Localism, the Left, UKIP and B&R

Localism

The new localist parties didn't have much of an election, for example Yorkshire First, a party which was able to field some well-qualified candidates, only managed to top a thousand votes in just one constituency.  This was predictable given the tight nature of the campaign and the lack of coverage for these regional parties in the mainstream media.  

The county council route would seem to be the way ahead for the new parties, the Lincolnshire Independents, for example, winning 8 seats and 10.3% of the vote last Thursday.  Most successful of all was the Herefordshire party It's Our County who ignored the general election and fought 41 of the 53 Hereford seats, winning 12.  They ended up as the second largest party gathering close to 25000 votes.

Next year's Assembly election would seem tailor-made for a localist party to undermine both Labour and UKIP on the South Wales regional lists.

The Left

There was a time when the Left wanted to win power for the working class.  Nowadays as far as the mainstream left-wing parties are concerned, and I include Plaid Cymru in this, its more like charity for the poor.  A handful of far-left parties still battle on and around half the voters in Wales had an opportunity to support them.  The Scargillite Socialist Labour Party's best performance was 697 votes in Torfaen while the late Bob Crow's TUSC fought 12 seats and averaged a measly 148 votes per lost deposit.  Trade Union, Socialist you'd think it would ring a bell with voters in a country whose intellectuals claim it to be inherently radical?  Finally what about the successor to the old CPGB, it even has the backing of a daily newspaper, well  Rob Griffiths gained just 186 votes in Merthyr Tydfil.

UKIP

Paul Mason hit the nail on the head in his Channel 4 blog  where he acknowledged that working class voters in Wales and the English north are unconvinced by the benefits of the free movement of labour.  I'd throw in globalisation and global warming. 

While tweeters generally blamed elderly English incomers for the UKIP vote or said they were ashamed to be Welsh, few seemed to bother with the facts - not many retired blimps in Blaenau Gwent (17.9% UKIP vote), or Merthyr (18.7%) or Caerphilly (19.3%) or Islwyn (19.6%).  These voters weren't racists they were more likely to be concerned with the economic realities affecting their lives.  Even here in rural Radnorshire we've seen low-paid factory jobs move to Eastern Europe, local care work wages depressed by a ready supply of immigrant labour and middle-class home after middle-class home sporting solar panels.  Panels which advertise to the poor that although you can't afford to install them yourself, you're still going to have to pay-out to subsidise the energy bills of those who can.

Who were these disaffected voters going to vote for?  Plaid Cymru, which continually boasts its pro-EU, pro-free movement, pro-wind farm sentiments?  Now as it happens I can't see UKIP surviving for long, by the next election it will be as forgotten as the Referendum party of 1997. The question is who will step-up to address these working-class concerns and pick-up their votes.  The neo-liberal answer which many in Plaid and Labour support - even if they don't know it - is essentially to get on your bike and find a job in London.

Brecon and Radnor

One tweeter, no doubt annoyed by the Tory victory in B&R, suggested that Powys be sold off to England.  While enjoying this faint echo of the anti-Radnorshire feeling which was once so apparent in Welsh-speaking circles let's look at Plaid's performance in the two counties.

Plaid first stood in Brecon and Radnor in 1964, achieving its highest vote to date in 1966 when the candidate Trefor Morgan, garnered 2410 votes (6.05%).  Morgan was a type which seems to have disappeared from Wales, a successful businessman who, if the rumours are true, wasn't averse to a little direct action.  In those days the Liberals didn't stand in B&R, so the best ever performance was in 1970 when W G Jenkins gained 2349 votes despite the fact that it was a four-cornered fight with Geraint Howells representing the Liberal cause.  

Youthful chwysgi entrepreneur Dafydd Gittins maintained the share of the vote in the two 1974 elections before Jan Power stood in 1979 and saw her vote more than halved.  I continued to vote for the party, without any enthusiasm, well it was the only Welsh based choice, throughout the 80s and 90s, when the vote never touched 2%.

Freddie Greaves managed a respectable 4.4% in this year's tight general election, hopefully he'll hang around to stand again and not end-up in the Tory party like the last Assembly candidate.  Meanwhile a party official complained of folk who criticised while never stuffing an envelope on the party's behalf.  It's certainly a problem for those of us who support an independent Wales while not going along with a good many of the party's policies.  Perhaps we need a national movement rather than a national party?

So the Tories won the seat, as they do on occasions, and, truth to tell, Plaid Cymru were as far away from making a breakthrough as they were in 1964.

And make no mistake, a significant section of working class labour voters are still not convinced on freedom of movement. That – not Euroscepticism – is what is driving the Ukip vote in the north and in Wales. - See more at: http://blogs.channel4.com/paul-mason-blog/labour-failed-win-worse/3671#more-3671

And make no mistake, a significant section of working class labour voters are still not convinced on freedom of movement. That – not Euroscepticism – is what is driving the Ukip vote in the north and in Wales. - See more at: http://blogs.channel4.com/paul-mason-blog/labour-failed-win-worse/3671#more-3671

And make no mistake, a significant section of working class labour voters are still not convinced on freedom of movement. That – not Euroscepticism – is what is driving the Ukip vote in the north and in Wales. - See more at: http://blogs.channel4.com/paul-mason-blog/labour-failed-win-worse/3671#more-3671