MP for Cynon Valley, will face off with Merthyr Tydfil’s MP Gerald Jones to represent the new Upper Cynon and Merthyr Tydfil constituency, created after the Tories voted through plans to reduce the number of MPs in Westminster. 

“She [Winter] is a voice for working men and women,” says Graham Thomas, who last year retired after having served as a Labour councillor in the Rhondda for 40 years. 

Thomas, who is now campaigning for Winter’s re-selection, says maintaining her as an MP is especially important now. 

“You have the strikes organised by the trade union movement and Beth has stood alongside those, she is fearless in that way,” he says. “I am a dyed in the wool socialist, and Beth is the same.” 

But Winter could be the latest in a line of socialists driven out or sidelined under the leadership of Keir Starmer. 

Since the party’s shift to the right following the general election defeat of 2019 and the end of Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership, the MP has frequently adopted positions not in keeping with the Starmer line, and not without consequences for her political career. 

Winter, who worked in a foodbank and campaigned against austerity before becoming an MP,  has defied the leadership’s attempts to stop Labour MPs visiting picket lines and spoken out against Tory policies that Starmer has either been silent on or given his tacit backing for. 

Unusually for Labour MPs, even those on the left, Winter has also sought to build links outside the party in pursuit of local community action. 

Last year, she organised a cost of living rally in Aberdare with trade union leaders including Mark Serwotka of the PCS among the speakers.

The event came on the back of a cost of living survey conducted by Winter and her small team. Of the 659 Cynon Valley residents who responded, over three quarters reported having to cut down on heating, whilst 61% of those on benefits had skipped meals in the past year. 

Given her stance, it is no surprise that Winter has enjoyed the support of several trade union leaders who have been at the forefront of recent strikes. Kevin Courtney, the joint general secretary of the National Education Union, who is from Pontypridd, gave his backing, saying “schools and children need more MPs like Beth.” 

As well as Mick Lynch and Mark Serwotka – who began his life as a trade unionist in Aberdare job centre – Winter has also received endorsements from the CWU’s Dave Ward, the UCU’s Jo Grady, the FBU’s Matt Wrack, Merthyr Tydfil Trades council and others. 

But Winter has also adopted other political positions that make her stand out from the grey world of Westminster and the Starmer machine. 

In 2020, Winter was the only Labour MP in Wales to vote against a Bill which made prosecuting torture and other war crimes more difficult for victims. She was sacked from her shadow cabinet role as a result. 

Winter has spoken out against the authoritarian Police and Crime Bill, and asked if South Wales Police were institutionally racist after the mother of Christopher Kapessa made the charge over the botched investigation into her son’s death, after he drowned in the river Cynon. 

In 2021, Winter tabled an early day motion calling for answers into the case and said that both the police and CPS had questions to answer over the failure to prosecute anyone over the Black teen’s death.

She was the only Labour MP in Wales to sign it. 

Speaking at the time, Winter said: “When I heard what happened, my heart went out to the family. My selfish reaction was to ask what if that was my child? How would I cope? A beautiful happy child with their whole life ahead of them having their life cut short.”

But these stances have often left Winter isolated amongst her Welsh Labour peers in Westminster, many of whom show unwavering loyalty to UK party leader Keir Starmer. 

According to a source in Welsh Labour with close knowledge of the selection process, the party leadership in Wales are keen to fall behind Starmer’s attempts to sideline and disenfranchise dissenting voices on the left of the party. 

“It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that the establishment of Welsh labour is towards the political right,” the source, who did not want to be named, told voice.wales. 

“They don’t tend to go for things which favour the left,” they continued. “They don’t seem to have much regard for members getting involved. They’re pretty much putting through the line from the NEC, the Starmer line.”

He said that the shortened time frame and lack of in-person hustings for the campaign was unusual, especially given the fact that the next election is not expected until next year. 

“Standard fare is six weeks to two months for high level leadership stuff,” they said, highlighting the fact that the candidates had not even been given any lead in time for the campaign. 

The executive of Welsh Labour called the 13 May meeting with just three days’ notice. 

There, they brought forward a motion for a two week campaign with no face to face hustings. An amendment was tabled calling instead for a four week campaign and an in-person hustings. 

When it came to the vote, it was tied at 13 for the amendment and 13 against, leaving the chair to either cast the deciding vote or abstain, in which case the amendment would automatically fall. The latter scenario unfolded, and the campaign began just two days later. 

Following the meeting, some concessions were made, including that the campaign would run for slightly longer, until midnight on Tuesday 6th June, and that an online hustings would be held on Saturday 3rd June. But the process is still incredibly rigid. 

Questions for the online hustings must be sent three days in advance, and selected by those in charge of the process.

“I think it’s a sort of disenfranchising kind of agenda,” the source said. “You know, moving it away from what the party was like a few years ago where it was very much about the democracy review,  giving members a say, what Mark Drakeford did with one member, one vote. There’s a push back against that.”

A longer campaign with more member involvement would be expected to favour Winter, who has a stronger track record of public campaigning and recent high profile work to draw on. It’s also believed that her constituency party is smaller than that of Jones’, so she would relish the opportunity to win over members who don’t know her so well, something that’s made harder by the restricted process. 

When the re-selection vote was held in her own constituency, Winter won unanimously.  “She can win,” the source says. “She’s got huge support in her own constituency…where people know Beth, they like her.”

They added that to lose Winter would be “a huge loss to the left in Wales, and not just the labour left.” 

“This is a strong solid socialist who is in it for the right reasons and is working in a community…I’ve given up on politicians but I’ve not seen a harder working MP than Beth.” 

Winter’s opponent, Gerald Jones, has been an MP for Merthyr Tydfil since 2015. An politician that keeps a fairly low profile, he is nevertheless firmly on the right of the party and a Starmer loyalist, proudly stated in his literature. He is also a Labour whip and shadow minister for Wales. 

Unlike Winter, Jones is no fan of Jeremy Corbyn, and was one of a handful of MPs who accompanied Ruth Smeeth to a hearing against the Black Labour activist Marc Wadsworth in 2018. Wadsworth was accused of anti-semitism for saying Smeeth – who is Jewish – was working ‘hand in hand’ with the Daily Telegraph. Mr Wadsworth, who founded the Anti-Racist Alliance in 1991, was expelled from Labour following the trial. 

But it is the experience of life in the Labour party after Corbyn that may make things difficult for Winter, with many socialist members feeling like they have no choice but to leave the party. 

Last year, Labour reported that 91,000 members had left in just one year. In April, the former Labour MP Emma Dent Coad left the party, saying it was “unrecognisable” and slammed Starmer’s attack on welfare recipients. 

“Corbynism must be seen to be destroyed,” the source says of Starmer’s approach, which he reckons is being repeated in Wales. “And that’s why unfortunately, some people on the left have left the party.” 

“I could give you 10 names right now of people I know who’ve left the party because they just can’t stomach it.”

For those who remain, he describes a situation whereby member democracy has been curtailed to the extent that so many topics of debate are off limits at local party meetings. 

This pressure has been evident on Winter herself last year, who along with fellow members of the Socialist Campaign Group of MPs was forced by Starmer to take her name off a Stop the War statement, which condemned NATO as well as Russia for the escalation of war in Ukraine. 

But despite these challenges, her team is still confident it can win. A sizable campaign has kicked into gear, with door knocking and phone canvassing happening almost daily. She’s even been holding her own members’ meetings in Aberdare. 

For many, Winter is one of the few remaining politicians they have any faith in.

At a time when working class people face a barrage of attacks, and are forced to struggle for the most basic of provisions whilst profits soar, to lose one of the few MPs prepared to fight their corner would drive home the huge challenges faced by the left after Corbyn. 

“It’s important that we have representatives at parliamentary level that show that they are with the strikers and on the side of the people,” says councillor Graham Thomas. “It’s absolutely critical that we have people like Beth.”

The election results are due from 6th June.