News and Analysis

By Mariam Kamish, Secretary Caerphilly Trades Council Caerphilly Council, forced onto the defensive in the High Court on Thursday, showedcontempt for our small Valleys communities, fighting to hold onto libraries you can walk to.‘If you choose to live 12 miles down a farm track’, their barrister told the court, ‘that’s yourchoice!’ Such is the council’s scorn for the working class ...

By Jason Wyatt, Unite rep, Tata Steel, Port Talbot The British steel industry is forever in crisis. Decades of deindustrialisation have hollowed out once proud steel towns, and every time the industry is hit by another blow, it’s workers, never shareholders, never governments, who are left to pay the price. The fire at Port Talbot on 5 June is just ...

By Eira Ekenberg-Jones, Rhondda Cynon Taff Socialist Party Cardiff Trans Pride called an emergency demo in response to the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC)’s new guidance. Despite the extremely warm weather, the demo saw a great turnout of around 400 people. The organisers unfortunately declined to associate with any trade unions or parties. We agreed to attend regardless, making ...

By Dave Warren, Delegate from Swansea Trades Council The biennial congress of TUC Cymru (Wales Trades Union Congress) took place in Llandudno 19-21 May against the background of the political earthquake of Labour losing control of the Senedd (Welsh parliament) for the first time ever. The conference provided a timely opportunity to reassess the political orientation of the trade union ...

By Dave Warren, Swansea As expected, Labour suffered a crushing defeat at the election for the Senedd (Welsh Parliament) on 7 May. Labour won just nine seats out of 96 in a newly extended Senedd, down from 30 seats out of 60 previously. The First Minister, Eluned Morgan lost her seat and has resigned as Labour leader in Wales. It ...

The price of everything is cranking up again, our services – the NHS, schools, universities, local councils – are crumbling from years of austerity. And despite a Labour government promising change, two years on, it feels like nothing has. Attacks on pensioners’ winter fuel payments, disability benefit cuts, the initial refusal to remove the cruel two-child benefit cap, hiring Mandelson ...

By Rob Williams, Socialist Party Executive Committee and Unite member As we go to press, it has been announced that the left ‘Workers Unite/Back to the Workplace’ slate of candidates has won an overwhelming victory in the election for the Unite Executive Council (EC), the leading lay member body of the union. They have defeated the candidates supported by the ...

2026 marks the centenary of Britain’s general strike. From 4-12 May 1926, workers tasted power, in what is the most important event yet in the history of the British working class. Ian Pattison, the Socialist campaigns organiser, describes events. When the trade unions were discussing the possibility of a general strike in 2012, John Hannett, then the right-wing general secretary of ...

Hospitality worker in Merthyr Tydfil On 16 April, Nigel Farage and his team, including the Welsh Reform leader and Senedd candidate Dan Thomas, came to Merthyr Tydfil, South Wales on the election campaign trail. Unfortunately my workplace was one of the hospitality venues they used to publicise their campaign of division and hate, and the senior management equally capitalised on ...

Socialist Party member Ben Golightly is an elected coordinator for Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC) Cymru. He is the lead Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) candidate in Gwyr Abertawe (Swansea and Gower) for the Welsh Senedd elections. £200 a month has been cut from new Universal Credit claims for those unable to work. This is biting now. And it was voted ...