John Williams, Cardiff Central Socialist Party
Socialist Party Wales campaign stalls were swamped at the Welsh independence march in Barry on 26 April. This was the first Welsh independence march in a few years, full of angry people against the new Labour government’s cuts and austerity.
Socialist Party members there were campaigning on the issue of Tata Steel in Port Talbot, which was disgracefully let down by the Labour governments in Westminster and Wales.
Cardiff and Swansea trades union councils supported nationalisation of Tata Steel, under democratic workers’ control. This hit the mood with the local community and some trade unionists working there, but was rejected by Wales Trades Union Congress (TUC).
It wasn’t lost on everyone who signed our petition demanding that if the Labour government can take over British Steel, then it can have the same urgency when it comes to steelworks in Wales. We don’t let the Welsh Labour government off the hook either, who basically stepped aside and did sod all to save the jobs.
Welsh Labour government ministers mocked nationalisation, because ‘Tata Steel isn’t owned by Britain’. British Steel is owned by a Chinese company. Yet, Keir Starmer’s Labour could be forced to nationalise that.
People who attended the march wanted independence from austerity, cuts, pay cuts, and independence from the capitalist system that’s screwing us all over. And from the mainstream political parties too.
Plaid Cymru is the biggest pro-independence party in Wales. It tries to pose as ‘left of Labour’.
We spoke to its voters on the march. We explained Plaid Cymru’s capitalist credentials when it gets into elected positions. Those voters then completely agreed with us.
Plaid Cymru runs Carmarthenshire Council. And has rejected workers’ ill-health retirement. A Plaid Cymru councillor has been telling people not to campaign to save Abertridwr library near Caerphilly.
Working-class people at the march are reaching out for alternatives, and horrified about the prospect for Reform UK. The ‘clear red water’ between Welsh Labour and UK Labour certainly doesn’t exist.
Socialist Party Wales calls for the Senedd (Welsh Parliament) to use its powers to carry out socialist policies:
- Reverse all cuts –Welsh Government and Welsh councils to set no-cuts budgets, pool reserves, and build a mass campaign to force the UK Labour government to return the funds robbed from Welsh services
- Give our health workers above-inflation pay rises now – invest in the NHS to expand local hospitals
- Ban zero-hour contracts
- Raise the minimum wage to £15 an hour for all
- Renationalise steel, rail and utilities
- Nationalise commanding heights of the economy
- For a socialist Wales, as part of a voluntary socialist confederation of Wales, England, Scotland and Ireland
