Labour Party Wales, led by Rhodri Morgan, has attempted to distance itself from Tony Blair and New Labour in Westminster, claiming to keep “clear red water” between New Labour and “Welsh Labour”. In a recent speech he went even further than in 2003 calling New Labour “incomplete” and “showing signs of age”. He even used the “S” word and referred to “21st century socialism”. But this is mainly just words to win votes this May. Morgan supports the coming to power of Gordon Brown, one of the key architects of the New Labour project.
Welsh Labour, it is true, has resisted some Blairite policies like foundation hospitals, competition between hospital trusts and education academies. But there is no fundamental difference between New Labour and Welsh Labour. The New Labour counter revolution has transformed Labour Party Wales into another region of this pro-capitalist party. The Labour Party in Wales has emptied out with tiny meetings mainly of councillors and it exists solely as an election machine, which is creaking. There is no prospect of the working class being able to re-transform the Labour Party. A large number of the older non political elements will vote Labour because of its past reforms but there has been a fundamental disconnection between the mass of the working class and the Labour Party.
Under Labour control of the Assembly the number of Private Finance Initiative deals for the construction of public sector projects has escalated hugely with more per capita than in England. And there is a creeping privatisation of the NHS in Wales. All new facilities provided by the NHS have to go out to tender allowing private companies to come in and cherry-pick the most profitable NHS services as was demonstrated in the recent fiasco in the Out of Hours service in Cardiff, when hundreds of patients were forced to wait days for treatment.
PUBLIC SPENDING
What the Assembly government can do is dependent on the British government in any case because it receives all it’s funding from Westminster. In theory the Assembly receives the same proportion of UK spending on public services every year set out by the Barnett formula. If public spending goes up at Westminster then the Assembly’s goes up pro-rata. The Assembly can then spend according to what its priorities are.
The weakness of Welsh Labour’s position can be seen by its failure to carry out some of its meagre manifesto commitments from 2003. To distinguish himself from Blair, Morgan promised promised to provide free home care for the disabled and free school breakfasts for all primary school children, both of which the Labour Assembly government has failed to do. Any extra reforms mean cuts in other areas of public spending so long as the overall cake remains the same size.
Even the one reform by the Assembly government that grabbed the most headlines does in fact demonstrate the weakness of the Assembly. The Assembly government has agreed to pay £1,800 a year towards the fees of all Welsh university students studying in Wales in addition to the funding of the fees of students from families on low incomes. Socialist Students and the Socialist Party fought for the complete abolition of all fees for Welsh students and all students studying in Wales, and for the Assembly to fund this by fighting for extra funds from Westminster by taking a clear position of defiance against university tuition fees. Nevertheless this measure has partly ameliorated the huge cost of fees for some Welsh students (and English, Scottish and Northern Irish students this year). But it is only guaranteed until 2009 and still leaves most Welsh students paying £3,000 and non-Welsh UK students studying in Wales paying £3,000 from September 2007. Other parts of the Assembly government’s budget have had to be raided to pay for it and these have to be taken from other public services including education.
Schools education in Wales is experiencing serious cut backs. School rolls have been falling for some years, but instead of using the opportunity to improve education through lower pupil/teacher ratios the Labour Assembly government and Plaid and Liberal councils have used the fall as an excuse to close schools and cut the number of teaching posts. A number of schools have closed and hundreds are targeted. The minority Liberal council in Cardiff forced to retreat on the cuts in the face of a mass protest movement from students, parents and teachers, has hit the ball back into the Assembly’s court, but will return to this issue after the elections. This will be an ongoing campaign against all four main parties. The Socialist Party has played an important role in the campaigns against the cuts and we demand no cut backs but instead an investment in schools to improve education.
The Barnett formula takes no account of the different needs of the parts of the UK. Wales receives the same proportion of public spending even though it clearly has greater social and economic needs. This has prompted Plaid Cymru to call for the scrapping of the Barnett formula that was worked out in the 1970s and instead argue for funding according to need.
Socialist Party Wales calls for the Assembly to fight for extra needs funding from Westminster to replace all the cutbacks carried out under the Tories and New Labour. This would inevitably involve a mass struggle of demonstrations, strikes and civil disobedience drawing on the example of Liverpool City Council led by Militant members (the forerunner of the Socialist Party) which won significant reforms from “Iron Lady” Thatcher in the 1980s, before being betrayed by Neil Kinnock and the Labour leadership.
The position is further complicated by Objective One funding from the European Union which has to be equally funded, match-funded, by the UK. This, together with the Barnett Formula, has probably resulted in a relative lowering of spending on public services in Wales as Objective One funding is taken from public services and ploughed into “community enterprises” and parts of the private sector.
Hailed as the panacea by both Labour and Plaid, Objective One funding has made only a marginal difference to the infrastructure in Objective One areas covering the majority area of Wales. Conditions in the South Wales Valleys have declined even further during Objective One funding. The main beneficiaries have been the “community business” industry whose executives have drawn fat wages from the schemes. In any case it is due to be scaled down out of existence in Wales as the new Eastern European member states draw from the fund.
ASSEMBLY ELECTIONS
The results of the Assembly elections in May are extremely difficult to predict, especially as it is expected that barely 50% of the electorate will vote. As it stands Labour is likely to lose seats but remain the largest party. Plaid, the Liberal Democrats and the Tories are likely to make slight gains. Labour is very unpopular, especially in its traditional areas, but there is no mass left alternative to challenge it. Some constituencies are so close there might even be Labour gains as well as losses. Currently Labour hold 29 seats and are two seats short of a majority. The budget for 2007 was only passed with Plaid’s votes. It is likely that Labour will lose seats and will have to rule in a coalition. A whole number of scenarios are possible. There could be a repeat of the Lab/Lib coalition prior to 2003, but a coalition with Plaid is also possible.
It is unlikely that there would be a Plaid/Liberal/Tory coalition. When the idea of a coalition with the Tories was first mooted by Ieuan Wyn Jones there was a reaction within Plaid Cymru in the South. A coalition involving the Tories could even split Plaid. However if there were to be significant Labour losses and Plaid gains (not the most likely scenario) then the whiff of power could tempt Jones even into a coalition with the Tories.
It is likely that Blair will hold onto office until after the Assembly elections which would lose Labour votes. But if Blair were to be replaced by Brown before May then his short honeymoon period would benefit Labour in Wales in the elections. Brown would make a few cosmetic changes and begin the process of pulling British troops out of Iraq. Even though most people would not be fooled by the change of face at 10 Downing Street, Rhodri Morgan could benefit from the after-Blair glow and hold on.
Plaid has recovered from its big losses in 2003 but is unlikely to regain the constituency seats it won in South Wales from Labour in 1999. It cannot now pose as a left alternative to New Labour in the same way that it did in 1999, because its policies when in power in Rhondda Cynon Taff and Caerphilly councils exposed them as little different from New Labour. It should gain some regional seats and maybe the odd constituency seat.
Plaid has dropped its demand for independence and is instead demanding a referendum on a parliament with law making powers in 2011, although even that is negotiable.
The Liberal Democrats have made some headway in Cardiff and Swansea at Labour’s expense. They might also make some gains in other parts of Wales and win a few more seats. But the experience of Liberal councils which have continued the cuts, job losses and privatisation of New Labour will actually work against them in Cardiff and Swansea in conjunction with the weakening of the Liberals in Britain as a whole.
The recent resurgence of the Tories under “Dave” Cameron will have some impact in Wales. Some younger voters in South East Wales and North East Wales will not remember past Tory governments and the memory has even dimmed amongst older voters but in Wales especially the stigma of the Tories will prevent them from making big gains.
The Tories will probably pick up a few constituency seats in the more affluent areas in the Assembly elections. However they will be unlikely to win many extra seats in the Assembly because their gains in the constituencies will lose them seats in the regional lists. Currently 11 of their 12 AMs are elected from the regional lists. It is possible they will win new constituency seats but not gain any seats overall.
There is a general dissatisfaction with all the main parties. The Assembly is unpopular because it appears to be a powerless and expensive talking shop. The new Assembly building demonstrated the priorities of the Assembly Government preferring to spend over £70 million on the Senedd to raise their own prestige while refusing to build badly-needed hospitals and schools.
