Socialist Party Wales conference

2006: Year of opportunity

Welsh Blairite MP Alun Michael claimed in a recent newspaper article
that "as the 21st century starts to mature, Wales faces a quite
remarkable period of good fortune and opportunity".

Dave Reid

Such an assessment beggars belief as the NHS in Wales enters
"intensive care" according to the Welsh consultants committee and the
last remaining manufacturing jobs come under threat in Wales. Even
Michael was forced to concede in his article that Wales has the biggest
coverage of population needing Objective One European funding (for the
poorest areas) in Western Europe – 66%.

But the mood at the Socialist Party Wales annual conference was one
of great confidence and opportunity that the forces of socialism are on
the march after the difficult period of the 1990s.

Peter Taaffe, general secretary of the Socialist Party of England and
Wales, opened the conference with a devastating criticism of the crisis
facing British capitalism and society. Already there are signs of a
slowdown in the British economy and crises in all three main capitalist
parties. He pointed to the emerging movement of workers to defend their
wages and conditions against further attacks and the huge potential
support for a new mass workers’ party.

Contributions from Socialist Party members on union national
executives, Bernard Roome (CWU) and Andrew Price (NATFHE), demonstrated
how the presence of just one or two socialist fighters on union leading
bodies could take the struggle forward. Rob Williams, shop stewards
convenor at the Visteon factory in Swansea explained how workers are
fighting to defend jobs in the car industry.

Katrine Williams, PCS Wales secretary for the Department of Works and
Pensions, reported that the civil servants’ strike against government
cutbacks in jobs and services had been hugely successful across Wales.

Mark Evans from Carmarthen UNISON showed how Labour supporters
leading union branches now remain silent in supporting the Labour Party,
such is the opposition from rank and file members. Geoff Jones, from
Powys explained how the Blairite cuts in incapacity benefit were
reminiscent of the attacks on the unemployed in South Wales in the 1930s
with the hated means test and possibly could lead to similar mass
protests.

And there were equally inspiring contributions from newer members of
the party, young workers organising unions amongst low-paid retail
workers. Lyndon Carroll explained how two Socialist Party members were
trying to organise the shop workers’ union, USDAW, in the Cardiff store
of a leading retail chain. Already socialist ideas were gaining an echo
amongst workers in what was a union bastion of pro-Blair right wingers.

A magnificent £560 was raised in the finance appeal. The conference
ended with determination to turn the support for our ideas into a 40%
growth in Socialist Party Wales membership this year.