03.02.2000

Party notes

WSA conference

Most of the 20-plus participants at the January 29 conference of the Welsh Socialist Alliance in Llandrindod Wells expressed themselves reasonably satisfied with the day's proceedings. This was the first national gathering of the alliance for some time and there was general recognition that in some senses it represented an attempt to resuscitate the bloc.

The WSA has more or less disappeared from view since its successful joint intervention with the Socialist Workers Party under the banner of United Socialists in the Welsh Assembly elections last year. Mike Davies admits in the December 1999 issue of Y Faner Goch, paper of the left nationalist Cymru Goch, that "over the past year ... the failure of the WSA to develop its membership, public profile or politics ... has led to disenchantment."

Echoing the same theme, the opening address of WSA secretary Dave Warren of the Socialist Party described the record of the organisation as "patchy" - a bit of an understatement. The lacklustre performance over the past period has prompted an open debate in Cymru Goch over the future of the alliance. Mike Davies, quoted above, wondered, given "the evidence on the ground . that too many [WSA] members are half-hearted ... whether Cymru Goch should continue to support such an alliance, especially one that fails to support a cornerstone of our political raison d'être: Welsh self-determination" [in reality, independence - MF]. Answering him, Tim Richards advises patience - "give it time, give it a chance" (all quotes Y Faner Goch December 1999).

Essentially, both sides in the Cymru Goch discussion were expressing disappointment in the lukewarm support for the project of left unity that the SP in Wales exhibits. On the other hand, SP comrades have complained that a 'Scottish turn' - the creation of a broad, non-revolutionary party via developing the WSA - was being urged on them irrespective of the different "objective conditions in Wales". To air the differences, a short debate was staged at the end of the formal business of the conference, with speakers from CG and the SP. Mike Davies of CG did little to draw out the controversial issues in an opening that seemed to blandly urge more effort on the part of the constituent elements of the WSA to increase the alliance's profile, not much more.

Replying for the SP, Dave Warren reaffirmed his organisation's commitment to the unity project, but underline that "it is only an alliance". The SP in Wales would "not liquidate", or "dip our banner in favour of a fudge".

Posed in this way, the substantive issue that divided the conference and which lay behind the differing approaches to unity was not brought out. Should the WSA stand for a "Welsh socialist republic", as advocated in CG's 'what we stand for' column - in effect a call for independence and reformo-national socialism? Rather than being posed in an open and sharp way, this vital question appeared only obliquely, as in the defeated CG-motivated amendment which looked to "transform Wales into a modern democratic republic" (yuk). Yet this is the pivotal debate that the WSA and its affiliated organisations must surely have in order to focus working class opposition to Blairism.

Mike Davies did make one telling point, however. He correctly argued that an organisation's attitude to the national question in Wales - or anywhere else for that matter - is one of principle. Thus, CG stands for an independent Wales. The majority of Welsh people do not: "We think they are wrong," comrade Davies stated, and his organisation fights to change their mind. This - he correctly pointed out - stood in stark contrast to the SP's method of second-guessing opinion polls. Whether the comrade was aware of it or not, he was thus blasting the approach that has seen the Socialist Party willingly lose its Scottish section to left nationalism, the approach used by Alan McCombes and other leaders of the Scottish Socialist Party to justify their adoption of Scottish independence.

Communist Party comrades in Wales are pressing for the WSA to stage a day school on the national question at the earliest possible opportunity, an idea that other comrades were enthusiastic about when canvassed. The urgency of establishing some degree of clarity is illustrated by the confusion on offer in sections of the policy statement adopted by the conference, 'Towards a socialist Wales'.

Parts of the document appear to endorse a call for full independence, such as in its opening paragraphs, where "a democratic socialist Wales free from Westminster control" is called for. Yet in its last section on 'The assembly and its powers' the issue is fudged. Here there is a demand for a referendum "on Wales' relationship with the rest of Britain", with three options put. First, no change. Second, powers of the assembly expanded to include areas of policy such as employment legislation, taxation, social questions like drugs and abortion and the nature of the electoral system. And lastly, "full independence".

This is no choice at all. The only option in this list which actually addresses the national question in Wales is "full independence". Option two expands the powers of a sop assembly, but nowhere mentions the fundamental right that Blair has denied the Welsh people - the right to self-determination. As communists we would fight for that right to be exercised for unity with the working people of England and Scotland, embodied constitutionally in a federal republic.

The growing problems of Labour in Wales, alongside the tensions within Plaid Cymru, offer socialists in Wales a space to grow - but only by avoiding the twin dangers these parties embody: Labourism on the one side and petty nationalism on the other.