09.05.2007

No winners, many losers

The third elections to the Welsh national assembly on May 3 failed to generate any level of excitement amongst the people of Wales. This was hardly surprising, given that the campaigns of the four main parties indicated that there was little to separate them politically. Cameron Richards reports

Unlike in Scotland, where the national question was perhaps the key issue of the campaign, in Wales it rarely figured. Nevertheless, the election results pose in clear terms not only the slow decomposition of New Labour (albeit with Welsh characteristics), but also the bankruptcy of the sect projects which have sought to appropriate the political legacy of old Labour.

The most significant aspect of the election results was the collapse of the Labour vote. Down almost 8% on its 2003 score, analysis suggests that this is the party's worst result since 1918. This is exemplified by the fact that in 10 of the 24 constituency seats Labour won, the margin of victory was less than 2,000 votes. That Labour was saved from meltdown in terms of assembly seats has much to do with split votes and the peculiarities of the AMS voting system.

The number of constituency seats won by the Conservatives rose from one to five, though their overall tally of 12 was only one greater than in 2003, leaving it the third party. The second party of Wales, Plaid Cymru, saw a modest growth of 12 to 15 seats - nothing at all comparable to the rise of the SNP in Scotland.

Yet the swing away from Labour was not simply to the Tories or the Welsh nationalists. It is rather more complex than that. The slow decline of Labour in its old industrial heartlands of south Wales takes a number of different forms. In Newport East, for example, the Liberal Democrats came within a thousand votes of taking the seat. Not so long ago, such a result would have been considered preposterous.

Yet elsewhere in Gwent, in the valleys, the swing was to 'old Labour' in the form of the People's Voice movement. Trish Law held Blaineau Gwent, whilst in Islwyn and Torfaen candidates allied to People's Voice amassed 28.82% and 14.42% respectively.

Taken together, these three votes arguably constitute the most successful 'socialist' challenge across Wales, England and Scotland on May 3. Trots they are certainly not. Yet in their espousal of 'old-fashioned socialism' they have tapped into something in the economically deprived valleys that has eluded far left Labourite projects. It is now possible that this movement will now spread to other parts of Wales.

However, in north Wales the swing from Labour took the form of support for openly chauvinistic British nationalism. If Labour could take heart from recapturing Wrexham from Forward Wales founder John Marek, nevertheless, the fact that 9.4% of list votes in the town went to the BNP (there has been a recent history of racial tensions as well as significant Polish immigration) is alarming. Across the North Wales region, the BNP came within 2,500 votes of taking a list seat.

Overall, the inconclusive result means that the political character of the new devolved administration is not yet determined. Whilst the people may have chosen who sits in the assembly, it is now up to the politicians to determine who rules.

The electoral arithmetic makes this not straightforward. Labour has 43% of the seats, Plaid 25%, the Tories 20% and the Lib Dems 10%. With figures like this, the scope for horse-trading between these four bourgeois parties is obvious. Indeed the only absolute certainty is that Labour and the Tories will not be jumping into bed with each other.

There has been much speculation of a 'rainbow coalition' of the three anti-Labour parties. Whilst such a ménage à  trois may turn on elements of each of these parties, it remains unlikely, though not completely ruled out. Not only would it be difficult to negotiate, but it is highly unlikely that leftwing Plaid AMs like Leanne Wood are going to find it attractive to cohabitate with unreconstructed rightwing Tories.

That it is even being suggested as an option at all says much about the political stripe of the Plaid leadership. It, perhaps, also tells one about the timidity of the Plaid Cymru left that they have not put these ugly rumours to bed. It demonstrates that the working class foundations of Welsh Labourism, albeit in a highly distorted sense, is somewhat more solid than the pretensions of the Welsh nationalists to be the 'socialist' alternative.

If a Lib-Lab coalition remains the most likely option, gaining ground rapidly is the possibility that some sort of Labour-Plaid agreement may come to fruition. Whether such a deal would incorporate Plaid's medium-term objective of a Welsh parliament, possessing the same powers as the Scottish parliament, remains far from certain. In some leftwing circles within Plaid, this option has been sold in the past as representing some kind of 'historic compromise' between the two 'socialist' parties of Wales, putting the national question to rest for some considerable time.

However, in a different way, any pact with Labour poses as many dilemmas for the Plaid left as dealing with the Tories. Whilst relations between the two parties are not akin to those pertaining to, say, the Scottish Socialist Party and Solidarity, the intense rivalry for working class votes in south Wales makes relations between the two fraught, to say the least. Not only would it become readily apparent that the leaders of this 'red alliance' of Welsh Labour and Plaid offer no alternative to the neoliberal consensus: it would marginalise those like comrade Wood who openly call for an 'independent socialist Wales'.

It could be said that the only political force not to make any impact whatsoever was the far left. Although comparisons with the 1999 and 2003 elections are difficult because this time the left chose to stand on the regional lists, the results make sorry reading indeed. So bad, in fact, that the corpse of Arthur Scargill's Socialist Labour Party can lay claim, with an average of about 1% across the five regions, to the title of the major sect in Wales.

Standing in the South Wales Central and South Wales West regions, the Socialist Party won 0.4% and 0.6% respectively. Respect, standing in the same two regions and no doubt benefiting hugely from the national publicity it has won in recent years, got 0.5% and 0.4%.

Across these two regions the far left in their collective efforts (add the Communist Party of Britain and Socialist Equality Party also) amassed 2.3% and 3.1% respectively. Little wonder that in blowing up Respect's election results elsewhere, this week's Socialist Worker avoids mention of its results in Wales (May 12).

Perhaps the sects will now review the failure of their old Labour projects, dissolve and humbly join the ranks of People's Voice. Rather more likely and true to form, the Socialist Workers Party and SP will offer the benefit of their expertise in elections to the rather more successful People's Voice movement, seeking to coopt it into their own Labourite projects. It will not be long before John Rees and Peter Taaffe will be laying claim to be the true inheritors of Nye Bevan when they each tour the meeting halls of Ebbw Vale, Blackwood and Pontypool.

Whilst the sects will take comfort from picking up the odd new recruit here or there, those who had a decade or so ago been optimistic about the possibility of a left regroupment project challenging New Labour will be utterly confused and dejected. With their warring halfway-house Labourite projects coming to absolute zero, they find themselves no closer to a breakthrough than they were then.

In fact things are much worse than then. If some time ago they could claim that principled left unity was their objective, today their futile sect projects are obvious. They have learnt nothing and it seems almost absolutely certain that they will learn nothing. The sects constitute a considerable barrier to the project of principled left unity, built around a genuine Marxist programme.

This poses certain dilemmas for communists who have for some time made orientation to the far left a central part of our work. It is crystal clear that we are moving in an opposite direction to the sects. We are fighting for the unity of Marxists as Marxists; they are organising around the programme of Labourism, though fetishising their own separate projects.

Of course, this does not mean we can now ignore the likes of the SWP or the SP. Our work is often bound to closely intersect with theirs. We cannot simply attempt to go around the sects and expect to find suddenly a formula for taking forward our project.

It does mean, however, that we need to carefully consider the period ahead of us. If the far left no longer constitutes such a fruitful site for dialogue and confrontation, it seems worthwhile to consider the scope for productive work elsewhere, be it through extending our general propaganda for a Marxist party, but also, perhaps, in a much closer confrontation with the ideas of Labour and the Welsh nationalists.

To this end the first session of Communist University Wales on Saturday May 12 will debate the question, 'What sort of party does Wales need?' All sections the left are welcome to participate in the debate.