Introduction - for Socialist Change in Wales

Socialist Party Wales is standing candidates for the Senedd as part of the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) to provide a real alternative for workers, youth, students, pensioners, and communities. We need socialist champions in the Senedd for the working class who will stand up for its interests.

Every time there is a crisis it is working class people who pay the price.

Capitalism is a system in permanent crisis. The latest crisis will follow on from the US attack on Iran. Every time it is the working class and the public services that we rely on that are made to pay the price. But what remains constant is the huge levels of profits that billionaires continue to make – no cuts for them.

The Welsh government under Labour has dutifully carried out the cuts to public services demanded by the UK government of whatever stripe and behind them the demands of big business in the City of London.

Already our services have undergone 16 years of austerity – that have left vital services hanging by threads.

It is clear that both Labour and Plaid Cymru are incapable of defending working people in Wales from those cuts.

Under Labour control the Welsh NHS has seen cut after cut – hospitals closed and services reduced. The cuts have been so severe that we have the lowest number of intensive care beds per capita in Western Europe – our NHS has buckled under the strain.

A Welsh government under Plaid Cymru would be no different – just look how Plaid-led councils have cut local services in Gwynedd and Carmarthenshire.

And unfortunately the Green Party leaders refuse to pledge to not carry out cuts either. In Scotland they have been coalition partners in a government of cuts.

We need socialist members of the Senedd who will hold the parties of austerity to account.

Reform will certainly not do that – those Thatcher-supporting-Tories favour even deeper cuts.

TUSC members of the Senedd will stand up and fight these cuts. They will represent the interests of working people in the Senedd. They will speak up for the working class – opposing real pay cuts or job losses.

Socialist Party Wales standing as part of the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) has a manifesto for the Senedd elections which could make a real difference. Even one MS taking a stand, if they used their position in the Senedd chamber to appeal to those outside, could give confidence to local trade unionists and community campaigners to campaign for social justice.

A socialist group in the Senedd could make a huge difference even in those areas not devolved from Westminster. If the Senedd had made a clear statement opposing disability cuts, for example, and refused to co-operate with them it would have added enormous pressure on the Starmer government.

But above all we are campaigning for a new mass workers’ party – bringing together working class people in the trade union movement, community organisations, tenants associations and campaign groups in a new party to fight for the working class.