I’m writing this shortly after stepping down from my elected role as Deputy Leader of Wales Green Party – a party that I had worked hard for over the last 7 years. The UK media unsurprisingly tried to focus on the “Zionism is Racism motion” in my resignation and instead largely ignored or downplayed the far bigger reasons I left: a lack of respect for the Wales Green Party and Welsh members, and a lack of long-term strategy. This article is my plea to the wider Welsh left to please put their energies into a long-term strategy.
My Journey into Politics
My journey into joining a political party, never mind becoming elected as a Deputy Leader, is a bit different to most. I grew up in and still reside in the Oakfield area of Cwmbran. Nobody from a political party was knocking on my door growing up. Like much of Wales this was Labour territory and political nihilism served them well. The council area of Torfaen in which Cwmbran sits had the lowest turnouts of all 22 local authorities in Wales at the last local elections in 2022. Along with many other seats in Wales it had a turnout below 50% at the last general election.
My first real “interaction” with politics at a local level came whilst sat in an overcrowded classroom in a crumbling relic of a comprehensive school in April 2010 aged 15, just ahead of the UK general election and hearing a van go past our school with a loudspeaker urging people to vote for the BNP to “protect our area”. Thankfully they didn’t come close to winning the seat but their arrogance in trying to blame “outsiders” for the problems my area faced (and still faces) really annoyed me. Much like people sitting in Westminster or the Senedd collecting their wages, they didn’t know or care about areas like mine.
I ended up going to University in Aberystwyth studying first an undergraduate degree in Psychology and then a masters in International Politics. The way we influence change has always fascinated me, as has the lack of understanding among political parties about areas like my hometown. I remember in the lead up to the 2016 EU Referendum winning many free pints from friends at Uni, many of whom were studying Politics (unlike me at that time) by betting with them that the UK would vote to leave. Many scoffed at me at the time. Most of these people came from big cities or leafy towns and villages in England. Not from places like me, who had often felt like politics was being done to them rather than for them.
It was also the ridiculous reaction to that referendum result – and the attempts to overturn it from the wider UK left political parties – that stopped me from joining any of them till after the 2019 election, when that debate was finally put to bed. As someone who believes in grassroots democracy and thus Welsh independence, only two parties really had any chance of me joining them: the Wales Green Party or Plaid Cymru. After some thought I joined the Greens as they had bolder policies more aligned to my own.
I threw myself into the party taking on various roles at a local party level all the way up to Chair of the local Gwent Green Party. At the youth level I was elected as Young Green Campaigns Officer and later Political Education Officer. Finally at a Welsh level I got elected as Deputy Leader of Wales Green Party in 2024. In my time in the party, I had stood at local, UK and Senedd elections. I had worked to help get Greens elected across Wales and England, sat in online meetings that went on for hours, done press, visited local parties to give talks, and much more.
The more I did the less I felt appreciated by or listened to by the party, on account it seemed of being both a Welsh member and somebody who comes from, and still lives, in an area like mine. I had concerns over many things and didn’t sense any long-term strategy for gaining power within a UK context within the party. I started to feel I was just used when beneficial as a Welsh voice. The lack of payment for Welsh Deputy Leaders, despite the time the role takes and the amount of money the party now has available, when compared to the money and staff time the Leadership team in England receive was particularly galling.
I left; I had to for my own sanity and self-respect. It feels equal parts liberating and painful. I hope Wales Green Party will vote to split and become truly independent, but fear even if it does, it will take years and end up being delayed by members afraid of upcoming elections. To them, I say be bold and just do it.
The Current State of Welsh Politics
Following the recent election, we are finally free from Welsh Labour dominance in the Senedd. The lack of self-reflection from Labour and continuing arrogance of their MSs sadly doesn’t surprise me. They take voters for granted and take the view that politics is something to be done to communities rather than carried out with communities. An interaction I had with Huw Irranca-Davies during a TV appearance ahead of the Senedd election solidified this even more in my mind. During it he completely ignored my own lived experience, or growing up under Welsh Labour hegemony, and just tried to talk down to me in a patronising way.
Plaid are in power but what’s really changed? Now don’t get me wrong, there are many great people within Plaid who I consider friends including many MSs but if you have been in opposition for decades, you should already have a plan for what to implement upon gaining power. I am yet to see any evidence of this however. Even something as simple as ending no fault evictions in Wales (the only nation in Britain that still allows them) hasn’t been implemented.
Too often it seems that the Senedd is merely a place for people to take a wage whilst not doing much. The closed lists system, whilst a welcome alternative to first past the post, means political grifting is still alive and well within Wales. They have had an easy ride in terms of a lack of real scrutiny from the Welsh media that was far too pally with them in the Senedd bubble, and a UK media that doesn’t care about Wales. I even joked with one of my Green Party pals that at least my resignation achieved one thing, in getting Wales Green party mentioned on the UK section of BBC Breakfast.
Reasons to be Cheerful
So where do we as a broader left in Wales go from here then? I’m not going to tell anyone to leave a party. I greatly admire people working hard to try to push Plaid to be bolder or within the Wales Green Party continuing to try to make them a true force within Welsh politics. What I would like to see is a wider long-term strategy from both of these parties. To me it’s still clear that the future of Wales has to be outside of a Westminster system that doesn’t care about us. This however will likely take many decades to build and requires people in Wales feeling parties in the Senedd are actually working for them, unlike the parties in Westminster.
I take great solace in the fact that Reform’s popularity continues to fall in Wales. I’m unlucky enough to live in the council ward that saw the first defections to Reform in Wales when my 3 local “independent” councilors saw the opportunity for money that Reform offered.
We in Wales don’t like being dictated to by people in suits who don’t care about our areas: the possibility of a Reform or other right-wing majority in the Senedd to me feels impossible thankfully.
Once parties of the left in Wales actually start listening to communities like the one I’m from, we have the opportunity for real change. Just like I included in my resignation video, the fact remains in the UK and Wales most political constituencies are made up of collections of towns or small cities much like the place that I’m from. Politicians themselves in Wales would do well to remember that and actually start projecting the voices of people from these communities.
To everyone who wants to see a better Wales and a better world, keep doing what you can within your communities and keep putting pressure on our elected officials. We still have the power to make the change we want to see. I’ll end with the potent words of the poet R.S Thomas, taken from his poem Welsh History:
“When we have finished quarrelling for crumbs
Under the table, or gnawing the bones
Of a dead culture, we will arise
And greet each other in a new dawn.”