Welsh local elections – Left Unity Wales appeals for cooperation and solidarity

Workers and the planet are under immediate threats from the power of those who own most of the world’s wealth, as they seek to maximise their profits at our expense.

We need to organise collectively in Wales, the UK and internationally both to defend past gains like the NHS, and to grow our power to confront capitalism and their neoliberal market-driven ideology before they destroy us and the planet.

The crisis we face is made worse by the current leadership of the Labour Party. Time is not on our side to wait for this to change. We cannot afford to hide behind ‘keep the Tories out’ or ‘Welsh Labour is different’; we must act now, directly, and politically for the sake of humanity and our planet.

We can do much in Wales to inspire and set an international example. That is why Left Unity has an agenda for an Ecosocialist transformation, and supports an independent Wales organised as a republic based on popular sovereignty and the fullest possible participatory democracy.

But there is no contradiction between fighting for independence and resisting growing Tory tyranny in the here and now. Collective direct action organised from below by unions and social movements is our main weapon. But we should not ignore the forthcoming May local elections.

The local elections provide a serious opportunity to build the struggle for Ecosocialism and raise demands for extending democracy deeper into our local communities. Ecosocialists should not stand outside these elections, ceding the arguments to the narrative of the established parties: the issues we face are too urgent and too serious for this.

Left Unity Wales is a small organisation and many of our members are not able to stand as candidates. However, even if we don’t stand, we wish to help build collective unity and the radical left in Wales through these elections by proposing a set of demands and policies that we can put forward in several ways.

• First, as the basis of a proposal for an ecosocialist alliance of parties, organisations, and individuals. We are not suggesting a new party at this stage but an attempt to bring the radical left in Wales together around a common basic programme for these elections. It could develop into something else, but that would be for the future.
• Second, as demands on existing parties, to include all or part of the programme in their manifestos.
• Third, as demands on individual candidates who may wish to support a more Ecosocialist and democratic programme in addition to the one their party is offering.

As Left Unity Wales we are putting this programme forward to all in Wales who share our urgent concerns, as a basis for further open discussions around these three areas. A parallel initiative, the People’s Alliance of the Left (PAL), largely aimed at England has been launched with Left Unity support.

Here are our proposals to you based upon policies and demands drawn from our Left Unity Wales manifesto – see also the full text that follows this introductory call.

We call upon all who share our concerns to consider supporting these demands by

1. Raising them within your existing parties and organisations with the aim of being part of your election manifestos.
2. Consider working with us as an alliance to try to ensure a radical left ecosocialist and independence supporting voice is heard loud and clear in the coming local elections.
3. Come together for further discussions about these policies and demands with a view to develop agreement and wider unity.
4. Work directly through joining us or otherwise supporting us to take these demands forward in every possible way leading up to the elections, including as demands on individual candidates.

Contact us directly here or through Messenger on our Facebook page

Len Arthur – Left Unity Wales secretary

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Left Unity Wales – possible ideas for supporting parties, candidates or forming alliances for standing in the local elections

We propose that all candidates should support these policies

See the full list here.

• Oppose all cuts in services and privatisation.
• Vote against any budget that includes these cuts and privatisation in any form.
• Undertake immediately a ‘people and service needs based’ comprehensive spending review to at least restoring spending on services at the level reached 2008/09
• Immediately demand from the Tory government ‘catch up funding’ to repair pandemic losses.

For a democratic Wales

Left Unity is calling on all council candidates to commit to supporting a referendum on Welsh independence within the first 18 months of the new Senedd. We believe that the current UK system of government is ultimately an impediment to the radical ecosocialist change we have outlined here. It is based on a limited and flawed democratic process. It permits ministers acting in the name of “crown powers”, wide scope to avoid democratic scrutiny. An independent Wales is essential to establish a modern social republic based on popular sovereignty and a written constitution. A political system where active citizens are directly involved in the decisions that shape their lives. This does not mean just waiting for independence. Left Unity believes we can begin the process of deepening and widening Welsh democracy now.

To this end we propose the following:

1. All candidates commit personally to subjecting themselves to recall, annual accountability and to allow a vote of confidence in themselves if 10% of their electorate requests this in a petition.

2. Support a move to three-year councils not five years council.

3. Support a system of full proportional representation in all elections – and immediately support the use for the STV law for the next round of elections.

4. Complete open books. No confidentiality except individual privacy.

5. Immediate return to committee governance with public and worker representation on all committees and the full council making final decisions. All meetings are public, broadcast and recorded.

6. All councillors to only take justifiable expenses and loss of wages – not a regular payment.

7. All candidates commit to producing monthly reports produced for the electorate in a website format that will allow for electorate comments and further questioning.

8. Working groups involving elected representatives, trade unions representing the staff officers and members of the public to produce reports for council and an end to PR dominated consultation exercises.

9. The role of community councils to be fully recognised and to encourage consortia working on the demands and policies included in this document where they enable effective and immediate action.

We are a party that takes forward the fight for equality, social justice and an end to all oppressions and discriminations and ends with support of the development of an eco-socialist doughnut economy.

We understand that it is going to be hard to find any candidate that will support all these demands, but we would ask socialist to consider who best would be most likely to take them forward and listen to them once elected.

Equality, economic security and re-distribution – action across all departments to end poverty and financial insecurity.

1. Every household receives the JRF minimum income achieved where relevant through collective bargaining and union recognition.
2. All council services to be provided in house through workers employed directly by the council and Welsh Government.
3. All councils to recognise trade unions, encourage 100% trade union membership and to support collective bargaining in every aspect. These requirements being a contractual condition on any supplier to the council.
4. Immediate steps toward the eradication of poverty and achieving minimum income through direct benefits such as free school meals, meals on wheels and community kitchens.
5. All councils to immediately review their strategies to ensure the effective and immediate implementation of the Cooperation Agreement and use of funding in particular:
   1. Implement a Right to Food strategy and universal free school meals with local sourcing of produce.
   2. Ensure local public and cooperative ownership of the proposed Ynni Cymru renewal energy organisation and the publicly owned Welsh building company.
   3. The universal and free provision of nurseries, sure start centres and compulsory education together with the end of all additional payments.
6. The adoption of the social model of disability that it is not a person’s impairment that creates disability but oppression and the absence of social support.
7. Social care to be brought back into council control with the provision of all possible individual options, to be made available free.
8. Eradication of homelessness and housing need through the provision of council housing to be provided at rents levels that cover maintenance and not market levels.
9. Employment created through in house provision and council supported production and services through locally all member owned cooperatives.
10. Councils and health boards to jointly provide primary health care which emphasises freely available prevention, screening and public health.

Ecosocialist ‘doughnut’ economics, zero carbon and the development of a locally owned and controlled economy

All councils to produce an economic development plan that conforms to the parameters of a local doughnut economy, based upon the foundations to extend ownership and control through workers cooperatives, and the specific demands in our Left Unity Wales manifesto.

1. New start-ups and succession as a first principle should be cooperatively owned and controlled and remain so if ownership changes.
2. Councils to set up a development fund possibly in conjunction with other councils and the Welsh Government to raise funds to support new start-ups or aid succession.
3. Councils to use their own land, establish a land bank or compulsory purchase land to eliminate all profiteering of land development value and remove land price as a feature of house price or rents.
4. The concept of a local circuit of spending is developed to encourage value to be retained and re-used within a geographic area.
5. Welsh Government, councils, health boards, universities, and FE colleges to work together to identify services and industries that can be developed across Wales from existing as well as new provision, which have social and economic benefit in Wales and internationally and where under cooperative ownership, the value created remains anchored as part of the Welsh economy.