CYMRU NEEDS MORE POWERS, NOT A FAR RIGHT DEAD-END
Welsh Communists aim to bring about revolutionary change: to place real power in the hands of the people of Cymru and to shift the balance of wealth and power from capital to workers and their communities.
The task today is to develop confident and assertive workers and communities that can articulate their demands clearly, practically and collectively.
The changing political kaleidoscope
In the electoral sphere, we have witnessed a substantial shake-up. The end of 27 years of Labour dominance in the Senedd represents a dramatic change in party politics. However, talk of a structural shift in Welsh political life is premature. The main political, policy and electoral divide in Wales remains that between the social-democratic and progressive parties and the forces of the reactionary right.
However, by abolishing the five electoral regions in favour of 16 ‘closed list’ constituencies, the new Senedd electoral system also represented an enormous set-back for democratic and political rights. The Senedd Reform Act (2024) supported by Labour, Plaid Cymru and the LibDems makes it all but impossible for smaller parties without wealthy backing to continue contesting on an all-Cymru basis (or to qualify for party election broadcasts), thereby denying thousands of electors the option to vote again for Communist, left, Welsh nationalist and other candidates.
The new Plaid Cymru government
Plaid Cymru’s Senedd election manifesto offered the prospect of positive change for the Welsh economy. It pledged, for instance, to increase the proportion of public procurement spending retained in Cymru, placed fresh emphasis on green energy and echoed former First Minister Mark Drakeford’s proposal for a Welsh Sovereign Wealth Fund.
Nonetheless, other aspects of Plaid’s economic policy cause concern. The potential for a national economic development and innovation agency to operate in the interests of Welsh communities is enormous. However, the appointment of the former CEO of outsourcing company Capita points in a different direction. Since taking office, Enterprise Minister Adam Price has also made clear that a top priority of his department will be the pursuit of productivity increases and the closing of the productivity gap between Cymru and the wider UK economy. This narrows the scope of Plaid’s Senedd manifesto which also prioritised good quality jobs and training, higher wages, Welsh ownership, business growth and prosperity. Narrowing the productivity gap (around 15%) between Cymru and the UK average must be achieved mostly through extra investment in technology, in full consultation with trade unions, and not from the intensified exploitation of labour.
Because official measurements of productivity such as ‘Gross Value Added’ do not take account of public-sector contributions, while including financial and property services, it is clear that this approach poses a potential threat to workers’ interests in Cymru.
The Plaid government’s failure to oppose arms fairs in Cymru is a further cause for concern and represents an early example of principles being sacrificed under pressure from the big business lobby.
Plaid Cymru also argues that Welsh long-term interests are best served by EU membership. In the nearer term, it wants the UK to return to the Single Market and Customs Union—a position not even advocated at present by pro-EU big business bodies such as the CBI and the Institute of Directors. Plaid’s policy would mean, for example, returning to rules which severely limit government aid for industry and agriculture, prohibit state direction of private capital investment, restrict any preference for local companies when bidding for public sector contracts, prevent cuts in VAT, etc.
Brexit returned decision-making powers to the UK in 64 areas where policies are now decided by the Senedd or jointly with central government in London. Rejoining the EU would remove these powers to Brussels once again, along with those and others that should be transferred fully from Westminster to Cymru.
The Welsh labour movement
The Labour Party Cymru has seldom gone beyond social-democratic policies. Electorally, both Welsh Labour and Plaid have occupied a similar reformist space. In this electoral sphere, Plaid now benefits from being seen as: (1) distinct from unpopular Labour administrations at British, Welsh and local government levels; (2) a credible alternative to Reform UK and the far right; and (3) an unambiguous supporter of the Palestinian people and an opponent of imperialism and militarism. The recovery of Welsh Labour depends on its future record on all these fronts. When Welsh Labour has broken away from the British party leadership and succeeded in implementing its ‘clear red water’ approach, it has flourished and could possibly do so again.
The key is to re-establish relations with the wider working class, especially through the party’s links with the trade union movement, consulting and campaigning on key issues in local communities and workplaces. The relationship between the trade unions and Labour has historically been—and continues to be—of enormous importance for working-class representation in elected bodies at every level.
With Labour representation in the Senedd decimated for the present, the labour movement faces both a crisis and a potential opportunity. If the unions are able to establish significant leverage and influence over the current Welsh government, a major step will have been taken towards the progressive unity necessary to exclude the right permanently from government. However, if Plaid fails to allow this influence and distances itself from the unions, conflict is inevitable.
Stronger trade unions and a drive for wider representation in workplaces and localities could prove a decisive factor on both the political and industrial fronts. The TUC Cymru has a vital coordinating role to play in this.
Across the public sector at both British or Welsh level we have a patchwork of sectoral collective bargaining agreements. While these offer opportunities for Welsh workers to exercise some control over their working lives, they need broader remits and wider participation if they are to give workers real power over working conditions, community priorities and models of service delivery.
Sectoral collective bargaining and trade unionisation is weaker in the private sector and in the smaller but significant third sector (mainly voluntary organisations and charities). Building union power and developing sectoral bargaining across the length and breadth of Welsh industry are major steps towards bringing democracy and real power into the workplace.
The Communist Party is committed to working with allies to develop credible sectoral bargaining proposals including, where necessary, additional employment-law powers for the Senedd. We will work for unity around a progressive working-class agenda both inside and outside the Senedd, in our workplaces, communities and at election time.
However, if we are to unite and mobilise working people and their communities, the trade union movement together with Welsh Labour, Plaid Cymru, the Communist Party and other left and progressive forces need to defeat the new challenge posed by the far right. This means directly addressing the real needs of workers and their communities.
Combatting the far right
The right-wing bloc is still characterised by its predominantly petty-bourgeois composition: the self-employed, small-business owners, those reliant on accumulated wealth rather than earned income, and wealthier retired people. However, the far right is now also drawing significant support from workers in manufacturing, construction and non-unionised private-sector industries such as retail, food and leisure services. Support for the right is less strong, although by no means absent, among public-sector, unionised and women workers.
But we are also seeing some of the most reactionary, chauvinistic and parasitic elements of monopoly capital, especially those involved in financial and property speculation, break from the Tory-New Labour pro-big business consensus. It is no coincidence that the leaders of Reform UK and Restore Britain—Farage, Tice, Candy, Lowe—are multimillionaires who despise trade unions, the Welfare State and equal rights and pay for women as much as they do devolution, non-white immigration, international aid and taxing the super-rich. These realities indicate the potential for combatting the far right on the basis of class politics as well as the national question.
What has changed is the scale of people’s anger and frustration at the record of Labour governments in both Cardiff and Westminster. Their failure to control energy and housing costs, improve local services and tackle Britain’s chronic housing crisis is enabling Reform UK to promote its bogus agenda.
This agenda pretends to uphold British sovereignty, provide jobs and homes for working class people, defend women and children, and boost economic growth with deregulation “free market” policies. In reality, it is an agenda that maintains US domination of British foreign and military strategy and would transfer yet more powers from the Senedd to the Westminster parliament, displaying utter contempt for the rights and national identity of the Welsh people. It is an agenda which relies on failed capitalist market forces to provide the large number of decent, well-paid jobs and affordable homes so desperately needed in Cymru, refusing to invest in Green jobs while pursuing anti-net zero policies which contribute to the climate crisis. Reform UK would remove even the minimal hard-won rights for working people and their trade unions, while further enriching big business and in particular the spivs and speculators who fund that party. Its policies knowingly divide working class people on the basis of race and religion, enabling violent far-right and fascist forces that have never supported even the most basic rights of women and children.
Many working-class people are being persuaded that immigration is to blame for their problems, a falsehood reinforced by the gutter press and by the UK Labour government’s own anti-immigration rhetoric.
People feel let down by the absence of a radical agenda that meets their needs. At the same time, left-wing and progressive voters are conscious of the threat posed by Reform UK and have shifted their support towards what they see as the most credible alternative. Since the Caerffili by-election,
that has increasingly been seen as Plaid Cymru.
The Communist Party has long argued for Labour, Plaid and other progressive forces to work together in the Senedd around an agenda of real power, greater democracy and concrete gains for workers. This is needed now more than ever. Communists will work with left forces within Plaid, Labour and other progressive parties to build unity and increase our influence. We will also take our policies and practical support into communities and campaigns throughout Cymru.
This approach should include defending the progressive policies adopted by the Senedd since the referendum victories of 1997 and 2011, notably: free NHS prescriptions and hospital car parking; rescuing Cardiff-Wales airport through nationalisation and a major investment programme; formation of Transport for Wales including public ownership with substantial new investment in railway services and rolling stock; votes in Welsh elections for 16- and 17-year olds; a ground-breaking Children’s Commissioner; free entry to museums; a start to health and elderly care integration; free school meals for many more young children; higher housing priority for victims of domestic violence and for homeless young people and ex-services personnel; more rights for housing tenants; a Welsh Language Commissioner and equal status in Senedd proceedings (whereas speeches in Welsh are still banned from the Westminster parliament).
Reform UK, Restore Britain and many right-wing Tories have never supported devolution, preferring that all policy decisions about economic, social, cultural and political life in Wales should be taken by the Westminster parliament, with its overwhelming majority of English MPs and members of the unelected House of Lords. They also oppose practical policies to support and promote the Welsh language—a unique creation of the Welsh people which belongs to everyone in Cymru. Such political elements should be exposed as the unpatriotic, anti-Welsh charlatans that they are.
In such a counter-offensive, it is important to reinforce the powerful history and identity of Welsh working people and their communities in the struggle against exploitation and oppression, for democracy and social justice. Communists will therefore carry forward our work to popularise and celebrate our nation’s heroic history: from the Scotch Cattle and the 1831 Merthyr insurrection, the Chartist risings in Newport and Llanidloes (1839) and the Mold rebellion (1869) to the heroic battles of the North Wales quarry workers and the South Wales miners. This work should also include stregthening Cymdeithas Niclas, the society which celebrates the life and writings of the famous Welsh-language poet TE Nicholas.
Political setbacks suffered by Nigel Farage and Reform UK do not necessarily mean that the far right itself is weakening. There is no single, unified far-right organisation: Reform UK, Voice of Wales and the proto-fascists of Restore Britain, Britain First and Patriot Platform have different leaders and strategies. They sometimes compete with one another, but there are also close connections between them, including in Wales.
In Cymru and across Britain, the far right increasingly operates as a network linking electoral politics, online “influencers” and belligerent street activity. Opposing it therefore requires:
- Mass democratic participation in elections to block far right candidates.
- United mass mobilisations on the widest possible basis against racism and in defence of people and communities targeted by the far right and fascists.
- Full exposure of the violent and often criminal activists involved in many far right and fascist initiatives and campaigns.
- Extensive efforts to counter right-wing scare-mongering, misinformation and baseless conspiracy theories.
- Sustained campaigning to address the social and economic grievances exploited by the far right.
Building a community-based opposition to these forces is a priority for the Communist Party. We will work to create and develop long-term local organisation involving trade unions, anti-racist organisations, refugee groups, faith groups and community organisations across Cymru.
Nevertheless, this is not enough. We also need a strategy that combats the deep-seated problems faced by the people of Cymru and which provide fertile ground for the far right and its bogus “solutions”: economic insecurity, deindustrialisation, poor public services and political powerlessness. None of these will be resolved by attacks on migrants, asylum seekers or ethnic and religious minorities—and certainly not by weakening or abolishing the powers and resources of our Senedd.
At the same time, it would be a mistake to believe that everyone who votes for Reform UK is a die-hard racist and extremist. Instead, we should work to mobilise communities around demands for jobs, homes and services from a progressive, left-wing perspective.
The Cymru we want
The Communist Party’s Welsh programme, Real Power for the People of Cymru, sets out our vision for a socialist Cymru in which political, trade union and community forces confront the forces of capitalism and win. We recommit ourselves to our priorities of a fair, green and socialist alternative to a capitalist system which delivers gross inequality, poverty, conflict and war.
Cymru needs real change. Power and wealth are concentrated in the hands of the few, while workers and their families face rising prices, insecure work, overstretched public services and a lack of good-standard affordable housing. For instance, we need 10,000 new council houses built every year, not a few dozen. Our manifesto sets out a clear alternative: a Cymru in which power is exercised democratically in the interests of the great majority of people, rather than for the profits of big business and the super-rich.
Poverty, inequality and environmental destruction are not accidents. They are the consequences of an economic system that puts private profit before human need. Communists work to build a fair, green and socialist Cymru founded on democratic control of the economy, strong public services and solidarity within our communities and internationally.
Transforming the Welsh economy
The Welsh economy has a distinctive structure. The public sector accounts for approximately a quarter of all employment, significantly higher than the public-sector share across Great Britain. Health, education and public administration are therefore particularly important sources of employment, as well as areas of relatively strong trade union organisation.
The public sector is also a major source of spending in the Welsh economy. It is vital, therefore, that public money is made available on terms which directly benefit working people and their local economies, with guaranteed trade union recognition, wage floors, participation in sectoral bargaining and demonstrable community benefits.
Cymru also retains a comparatively strong manufacturing base including aerospace, automotives, engineering, metals, food production and semiconductor industries. Manufacturing contributes a considerably larger share of Welsh economic output than the UK average. Other important sectors include retail, tourism and hospitality, agriculture and construction, while financial and high-value professional services are comparatively under-represented.
In the energy sector, Cymru and its people derive little if any benefit from a vast wealth of natural resources. Despite being a substantial net exporter of electricity, water and refined oil, almost none of the revenue from sales of these products is used to reduce local prices, invest in associated research and development, or modernise the Welsh economy and its infrastructure. The enormous potential to utilise world-beating tidal power in the Severn Estuary (and of a smaller magnitude off the coast of north Wales) has been neglected since the mid-19th century.
Cymru’s private-sector business base is dominated by small enterprises. Around 95% of Welsh enterprises are micro-businesses employing fewer than ten people, while large businesses represent less than 1% of enterprises but provide a substantial proportion of employment. Foreign-owned firms are disproportionately important. They represent less than 1% of enterprises but approximately 16% of employment, particularly in manufacturing and other large-scale industries.
Investment from overseas can play a positive role in reindustrialising, modernising and greening the Welsh economy, as the investment in Newport Wafer Fab demonstrated before the last Tory government forced its pro-trade union Chinese owners to sell up to a US company. But over-reliance on inward investment by foreign transnational corporations risks capital flight, and Welsh government assistance should always be conditional upon investment and employment guarantees, trade union recognition and compliance with wider economic and environmental objectives.
Our economy has suffered from decades of deindustrialisation, insecurity and neglect. Market chaos and dependence on multinational corporations have failed our communities. In particular, dismantling Britain’s regional economic development policies and controls on the export of capital —done to meet EU Single Market “free movement”rules—contributed to a huge decline in Welsh manufacturing employment from the 1980s. Likewise, scrapping Britain’s system of agricultural support in order to participate in the EU Common Agricultural Policy sacrificed farm jobs, incomes and investment for higher retail prices, stockpiling, waste and small farm bankruptcies.
Now we need democratic planning and public ownership as part of a Welsh Economic Strategy to:
- Protect jobs in vital industries and services as a top priority.
- Ban asset stripping, mass redundancies and ‘fire and rehire’ practices.
- Take failing but strategically important enterprises into democratic public ownership.
- Establish a Welsh National Economic Development Authority to plan investment and guide private capital to where it is most needed.
- Ensure that public funding secures public ownership or a public shareholding.
- Take public sector control of all major energy sources and projects in Wales to guarantee investment in tidal and solar power and ensure that the people of Wales benefit financially from our rich natural resources.
- Establish democratic strategic control over higher education in Cymru, supporting and developing research resources and innovation centres that can help reindustialise, modernise and green the Welsh economy.
- Support cooperatives and publicly owned enterprises rooted in local communities.
- Guarantee farm incomes, investment and security of tenure while curbing profiteering by the big retail monopolies at the expense of farmers and consumers.
- Enhance north-south rail and road links to strengthen the unity of Cymru economically and socially.
- Confront the dangers posed by global warming such as flooding and grass fires, coordinating the resources of environmental agencies, water authorities, fire services and local councils.
Cymru’s place in the world
Welsh Communists are not only patriots, but internationalists as well. We support and organise solidarity with oppressed and exploited peoples and nations around the world. Essential to any progressive agenda is consistent and robust opposition to British imperialism and the militarism bound up with it. This has to be at the core of a wider commitment to peace and international solidarity, in keeping with the Welsh progressive tradition that goes back through the Greenham Common peace camp, the Wales Anti-Apartheid Movement, friendship with the Soviet Union, campaigns against German rearmament and the mass seizure of Welsh land for military training, smashing the fascist Blackshirts, sending volunteers to Spain with the International Brigades, the 1930s Peace Ballot, the anti-conscription movement in World War One, the campaign against the Boer Wars, and Welsh opposition to slavery.
Today, therefore, the Welsh Communists will step up our work with allies to strengthen Stop the War Cymru, CND Cymru, Palestine Solidarity, Cymru Cuba and other progressive solidarity groups, emphasising the need to building their support within the trade union movement and progressive political parties. In particular, we need to:
- Broaden the campaigns against Israeli genocide in occupied Palestine and the illegal US blockade of Cuba, seeking support and where possible practical measures of solidarity from the Senedd and Welsh government.
- Oppose the war-mongering and rearmament drive of the US, NATO and the EU to protect and promote big business imperialist interests in the Middle East and elsewhere.
- Support the campaign against the use of education and research facilities to promote militarism and rearmament, including the plans to establish DARC—the Deep Space Advanced Radar Capability—in Pembrokeshire as part of the US-NATO war drive.
- Demand the closure of all military facilities in Cymru which enhance the ability of US and NATO forces to carry out aggressive actions against overseas targets.
- Promote the CND Alternative Defence Review (2025) with its plans for non-nuclear security and for the conversion of non-defensive armaments production to that of civilian goods desperately needed by people at home and abroad, maintaining jobs, skills and wages by agreement with all relevant trade unions.
The next steps
Just as it was the Welsh labour movement which—at the core of wider popular alliance—secured a National Assembly and then a law-making Senedd, so we need a stronger labour movement to begin the transformation to a fairer, greener and socialist Cymru. This means winning support in the trade unions and the Wales TUC for an agenda that demands:
- No public money for private, public or voluntary sector enterprises without trade union recognition, a wage floor, secure work and guaranteed hours.
- A planned expansion of trade unionism and sectoral bargaining to cover the whole economy.
- The elimination of gender, race and disability pay gaps.
- Democracy at work, with collective rights over pay and conditions, restructuring and investment decisions.
We need a vastly strengthened Senedd, with a needs-based formula for its block grant and the public sector NI refund, a fair distribution of state funding for infrastructure and research and development, and a substantial increase in the Welsh government’s borrowing and reserve fund powers (which at present are less than those of a local council).
The Senedd should also have greater powers over:
- Taxation, borrowing and economic development, including the return of industrial aid powers removed from Cymru by the 2020 Internal Market Act and the 2022 Subsidies Control Act.
- Land ownership and use, including the transfer of the Crown Estate in Cymru to the Senedd.
- Ownership and control of the economy, so that the privatised utilities, outsourced public services and other key sectors of the economy can be taken into democratic public ownership as and when necessary.
- Employment law to protect and enhance the rights of working people and their collective organisations.
- Policing and the criminal justice system.
The Communist Party advocates a federal solution to the national question in Britain, with inviolable law-making powers, a fair redistribution of wealth across all nations and regions, strengthening working class unity—rather than fragmenting it—in the struggle for social justice and socialism. It is a matter for the Welsh people alone to decide democratically whether or not to opt for sovereign self-government outside the British state.
Communists and the United Front
Communists in Cymru can take pride in our party’s contribution to the struggles of the Welsh people for a better society here and around the world: mobilising the National Unemployed Workers Movement, its hunger marches and the People’s March for Jobs; fighting fascism at home and overseas; raising the demand for a Wales Trade Union Congress; helping initiate the Parliament for Wales and Socialists Say Yes campaigns; helping create the People’s Assembly against austerity and privatisation; building solidarity with people from Spain, Cyprus and South Africa to China, Vietnam and Chile; and taking part in peace and anti-war movements from the 1950s up to the present.
In Wales and Britain today, Communists understand the urgent need to assemble a United Front of working-class, progressive and community forces not only to defeat the far right, but also to challenge the corrupt, anti-democratic and war-mongering ruling-class agenda which puts profits first—before the people, peace and future of the planet.
Towards this objective, CP Cymru will redouble its efforts to:
- Promote, sell and distribute the Morning Star, increasing its Welsh content and using it to inform, educate, unite and mobilise the left and progressive forces against neoliberalism, imperialist domination, militarism and war.
- Build broad-based community campaigns to oppose austerity and privatisation, demanding radical improvements in housing, health, education, transport and local services.
- Strengthen trade union and workplace organisation and activism.
- Extend progressive unity against the far right by working with the Together Alliance, Hope not Hate, Stand Up to Racism, trade unions and community groups.
Now as much as ever, we need to strengthen CP Cymru and extend its influence through membership growth, disciplined local campaigning, youth development, cadre training, improved communications, political education and national campaigns.
Among other things, this means raising the party’s profile in its trade union, community, electoral, international solidarity and peace movement work, notably at the TUC Cymru conference, the National Eisteddfod, the El Sueno Festival and the annual Morning Star Cymru conferences.
Defend Cymru against the far right!
Build the United Front for progress and people’s power!
Join the Communists to fight for peace and socialism!