| RETURN TO INDEX |
Ed George Picking over the Ruins: Wales after Thatcher [Document presented to a public meeting of Socialist Outlook supporters in June 1996] Thatcherism in Wales Thatcherism emerged in the mid 1970s as a response by sections of the ruling class to the structural deficiencies of British capitalism, which had been exacerbated to breaking point by the long term 'retreat from empire' and the end of the post war boom. It also presented itself as a solution to the decline of the Tory Party, whose electoral support had been on a long term declining trend for fifty years and which from 1964 to 1979 had lost four general elections out of five. Thatcherism was a populist attempt to effect a qualitative break from the post-war political consensus to the benefit of capital. In government, Thatcherism crashed domestic manufacturing in order to improve profitability and competitiveness by eliminating relatively unproductive capacity. Inflation was to be controlled through tight control of the money supply. Capital investment was increasingly diverted abroad. Many sectors experienced a driving down of real wages and speed-ups in production. Wholesale cuts in public expenditure were combined with a drive towards privatisation, both of state-run industries and of public services. Alongside this, and necessary to it, came a thorough-going mediation of trade union power (and increasingly other forms of popular resistance), both through legal restrictions and through the weapon of mass unemployment. In Wales, the historic centrality of core extractive and manufacturing
industry (steel, coal) coupled with the post war strategic importance of
the public sector meant that the Thatcherite project had a particularly
deleterious effect. The 1980s saw a dramatic shedding of jobs in the old
basic industries: by 1990 steel and coal, the latter already in a long
term cycle of decline before the 1970s, accounted for a mere two and a
half per cent of the total workforce.1
In 1989 employment in services comprised 65 per cent of the total workforce
(compared to 55 per cent in 1979), with the total manufacturing workforce
standing at 25 per cent (compared to 30 per cent in 1979). Unemployment
fell between 1986 and 1989 but increased again on a rising trend in 1990:
new ventures did not replace the jobs lost in the early 1980s. This was
paralleled by a fall in real wages, especially since 1985. Despite the
better rates of growth of GDP (which anyway indicates economic activity
rather than wealth) Wales has remained a low output and low-income region
of Britain. In 1992 Wales had the highest rate of household income from
social security in Britain.
The Decline of Steel and Coal Between 1977 and 1980 the British Steel Corporation closed its iron-making
plants at Shotton, Ebbw Vale and East Moors. BSC shed 11,000 jobs in its
south Wales steel plants, cutting the total workforce by half. The Ebbw
Vale rolling mill was shut down in 1983. Tinplate production was rationalised
in the late 1980s resulting in the closure of the Felindre works. The Welsh coal industry had already suffered decades of decline prior
to 1979: between nationalisation in 1947 and the oil crisis in 1974 150
collieries and 75,000 jobs had disappeared from the south Wales coalfield. The assault on deep mining in the 1980s and 1990s was a product of both government energy policy and of a need to shift political control, in all industries, in favour of capital. This latter exigency, requiring the political destruction of the National Union of Mineworkers, consciously planned and worked for by the Conservative government and its state, reached its zenith in the 1984-85 miners' strike. The subsequent pit closure programme bears eloquent testimony to the scale of defeat inflicted on the best organised, most politically aware and most readily combative section of the Welsh (and British) working class. The crushing of the miners and the elimination of the NUM as a significant political force was followed by a series of defeats of other traditionally organised and combative workforces (printworkers and dockers, for example). Of late the decline of deep mining has been paralleled by a growth in
large-scale opencast extraction in south Wales. While this development
has been enthusiastically supported by sections of the trade union leadership
in Wales, particularly by the TGWU, it remains deeply unpopular and has
met with significant local opposition and protest, a trend that is likely
to continue.
Women in the Welsh Economy The proportion of women in the workforce in Wales has been steadily rising since the early 1960s. In 1961 only 28 per cent of women of working age were officially recorded as being in work or actively seeking it.3 By 1984 41 per cent of the total Welsh workforce was female. Beneath this rising trend lie a number of different processes. Between 1974 and 1981 women in the manufacturing sector lost their jobs just as fast—by 30 per cent overall—as men. In 1981, 80 per cent of working women were employed in the service sector, nearly half of them in part time jobs (i.e. 30 hours per week or less). In that same year nearly nine out of ten of all part time workers in Wales were women. The public sector has been an important avenue for women's employment. Although pay levels here are low overall, they compare favourably with those for 'women's work' in other sectors; in addition the public sector has tended to provide better working conditions than the private. In 1984, 32 per cent of all working women worked in the public sector (education. medical, central and local government). Public expenditure cutbacks and privatisation therefore have had a particularly deleterious effect on working women. Between 1979 and 1990, for example, there was a 30 per cent cut in NHS ancillary jobs in Wales. In the manufacturing sector, certain branches of industry (for example, clothing, electrics and electronics) have tended to prioritise young, female labour. As a spokesperson for the silicon chip manufacturer Inmos explained in the 1980's, this was because: 'detailed, fiddly jobs [are] ... traditionally done by women: they have a special aptitude for that kind of work.' This kind of approach sets up a familiar dynamic: low wages leading to the work being designated as 'women's work', the recruitment of a predominantly female workforce reinforcing the low wage rates. In 1980, women manual workers' wages were 70 per cent of men's. In 1984 this had fallen to 63 per cent. In 1989 women non-manual workers received 64 per cent of the male rate. The shifting patterns of women's employment in Wales over the last 30
years has not fundamentally challenged the old sexual division of labour.
Women's domestic responsibilities remain a priority. Despite the increased
opportunities open to them outside of the home, the restructuring of the
Welsh economy has more tended to reinforce to subject position that women
find themselves in rather than challenge it.
The Growth of Foreign Investment With only a little over four per cent of the British workforce, Wales has experienced a disproportionately high share of new jobs from foreign inward investment. In 1988 Wales was receiving 22 per cent of the British total of Foreign Owned Company (FOC) new jobs. By 1991 FOC's accounted for over 22 per cent of the manufacturing workforce and six per cent of total employment in Wales. Amongst FOC's, those of Japanese origin are the fastest growing FOC group and have become the pace-setters both for FOC activity and for UK companies in Wales. The social and political significance of FOC activity—in particular in electronics—outweighs its overall economic weight and should not be underestimated. It has been the pioneer not only of single union and no-strike deals but also of new 'flexible' work practices. These include restrictions on demarcation, short-term contracts, quality circles and moves towards economic structures based on core groups of skilled workers in permanent employment combined with larger groups of temporary and part time workers fluctuating in number as demand rises and falls. Such practices have tended to diffuse into other sectors of the economy with consequent productivity gains for capital. Cheap labour is a significant incentive for attracting foreign investment
capital. The two main areas of concentration of FOC activity in Wales are
Clwyd and south east Wales, both of which experience low wage levels and
high rates of unemployment. There are, however, many other areas on the
growing European Union map and beyond where foreign investment would be
received with arms as wide open as any Welsh 'welcome in the hillsides'.
In order to continue to attract inward foreign investment, Welsh labour
will have to remain flexible, quiescent, and cheap.
The Uneven Growth of the Welsh Economy The majority of the service sector growth in Wales has been in the Cardiff-South Glamorgan area. Most of the new investment has been in the M4 corridor in the south and in Alyn and Deeside in the north. These developments have not been advantageous to the rural areas: rather the rural economy has continued to suffer. Mid Glamorgan has continued to decline in GDP per head, and has higher levels of unemployment than South or West Glamorgan and Gwent-and this despite the presence of significant inward investment in the Bridgend-Llantrisant area (Sony, Ford). It would appear, therefore, that the former miners of the Mid Glamorgan valleys are not the favoured candidates for the new jobs. This uneven development within Wales and between Wales and England is
part of a pattern of post-war development which has favoured southern England,
which is now the core of the British economy and the only region to produce
a share of output greater than its population share. This pattern is one
that has been directly or indirectly fostered by governments and the state.
The prioritisation of the finance sector through government policy in the
1980's (high interest rates, high exchange value of sterling) had a deleterious
effect on manufacturing, which tends to suffer under such conditions. In
addition, the establishment of state related research and development and
defence production is marginal outside of southern England. Research and
development is particularly lacking in general in Wales.
The Main Political Trends in Wales: An Overview Labourism
Labourism—in Gwyn Alf Williams'
memorable phrase, that 'bastard child of imperial Wales' In the south Wales valleys there exists a preponderance of electoral support practically without equal in the rest of Britain. The only areas that compare are parts of 'greater' Glasgow (where the Scottish National Party also vies for the Labour vote), the Yorkshire Dales and 'greater' Liverpool. It was the 1945-51 Labour governments that consolidated Labour's hold over the working class in Wales and the bureaucracy's hold over the party. In the post-war period Labour in Wales presented an increasingly abhorrent, chauvinistic and paternalistic face to the world. With the Welsh economy increasingly dependent on the British state, for a significant period Welsh Labour provided both foot-soldiers and generals for the Labourite bureaucracy in Britain. It is noteworthy that three successive Labour leaders in the 1970s and 1980s—Callaghan, Foot and Kinnock—were MPs with Welsh constituencies: over this period Welsh Labour played a role analogous to that played by the Scottish Labour mafia today. Although today we can witness some slippage of Labour dominance compared to its heyday, along with a certain mediation of its right wing monolithism (not least because of the rise of nationalism as an electoral force in Wales), the fundamental characteristics of Welsh Labour's old guard remain intact. Today, Welsh 'Old Labour' and Blair's 'New Labour'—despite possible differences on specific questions, such as proportional representation—remain natural allies. Liberalism
The mantle of supremacy that Labour took hold of in the early twentieth
century was that of the Liberal Party. Today, ossified, they appear as
a marginal force and an historical anachronism: Liberalism in Wales today
enjoys a parliamentary representation of one. They retain some pockets
of support in rural Wales, and also small bases of support amongst the
working class, for example in areas where turn of the century Lib-Labism
was strong (among the former railway workers of Cathays in Cardiff, for
instance). Conservatism
The nineteenth century predominance of Liberalism in Wales is partly
explained by the historic weakness of Toryism, a weakness that obtains
today. It is worth noting, however, that the Conservative and Unionist
Party in Wales has sustained a post-war degree of electoral support that
remains around a surprisingly consistent thirty per cent, as evidenced
at British, local and, more recently, European elections. Although the
seats gained by the Tories at general elections goes up and down, this
is due more to the peculiarities of the British system of counting votes
at elections than to significant fluctuations in popular (electoral) support. Nationalism
Modern nationalism emerged in Wales as a serious electoral force in
the late 1960s through Plaid Cymru, which has sustained a consistent base
of support in the west and north (Gwynedd and Caerfyrddin-Carmarthen and
its hinterland in particular). It has also succeeded episodically in making
inroads into Labour's heartlands in the south Wales valleys—typically
in the form of 'protest votes' at local and by-elections. During the 1980s,
Plaid sustained a significant socialist-inclined left wing—the
National Left. The events of the 1980's, however, have pulled Plaid significantly to the right. One expression of this can be witnessed in the—admittedly exceptional—evolution of one Dafydd Elis-Thomas, from the self-confessed 'revolutionary Marxist' Plaid MP who moved the writ in parliament for Bobby Sands' election in 1981 to today's Lord Elis-Thomas of Nant Conwy who, as head of the Welsh Language Board quango, denounces Cymdeithas as a Welsh version of the SWP. While individual lefts still remain in Plaid, many radical, nationalist orientated activists who would previously have identified with Plaid now find themselves distanced from it (over Plaid's participation in quangos, for example). The natural home for some of these people is Cymdeithas, founded in 1962, and whose growth and influence has paralleled that of electoral nationalism. Although ostensibly a single-issue pressure group focused around the defence of the language, in some respects Cymdeithas tends to operate as a proto-political party and, as such, given its nationalist outlook, it encompasses a wide range of political viewpoints, some less healthy than others. It remains, however, a radical, popular-and relatively young-organisation with a small but significant number of socialist-inclined and internationalist-minded activists. Stalinism
The south Wales coalfield was for many years a bastion of the Communist
Party. The CP, however, although it enjoyed a predominance for many years
in the South Wales Miners' Federation and the south Wales NUM, failed to
engage with the electoral stranglehold of the Labour Party in Wales, partly
due to its congenital syndicalist character. In the post-war period, the
marginalisation of the CP as a result of its increasing rightward evolution
and the decline of the mining industry leads it today to enjoy a political
heritage and prestige that far outweigh its present numerical and social
weight. The influence exerted on the CP in Wales by a current emerging from the Welsh Socialist Republican Movement (WSRM), however, marks it with a certain significance. The WSRM, which burned brightly but briefly in the early 1980s, was directly inspired by a seminal pamphlet—'Sosialaeth i'r Cymry' ('Socialism for the Welsh People')—published in 1979 by Robert Griffiths and Gareth Meils (and with a foreword contributed by the ubiquitous Dafydd Elis-Thomas). The subsequent post-WSRM evolution of Griffiths and Meils to the CP (Griffiths is today one of the CP's most prominent leaders in Wales) invests the present-day Communist Party of Britain (CPB)-Morning Star current in Wales not only with a relatively healthy and open (if somewhat opportunist) approach to the Welsh Assembly/Parliament question but also an understanding of the national question in general somewhat in advance of the CPB in England (as evidenced by their discordance with the Morning Star's implied pro-Serbian chauvinism in relation to the break-up of the former Yugoslavia). (The other inheritor of the WSRM mantle in Wales is Cymru Goch—'The
Welsh Socialist Party'. Although today an increasingly marginal and eccentric
sect, Cymru Goch does act as a pole of attraction to a few nationalist-inclined
socialist activists, particularly in areas of Wales where there is no other
political alternative to nationalism proper of Labour Party chauvinism.)
New Realism in Wales The defeats inflicted on the working class in Britain have taken their toll on the trade union movement in Wales. The 1980s saw a 30 per cent drop in the number of trade union members, which fell from 730,000 in 1979 to 515,000 in 1990. In the early 1990's some estimates put the rate of unionisation as low as 45 per cent. One effect of this has been to push the leadership of the trade union movement in Wales to the right. As early as 1984 the Wales TUC could confidently declare that: ' ... the role that we have had to play and the role that we will continue to play will be to ensure the existence and the maintenance of orderly industrial relations.' The 1980s saw 'new realism', that is active collaboration with the restructuring of the labour process according to the prerogatives of management and profits, consolidate itself as the predominant outlook of the trade union leadership in Wales. The elimination of the NUM assisted this process. It was also facilitated by the legacy of syndicalism in the south Wales valleys which had failed to develop a tradition of left organisation both within the miners' union and on a cross-sectoral level. Single union deals were another phenomenon of the 1980s, and Wales has the highest number of single union deals per capita in Britain. Unions including the TGWU, GMB, Engineers and Electricians have enthusiastically participated in this process, concluding single union deals incorporating 'flexible' working and compulsory arbitration. Where pockets of militancy do exist they tend to be isolated and weak,
presenting serious obstacles when struggles do—as
they will—break out. The problems
caused by isolation were clearly shown in the recent Unison Housing Department
dispute in Cardiff. The right wing character of the union leaderships also
presents significant problems. When the postal workers in Cardiff took
unofficial action recently they not only had to face having to confront
both their own management and the anti-trade union laws but also their
own national (British) union leadership, which actively and consciously
undermined the dispute. This is not to say that there will not be struggles,
or that they cannot be won. It means that when struggles do break out-and
these two examples indicate the kind of pattern of dispute in the public
sector that can be expected-they will have to confront particularly unfavourable
conditions.
Racism and Anti-Racism in Wales The powerful tradition of internationalism and anti-fascism of the south Wales miners—as in particular exemplified in relation to Spain in the 1930s—should not deceive us into idealising the Welsh working class or Welsh society. Racism in south Wales has a long history. Indeed, like most of British industry at the time, both the embryonic south Wales iron and coal industries and the early north Wales slate industry were nourished by the profits of the slave trade around the turn of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.6 In 1909 Chinese businesses in south Wales were burned in a wave of racist attacks. During one week in the June of 1919 there occurred a week of anti-black rioting in Cardiff and Newport in which three people were killed, dozens injured and hundreds of black people subsequently 'repatriated', many of them forcibly.7 It is ironic that Cardiff, which boasts one of the oldest and most established black communities in Britain should today see racist violence on the streets directed against fourth generation black people. This phenomenon forms part of the pattern of a steepling rise in racist violence throughout Britain in recent years. Police records in Cardiff indicated a rise of 200 per cent in recorded incidents of 'racial harassment' between 1989 and 1990 and a further steep rise in 1991, although whether this represents an actual rise in incidents rather than a change in the manner of their recording is open to question. What was certainly beyond doubt was the presence of organised racists in the Ely estate in Cardiff during the 'disturbances' of August 1991, which resulted in an Asian shopkeeper being driven from the city. This activity has been paralleled by other groups of fascists in south Wales. Perhaps the grimmest testament to the growth of organised racism in is the existence of a group of Ku Klux Klan supporters in Maesteg, i.e. at the heart of the very coalfield that sent volunteers to fight fascism in Spain in the 1930's. Of course it is not just organised racists and fascists that have to be faced but 'institutionalised' racism as well. In July 1992 the Wales Anti-Racist Alliance (ARA) identified that: the registration of racial discrimination cases with the Commission for Racial Equality occurred at the rate of three per month; in the Cardiff travel to work area five per cent of the working population is from 'ethnic minorities' but that less than two and a half per cent are in employment; and that 'ethnic minority' workers in south Wales are concentrated in areas of employment such as manufacturing, food processing, transport and health services, and that within these sectors they tend to be confined to unskilled. semi-skilled, manual grades, lower clerical or less popular types. That the potential exists for organised opposition to racism, whether 'institutional' or otherwise, was indicated by the response to the events of December 1994 when Mohan Singh Kullar was murdered outside his shop in Neath. The 2,000 who marched in protest in Cardiff the following month marked one of the largest anti-racist mobilisations of recent years. But the organisations that have been set up in opposition to the rising tide of racism have thus far largely proved themselves unable to address the tasks posed. The Anti-Nazi League (ANL) operates as a hermetically sealed Socialist Workers' Party front organisation, with no links to speak of with either the organised labour movement or to black organisations. Militant's Youth Against Racism in Europe and the footloose guerrilla fighters of Anti-Fascist Action exist in Wales on paper only. Wales ARA boasts an impressive level of affiliations from both black and labour movement organisations, and it has done much useful work in monitoring and publicising incidents of racist discrimination and violence. But its links with the labour movement solely exist at the level of the official leaderships and it is consequently run in a tightly controlled and bureaucratic fashion. In addition, the Stalinist origins of its leadership, which emanates from the Wales Anti-Apartheid movement, also cause it at times to exhibit an extreme 'Trotophobia'. In fact, what was exceptional about the January 1995 march in Cardiff
was that it was supported by both the ANL and (grudgingly) by Wales ARA.
The success of this event indicates the way forward, but the fact that
it still remains an exception today indicates the problems that still need
to be overcome.
Quangos and the Democratic Deficit Public opinion in Wales evidently seems to have shifted since the devolution referendum debacle of 1979. For some years now opinion polls in Wales have consistently indicated a solid majority in Wales for some form of devolution or self-government. A popular mood for 'more democracy' appears to exist in Wales. We can speculate on the reasons behind this shift in mass consciousness. The far from pretty picture painted above of the changes in Welsh society and economy is certainly a factor. In addition to this is the perennial problem of Wales voting Labour but still having to endure Tory governments (and secretaries of state). The increasing incursions by central government on the functioning of local authorities-of which the present local government reorganisation is a part-contributes too. In addition to this is the seemingly endless rise of the quango in Wales. The Quasi-Autonomous Non-Governmental Organisation has been defined as a body which fulfils a public purpose, is financed by public expenditure and is controlled by appointees.8 The government bashfully admits to 80 quangos in Wales, double the number in 1979. More realistic figures put the figure closer to 350. Administration through quangos covers practically every aspect of public affairs in Wales: urban and rural economic development, housing, education, health, the language, broadcasting, tourism, sport. In 1993-4 the main executive quangos spent around £2,500 million of public funds, a figure equivalent to the revenue budget for elected local authorities in Wales for the same year. The Welsh Office makes some 1,400 appointments to Welsh quangos; the
number of quango appointees is now greater than the number of elected local
authority councillors in Wales. In 1993, David Hanson MP published a survey
of 452 appointees to 51 executive Welsh quangos. Among the appointees were:
10 Deputy Lieutenants, eight High Sheriffs, 14 OBEs, nine MBEs, 15 CBEs,
seven Knights, five Honourables, two Peers, one Brigadier, one Major, one
Lady in Waiting to the Princess Royal and the wife of a former Conservative
MP. He concluded that the quangos were: 'overstuffed with white, male businessmen,
lawyers and accountants ... The pattern of appointments represents the
face of the Conservative Party and their sympathisers.'
Labour and Welsh Self-Government The roots of Labourism's traditional hostility to Welsh self-government are not difficult to discern. One of Labourism's defining features is the acceptance of the legitimacy of the bourgeois (British) state, and the Labour Party in Wales has tended to express this affinity in a particularly unpleasant Great British chauvinist manner. Coupled with this outlook is expressed a deep and often odious sectarianism towards Welsh nationalism in general and towards Plaid Cymru in particular. (Needless to say, Labour's ritual denunciation of 'narrow nationalism' is selectively extended to the subservient nationalisms in the British state alone and not to big-power, oppressor British nationalism). A concrete manifestation of this pro-British centralism was evidenced in the devolution referendum campaign of 1979 when opposition to devolution was vigorously led by a 'gang of six' Labour MP's (Neil Kinnock, Leo Abse and Donald Anderson prominent among them). This oppositional stance is not limited to the right of the Party. Llew
Smith, MP for Blaenau Gwent, the only Campaign Group MP in Wales, has been
a most vocal opponent of the Assembly. He is not an isolated case: he represents
a variant of left Labourism-which is both paternalistic and British centralist-which
has a strong base in Wales, in particular, but not exclusively, in Gwent.
The argument, 'I'm against devolution because I'm an internationalist'
is one that genuine internationalists will have to deal with. One particular
consequence of this stance is that Llew, on paper at least the most left
wing MP in Wales, ends up in a political block with rightist desperados
like Kim Howells and Terry Thomas, a situation that indicates the stupidity
of his position.
Labour and Europe Against the free market liberalism of the Conservatives, both Labour and Plaid propose the concept of a 'Europe of the Regions', in which they envisage the 'Social Chapter' of the Maastricht Treaty and the European Regional Development Fund acting as a counter-balance to the regional inequalities which emanate form the unhindered workings of the market. There are a number of flaws in this approach. First of all, it is unlikely that a redistribution of production which includes better wages, a qualitative increase in the number of job opportunities and improved working conditions will come to Wales on the basis of current British or EU policy. Under this strategy, European inward investment will not transform the Welsh economy into a region of advanced industrial development. Much more probable will be the maintenance of Wales as a peripheral region in Britain, itself under considerable pressure from other advanced industrial economies. In addition to this, the economic convergence criteria explicit in the Maastricht Treaty itself require all the signatory countries to limit public sector borrowing to three per cent of GDP. In Britain today this would require the equivalent of cuts in public spending of the order of £12 to £18 billion, which would wipe out whole swathes of the welfare state. The practical import of Maastricht in this sense would be Thatcherism on a European scale. This prospect is opening up considerable differences on Europe in the
Welsh labour movement, as could be witnessed by the anti-single currency
fringe meeting at the recent Wales Labour Party conference. The forces
who comprise the anti-Maastricht/anti-single currency axis are a rather
mixed bag, however. Genuine Europhobes co-exist with left Labourist Keynesianists
and economic protectionists. Building opposition to Maastricht needs to
go hand in hand with a struggle for a genuine internationalist understanding.
The Left in the Welsh Labour Party The Welsh parliamentary Labour Party could hardly be described as a body open to all the talents. There are a few of its members, however, who stand out from amidst the general gloom. Coming out of the recent Wales Labour Party conference, it would appear that Ron Davies' star is in the ascendent. Representing as he does a kind of 'left Blairism', Ron's position is one that straddles the right wing 'new realists' and the 'soft left' in the Party and in the public sector union Unison. How the contradictions of this block will unravel under a future Labour government (with Ron a member of a future Blair cabinet) remains to be seen. Ron Davies' own particular political itinerary is an interesting one. It is a journey that has seen him evolve from a quiet opponent of devolution in 1979 to an increasingly less bashful supporter of proportional representation today. In addition, his experience of leading Bedwas District Council's opposition to the Housing Finance Act in 1972 is an impressive one when compared to the typical experience of local authority practice in the south Wales valleys.9 Another figure of significance in the parliamentary Party is Peter Hain, MP for Neath, who launched an important initiative in the form of the 'Neath conference' in 1992. Although the declaration issuing from this event was coloured by a utopian and left social-democratic call for a state led Keynesian regeneration of the south Wales valleys, its opposition to Maastricht and reliance on low wages to attract foreign investment marked it as a significant contribution to the catalogue of left Labourism in Wales. Although he has kept a low profile since, his continuing stance as a left critic of Maastricht mark him as a potentially key figure for the future. In addition to Davies and Hain there are a number of maverick members of the parliamentary Party in Wales who liven up the political scene and to whom it is necessary to pay attention. In this respect, and in their different ways, Rhodri Morgan, Ann Clwyd, John Mareck, Jon Owen Jones and Paul Flynn come to mind. In the wider Party, the Campaign Group Wales appears on paper as the formal left opposition inside the Welsh Labour Party. The fact, however, that it is bureaucratically run by Llew Smith in cahoots with Socialist Action means that at best it places itself outside of the key debates around the Assembly and at worst that it is impossible for those not part of the ruling clique to participate in it at all. The opportunity presented to the Campaign Group therefore to operate as a political focus and an organisational centre to the left in the Welsh labour movement is thus criminally wasted. The only formal left caucus that appears to function in the Welsh constituencies is the Swansea Labour Left, which is on paper at least is linked to the Campaign Group. Elsewhere, though there exist pockets of left activists, they remain isolated from each other. This should not be a surprise. The metropolitan-based constituency activist centred radicalisation in the British Labour Party in the 1980-s largely passed south Wales by (with the partial exception of Cardiff). Indeed, much of the south Wales Labour Party sorely lacks an activist culture. One of the most important developments on the left of the Party for
some years has been the development of Welsh Labour Action (WLA). Although
very much a minority—and geographically
limited—current within the Party,
its political stance (in essence, parity with Scotland for Labour's policy
for an Assembly for Wales) has made a significant impact with both the
Party leadership and the media taking a keen interest in its activities.
The recent Wales Party conference saw WLA confirm that it is firmly on
the Welsh political map. Given the way that it expresses the dual centrality
of both the Labour Party and the national question in Wales, WLA embodies
a strategic significance that belies its small size and short period of
existence.
Some Preliminary Conclusions
From the point of view of capital Thatcherism in Wales can be regarded as a qualified success. Although many of the processes of reorganisation and restructuring in Welsh society and economy that are described above are long term trends that pre-date the 1980s, the Thatcher governments and their successor have variously consolidated, sharpened and exacerbated them to such a degree that 1979 can be regarded as something of a watershed in the evolution of Welsh society. The Thatcherite legacy that we face today is both manifest and devastating. There has been a structural increase in male unemployment, a lowering of wage rates and a fall in trade union membership. All this has facilitated an intensification of the labour process and a reduction in the limited degree of control that workers once had over the rhythms of production. Aggregate economic activity has declined. Some new jobs have come, but on the basis of labour that is both cheap and flexible; and they have been more than offset by the old traditional jobs that have gone forever. In the south Wales valleys and in much of rural Wales underdevelopment and poverty reign. If there were grounds for belief in the immediate post war period that capital could alleviate the structural inadequacies of the Welsh economy that led to the social catastrophe of the 1920s and 1930s then the last 20 years should have buried those illusions forever. Of course, many illusions do persist in Wales today: as ever, mass consciousness lags reality. Nowhere is this more clear than when we measure the inadequacy of the present political leaderships of the Welsh working class, whether of Labourist or nationalist tinge, against the contemporary realities and the historical necessities that are posed. If one conclusion can be drawn here, it is the necessity of constructing new leaderships that measure up rather better to the aspirations of the working class in Wales. Space permits only the briefest outline of the strategic contours of this process. Outside of revolutionary crises, the working class follows its traditional organisations, which themselves reflect the 'normal' conservatism of the mass of the class. The mainstream political character of the traditional organisations of the working class in Britain today—Labourism—owes its dominant position to the nature of the privileged labour aristocracy in Britain of the late nineteenth century, which, because of its beneficial position, was not able or not willing to challenge the British bourgeoisie politically, i.e. at the level of the state. From this position developed the main political traits of Labourism: the separation of economic struggles from 'politics', the trade unions forming the future political party, the working class of Scotland, Wales and England accommodating themselves to the Union because it was considered generally acceptable and because political struggle against it was regarded as subordinate to 'economic' issues. The fact that the working class in Scotland and Wales more unanimously vote Labour than their English sisters and brothers does not reflect a political 'immaturity' but rather indicates that they are further along the road to discovering that Labourism will betray them. This is a discovery that they will have to make for themselves: they are not at this stage going to listen to a small band of revolutionaries telling them what lies at the end of this road. The best we can do at this stage is to assist the development of this process. Integral to this overall development in Wales will be the significance of the national question. Whatever the short term impact of a possible future Labour government in the near future on the immediate centrality of the national question, questions of Welsh self-government and autonomy will remain at the heart of the political agenda in Wales in the long term, not least because the pattern of industrial decline partially precludes the prospect of gains through 'economic' struggle. The development of the consciousness of the working class and the resolution of the problems of leadership in the long term in Wales will revolve around the intersection and supercession of nationalism and Labourism. Given the importance given above to national questions, it is also necessary
to stress the importance of internationalist concerns. By this is suggested
more than solidarity with struggles in other countries, especially those
dominated by imperialism (in particular our own), necessary though this
is. It also suggests the fact that the international nature of capitalism
(and, by implication, of its successor, socialism) has penetrated ordinary
people's consciousness to the degree that purely national solutions to
the social crisis appear increasingly untenable, be they solutions posed
by traditional Welsh nationalists of the old school or by the little Englander
Europhobes of the Labour (or Tory) right. Fifteen years ago the rallying
cry of the left was the Bennite slogan of 'Britain out of the Common Market';
today we have to say more. Alongside our convinced opposition to the economic
and political strictures of Maastricht we also have to advance positive
notions of common European (and world) development. The idea that the United
States of Europe is the necessary task of the working class has to be at
the heart of our strategic view of the measures necessary to resolve the
social crisis.
Cardiff, June 18th, 1996
Notes 1 Except where indicated otherwise, the figures in this section, the following four sections (those dealing with steel and coal, women in the economy, foreign investment and the unevenness of the Welsh economy), and the later section concerning new realism are taken from Brendan Young, The Welsh Economy (Polytechnic of Central London, 1992). 2 K. O. Morgan, Rebirth of a Nation, (Oxford, 1981), 319. 3 Gwyn Alf Williams, When Was Wales? (London, 1985), 256-7. 5 M. J. Daunton, Coal Metropolis (Leicester, 1977), 141-2. 6 Peter Fryer, Staying Power (London, 1984), 16. 8 The source for the rest of the remarks on quangos is John Osmond, Welsh Europeans, (1995), 43-52. 10 Gwyn Alf Williams, 'When Was Wales?', in S. J. Woolf (ed.) Nationalism in Europe, 1815 to the Present (London, 1996), 203-4. |
| Return to index |
