LEANNE WOOD FOR PLAID
Nominations are now closed for the leadership contest for Plaid Cymru. I am delighted that bookmakers have Leanne Wood as favourite to win.
Leanne, has already garnered impressive support, ranging from popular former MP Adam Price, from AMs Bethan Jenkins and Lindsay Whittle; from Allan Pritchard, the Plaid leader of Caerphilly County Borough Council; from Carmarthenshire MP Jonathan Edwards; and from Gwenllian Lansdown Davies, Plaid Cymru’s former chief executive.
There should be no doubt that electing a talented and principled socialist like Leanne, who has the personal qualities for leadership of her party; who has the ability to connect with the concerns of ordinary voters; and is also a highly intelligent and sophisticated political thinker, would be an enormous benefit for Plaid, and to Welsh politics generally.
I used to read Leanne woods column in morning star i was at a meeting where she spoke in manchester where she upset a few people by talking about the english having to deal with facism. this was not long after the bnp had done very well in north wales so was a little daft. i hope that she wins though.
Leanne in charge of Plaid would seriously politically expose Labour in Wales, potentially even more so than Salmond has managed in Scotland. Everything I have seen of her suggests solid yet pragmatic and popular left politics – something we badly, badly need in England!
Good, but these things are not decided by bookmakers.
Electing Leanne Wood would seriously change a gear in the politics not just of Plaid Cymru but of Wales, as Plaid would first of all be a credible and harsh left-wing opposition to and critics of Welsh Labour in the Assembly, and then in 2016 would be a serious left-wing threat to Labour’s stale hegemony in Wales.
Any disillusioned Welsh progressives out there, you have until midnight tonight (26th Jan) to join Plaid to have a vote (and it’s a straight one member one vote in Plaid, unlike Labour). You can join on-line here: https://www.english.plaidcymru.org/join/
It is worth emphasising again, that Leanne is both very talented, and a principled socialist; to have her as a credible candidate to lead Plaid means there is a possible major advance for the left here.
Now obvioulsy I am a member of the Labour Party, and support Labour in elections in Wales; but Iwan Rhys’s advice at #4 is sound. Non-aligned progressives in Wales could join Plaid, and vote for her.
i hope she wins but dont agree with joining a political party just to support a particular internal candidate it feels a little unprincipled. join if your going to get active and are comfortuble with the party.
#6
Well indeed, the point here is that if Leanne is sucessful, then those who might join to support her will also feel comfortable working in PLaid under her leadership – I would imagine.
#1 If she really did suggest that fascism is an English and not a Welsh issue that really would be a daft thing to say.
Having said that, even when I was a Labour Party member I took the view that it may in certain constituencies be better to vote for Plaid.
Having been a long time Plaid watcher I can confirm Leanne has always been a distinctive voice, a combination of pragmatism and principle that it is rare to find on the left these days. It’s never been clear to me how much support her views commanded within the party, particularly as people like Adam Price, Helen Mary Jones and Jill Evans have equally been seen as representing ‘the left’ whilst also being high up in the party like Leanne. The media had alot of stereotypes about her being an outsider in this race at the start but that has been proven totally wrong. I sense that even if she does not win she will poll strongly. There is then an interesting combination of the party wanting to be more professional but having a leader who is more principled. Reconciling those two themes would be a huge achievement and would give the people of Wales a real electoral choice. One of the reasons Plaid can’t directly challenge Labour is because in alot of the urban, English-speaking parts of the country Plaid barely exists, places like Newport, Merthyr, Torfaen, Flintshire, the Ogwr valley all spring to mind. All left-leaning places full of working class people. The challenge for reaching those places is linking nationalism with policies that create good jobs and protect public services. Interesting times.
The spectre of the royal Kingdom of Great England beckons…maybe then Englands voters will get over this chauvanistic and petulant identity crisis when standing alone with no friends or allies.
Principled socialists are opposed to ALL forms of nationalism. Even the most refined forms such as that of Plaid Cymru which fails to demand an independent State for Wales. Principled socialists have no good reason calling on workers to join a nationalist party which holds the potential of splitting the workers movement. Principled socialists in Wales can join a veritable plethora of socialist parties, i would suggest the SWP as by far the best option, without needing to join a pale pink parody of a genuine nationalist party.
Oh how i’ve longed for an effective leader for Plaid, Leanne ticks all the boxes for me!
Not to mention the surge in membership applications(one renewing mine after years of frustration and disappointment)
I have the utmost respect for Elin, she was a great minister in the one Wales government but she struggles when speaking in English, you can sense the passion when she’s speaking in Welsh but as many have said she’s a continuity candidate, a safe pair of hands! we’ve spent too long like that, Leanne
must win for the future!
Elyboy.
11, been there done that! look on the second page of socialist worker mate, their beliefs,
you’ll find one is to support all progressive
movements who fight for national liberation?
Elyboy.
Principled socialists are opposed to ALL forms of nationalism.
————————————————————-
Does that include national liberation struggles?
#11 how does Socialist Worker backing for Scottish independence fit with your thoughts regarding Wales?
#14 I think that circle is squared by the argument that national liberation is a question of democracy and not synonymous with nationalism. Socialists should support national liberation because they should support democracy.
If a national liberation struggle is justified on the grounds of democracy socialists will be in alliance with those nationalists who also support that struggle, on an algebraic basis depending on all sorts of other factors.
in some cases socialists will end up leading the national liberation struggle.
So if the struggle for Welsh independence is necessary for democracy socialists should be fully behind it.
But is it?
16
Another consideration for any, as number 11 puts it ‘principled’ socialist is the impact on imperialism; national liberation struggles weaken imperialism and imperialist states.
If there is a genuine national question, and a demand for independence and a breaking away from one of the most powerful imperialist states in the world, from a movement that is more progressive than any of the main parties in that imperialist state, why can’t socialists support it?
The post by no.11 is like a caricature of the British Left, and ridiculous when you look at the involvement of generations of socialists in national liberation struggles all over the world through history.
#14 I think they’ve taken a wrong turn on this, and miss the principled arguments they used to make so effectively against nationalism back in the old united SSP.
That said I think Andy is right about Leanne, we need more left leaeders, of whatever party, who are both principled and effective socialists. You tried to destroy one once yourself Eddie didn’t you?
#19 No, he destroyed himself but we’re not talking about that are we?
I’ll say no more on that, not wanting to derail the thread.
Question to neprimerimye at #11 stands.
How do you square the points you make about Wales when the SWP in Scotland are backing independence?
I don’t think he’s “destroyed” at all. Insha’allah, he’ll be back =)
“Does that include national liberation struggles?”
It is quite possible for groups leading or involved in national liberation struggles to not be nationalists. MPLA, SWAPO, and the ANC all spring to mind. Each embraced all nationalities in their countries as well as not shrinking from internationalism and international solidarity. The MPLA — which could have enjoyed stable relations with South Africa — instead supported SWAPO at the cost of a SA invasion.
Not being either Welsh or a Plaid member or supporter I don’t have a vote. But of course it’s far better for left politics in general if parties have more left-wing leaderships.
With the issue of potential Scottish independence having shot up the political agenda lately, it’ll be interesting to see what effect the election of an apparently more radical and dynamic Plaid leader will have.
I do get the impression however, in general terms, that there is far less homogenity in Wales than in Scotland. North Wales has much closer links to north-west England than to south Wales and vice-versa with south Wales and south-west England.
For example, is it true that one cannot even travel from south Wales to north Wales by train without entering and exiting England?
#23
Yes, that is true. However, while the most North East corner of Wales has good links with Cheshire, for example, the North West is extremely Welsh in orientation.
In many ways Wales seem to me to have just as developed a sense of nationhood as Scotland, but this doesn’t translate into political support for independence.
22
I don’t disagree with what you’re saying. I think, though, that all too often socialists in Britain, and in particular England, try to cleave apart all aspects of nationalism from all aspects of socialism, as though they were counter-posed to each other in every respect.
Research has shown that many of those who became communists in some colonial states during the days of the Communist International had a background in nationalist revolutionary politics and that they continued to draw on certain nationalist ideas long after moving towards communism. Ireland, India and Vietnam, pre and post Comintern, are examples of this.
The fact that the main communications infrastructures in Wales run west to east into England (rather than north to south) is due to the exploitative, colonial way in which we have been governed for centuries. The roads and railways were built to serve the exctractive industries which saw Wales stripped of its natural resources and all the benefits taken by our English masters.
In an independent Wales, we would have the opportunity of building major routes from North to South, correcting an age old injustice.
Further powers to Wales and Scotland, such as a proper parliament for Wales with tax-raising powers, are clearly needed to enable our our Gaelic brothers and sisters to escape the worst excesses of a Tory government in Westminster.
However, full independence would result in the building of ‘Celtic tiger’ economies. The Welsh and Scottish bourgeoisie want to benefit from a low-wage, low-tax, financial services model of development that would enrich themselves at the expense of Welsh and Scottish workers. Fanciful dogma about independent socialist republics is clearly an example of wishful thinking. What social forces will build these socialist republics?
On the other hand the fact that the Scottish and Welsh enjoy increased social spending-free university education..etc is not an argument that unionist Britain is somehow generous. The fact that some areas of Wales and Scotland suffer from poverty requiring extra social spending demonstrates that the union is failing to develop the entire country equally-although the same argument could be made about England itself outside of the South East.
Full independence would be bad for Welsh and Scottish workers-forced into a ‘globally competitive’ low-tax economy, yet the union itself is neglecting to resolve problems. The position should therefore be for increased federalism, a proper parliament for Wales and increased powers for Holyrood.
The communist party had developed this argument under the slogan’Against Unionism, for Democratic Federalism’
‘Unless the labour movement takes the lead in the debate on Britain’s constitutional future, the Scottish referendum will be a victory either for reactionary unionism or reactionary separatism’
#26
although the mountains also have something to do with it.
It is also worth perhaps challenging the idea that there has been an exploitative relationship from the English. Rich and powerful welsh people were also complicit in the decisions and strategy, and regions of England (for example Somerset and Devon) were equally disadvantaged as any parts of Wales.
There was an interesting article in Celyn a year or so ago about a possible strategy for a North South rail link, that could actually be acheived with only a few short sections of additional line being built.
Western Railway Project Ireland, an excellent example of what can be done.
http://www.railway-technology.com/projects/westernrailwaycorrid/
#1
I organised that meetings, and indeed I chaired it, and that is NOT what she said.
She made the accurate point that whereas Weslsh and Scottish nationalism have moved away from their origins in the fruitcake right, and entered the social democratic mainstream; politics surrounding English nationalism is still often whacky
“Western Railway Project Ireland, an excellent example of what can be done.”
Yes, the railways in question in the west of Ireland were built under the British colonialists and closed down under the Free State incidentally, so I wouldn’t be too sure that Welsh railways can look forward to a bright post colonial future.
The Irish free state was run firstly by a neo-colonial clique, then a weak native bourgeoisie. Both regimes were in thrall to imperialist capitalist interests and shaped the Irish economy accordingly. I don’t think any socialist on this thread is suggesting a similar arrangement for either Scotland or Wales.
To argue that such a development would be inevitable is to effectively say that there’s no point ever taking part in any kind of struggle, because the capitalists always win.
Here’s a useful video called “Scottish & Welsh Independence – a Socialist View”, recorded recently, which is well worth watching from a class analysis perspective.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhjvihyg940
“I don’t think any socialist on this thread is suggesting a similar arrangement for either Scotland or Wales.”
My point is that what socialists suggest may have very little to do with the final outcome, especially when socialists are in a tiny minority in the countries in question. But I would certainly be interested in finding out how an independent Wales would become such an economic powerhouse that it could fund a massively expensive new railway system through the mountains from north to south.
Leanne is a socialist who has taken principled positions in relation to workers in struggle, imperialist war, support for oppressed peoples around the world etc.
But the socialist and leftish tendency in Plaid Cymru is not predominant in the party, and is very muddled ideologically, leaning towards a ‘small is beautiful’ community co-operatism. But again, they are very good on imperialist militarism and war etc.
In many areas of Wales, Plaid’s activists are people who joined not only because they are Welsh patriots, which usually goes along with being anti-Tory, but anti-Labour as well. Sometimes this is an understandable reaction against right-wing Labour policies (especially militarism and war) and/or local Labour council nepotism and even corruption.
But anti-Labourism also brings in farmers, solicitors, estate agents and the like who might reject Labour at least in part because they identify it with ‘another’ class, the working class, and in particular the trade union movement.
Having more councillors, AMs and MPs and therefore having to take more ‘realistic’ and ‘responsible’ standpoints has eroded quite a bit of Plaid’s radical and left-of-centre edge.
There are a lot of good, progressive-minded people in Plaid, but I think socialists outside Wales should not over-estimate the cohesion and strength of the left inside the party.
Leanne is anti-NATO and anti-EU (Plaid ducks the first question and is fanatically pro-EU). She has friendly contact with some of the Labour Party left in Wales, and quite close links with the Communist Party (she has often spoken on Morning Star and CPB platforms).
A victory for her would shake up Plaid, the left and Welsh politics. But she needs a strong body of supporters around her who will help her resist making the wrong kind of compromises – those of principle – that any party leader has to confront.
You could once (1960s pre-Beeching) travel by train from Swansea to Bangor via Lampeter, Aberystwyth, Machynlleth, and Afon Wen – or indeed via Rhyader, Bala and Wrexham …
#36 You could walk it quicker
Like to see that, but its all tied up with identity and community, in the West Highlands (A line Built by McCalpine) they still remember the milk train with fondness though it never actually carried milk. The railway unites communities in a way the road system does not. Curse the Imperialists all we want but I do not believe that India would be the largest Democracy in the world if it were not for the railway system uniting the people. The Mexican Revolution made use of the capitalists track.
“exploitative, colonial way in which we have been governed for centuries… all the benefits taken by our English masters. ”
The iron and coal industry in south Wales was not run by “English masters”. The Dowlais Works — the first iron works (later steel) which was later to grow into GKN — was created by a partnership of wealthy Welsh and Englishmen. Moreover, many non-Welsh cam to work in the Valleys — as workers as well as managers.
Also, the Tudors were Welsh were they not and Henry Tudor was from Pembroke?
Your ethnic fantasies are not rooted in fact.
Butetown, Ninian Park, half the coal mines in Wales, half the land in Cardiff, owned by Scottish aristocrat, the Marquis of Bute, a Stewart.
The question is asked of me as to how socialists can support national liberation struggles, or for that matter advocate the formation of an independent state when a nation is not oppressed by another as is the case with both Scotland and Wales, without being nationalists. A rather stupid question if I might say so.
The answer is simple in that revolutionary socialist are obviously in favour of the liberation of a nation, or for that matter a people that has not developed national consciousness, if that struggle weakens imperialism and is wanted by the majority of the people. It is also the right of a nation to separate from another if that is the will of the majority as seems to be the case in Scotland. That is clearly not the case in Wales at present if the situation changes the I’m sure that revolutionaries will change their position accordingly.
In passing I note that advocacy of an independent state does not change one thing in terms of class struggle. For socialists it is the class and not the national struggle that is paramount. If a boss be Scottish or Welsh then that boss is still the enemy.
As for the suggestion that the ANC, SWAPO or MPLA were ever anything other than nationalists is plain funny. Similarly we ought to judge the Stalinist parties by their deeds not their words. In which case I would suggest that the Chinese ‘Communist’ Party which exploits workers and smashes strikes but fought for national liberation and unity was and is a nationalist formation.
Some idiot suggested above that Wales is a colony of England because the roads run east-west not north-south. Not only, as already mentioned does this ignore the little factor of a bunch of mountains, but it is also ahistorical. Or am I mistaken in the notion that the Romans also built roads in what became Wales on an east-west axis? Nationalists like nationalism are plain stupid.
The answer is simple in that revolutionary socialist are obviously in favour of the liberation of a nation
Why?
What we are talking about is not The right of Nations to Self Determination but the right of one set of oppressors over another based on ethnic origins. I don’t actually care any more what happens in Scotland, “Independence” will make little difference to me or mine.
“As for the suggestion that the ANC, SWAPO or MPLA were ever anything other than nationalists is plain funny. Similarly we ought to judge the Stalinist parties by their deeds not their words.”
If they were nationalists then which “nation” did they represent? Xhosa, Zulu, Ovimbundu?
“Or am I mistaken in the notion that the Romans also built roads in what became Wales on an east-west axis? Nationalists like nationalism are plain stupid.”
Always better to think before writing, especially when you enjoy calling other stupid. Many Roman roads ran north to south.
http://edina.ac.uk/digimap/casestudies/military_roman/RomanWalesMap.jpg
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Is that because they weren’t members of the SWP?
#45 No what we are discussing is whether or not the people of Scotland and/or Wales have the right to determine the state they live in. Denial of that right, should it become a live issue, would be a act of national oppression.
The previous post was a reply to post#42. My bad.
#43 You assume that the peoples you mention are or were nations. I dispute that assertion and would argue that the ANC was a part, the major part, of a project that aimed at building a single nation in South Africa.
#44 You assume that roads that ran north-south carried as much traffic as those that ran east-west. A stupid assumption I must say. Roman roads were built for two purposes military and commercial. Given that there is evidence for villa culture along what is now the M4 corridor and the only known major settlements in what is now Wales appear in the same area we are safe in assuming that commercial travel would have far out weighed traffic on a road in central Wales.
47
Interesting that you describe a whole number of national liberation movements and organisations in colonial states, including the Chinese communist party, presumably from the day it was formed, as ‘nationalist’. Whatever the Chinese party may have become, to dismiss it in that fashion is absolute rubbish–how do you explain the civil war in the 1920s. Both movements, the KMT and the CCP aimed to unite China and expel the imperialists and war-lords, so why did they end up in a civil war? If they were both simply nationalist, there can be no reason for such a conflict. But they weren’t both simply nationalist. The CCP was based on the peasantry, with some support among workers, whilst the other was based very much on the landlords and the nascent bourgeoisie. The programme of the CCP in its early days, and for quite some time, was based on empowering the peasantry. In other words, it was a class-based programme.
As I said in an earlier post, you are a good example of a typical Left Brit. You don’t understand the relationship between capitalism and imperialism, or the issues that it threw up for revolutionaries, including communists, in those states. I condemn the policies of the ANC leadership totally, but that is, or certainly was, a mass movement of many different tendencies and groups, including marxist ones. To dismiss the whole movement as ‘nationalist’ is ridiculous. Using your analysis the NLF in Vietnam too were solely ‘nationalist’ as were the Cuban revolutionaries. National liberation movements, and communist parties in the colonial world, combined aspects of nationalist thinking with their class-based politics. That’s because they were active in states where the national question had dominated revolutionary thinking in some instances for centuries. They were products of their economic and political environment. You appear to be a supporter of the SWP. Go away and read the discussions on the national question at the 1920 and 1922 Comintern congresses. And while you’re at it, read the proceedings of the conference at Baku in 1920. See if any of the leading communists in the world revolutionary movement described nationalists and national liberation movements as’stupid’
#48 ‘Using your analysis the NLF in Vietnam too were solely ‘nationalist’ as were the Cuban revolutionaries.’
Given the application of the Cliffite state capitalist position to developing countries and national liberation movements it is quite likely that neprimerimye is saying just that.
@48 “The programme of the CCP in its early days, and for quite some time, was based on empowering the peasantry. In other words, it was a class-based programme.”
You really need to read the documents you cite. The original programme of the CCP was based on the self emancipation of the proletariat. Whatever the later programmes of the CCP might have said the fact is that after the late 1920s that party was wedded to the idea of national unity with or without the KMT. Which is exactly why once it had achieved state power strikes were banned and independent workers organisations made illegal. As for the peasants they were controlled like every other section of society. The main aim of the ruling bureaucracy being the accumulation of capital on the basis of a national state. A state a section of the urban intelligentsia now found themselves in control of having used the peasantry as a battering ram.
The idea that different nationalist forces cannot be rivals is plain silly. Or am I mistaken in pointing out that the MNA and FLN in Algerian engaged in fratricide? Again I suspect that you are aware that rival nationalist groups in Ireland have a long history of rather strenuous ‘debate’. I could also cite the military conflict that afflicted the Indonesian national liberation movement in the late 1940s. But even one of these examples invalidates your ignorant assertion.
As for the revolutionaries of the early Comintern they were far more impolite about each other let alone about nationalists! In fact not long after the Baku Congress at least one participant was being described as a bandit and worse.
@49 Given the Vietnamese Stalinist movements murder of authentic Marxist revolutionaries and suppression of the workers movement damn right I’m arguing that the FLN was a nationalist project. And despite its crimes to be supported by revolutionaries in Britain and the USA.
#51 If killing other people claiming to be Marxists and supressing workers’ movements is your criterion I suppose you’d better argue that Lenin, Trotsky etc were all just nationalists as well.
#52. Don’t be silly.
Make your mind up. You started off by saying the CCP were nationalist, now you’re coming out with this. A bit strange to make a point that negates an earlier point you made
The big weakness of your previous arguments, is that if the CCP was nationalist, then what was the difference between it and the KMT? Effectively, what you are saying is that there was no difference.
The Irish comparison is a bit silly. None of the bloodletting among Irish groups came as a result of class differences, but that is exactly why the KMT attacked the CCP in 1927.
In this thread, you have said that principled socialists should have nothing to do with nationalists, that the CCP were always nationalist, along with the ANC and many other groups, and that all nationalists are stupid. If that approach was followed by any serious socialist revolutionary group in a colonial state, they would have built and achieved absolutely nothing.
Charlie I would reply to you nut you are dishonest. I wrote that the CCP was and is a nationalist formation. You claimed that meant that I considered it was such from its formation which is not my position. Such an aproach is pedantry not polemic.
55
I was only taking what you said at face value. Had you made it clear that you thought the CCP was not always a ‘nationalist formation’, (even though you said ‘it was and is’) then fair enough. But you didn’t do that, and have only done so now. In conjunction with the more general points you were raising about other anti-colonial movements, I think my interpretation was understandable.
Lack of clarity in your argument should not be read as dishonesty on my part.
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