An Open Letter To Every Trade Union Member In Wales
You have before you one of the most important political decisions of your life. For a decade, your union has had its politics distorted by a profoundly wrong form of political interference. Three men, behind your backs, have been manipulating you, and your rights to make free open, political choices. They are Carwyn Jones, Andy Richards, and David Hagendyk.
Mr. Jones is stepping down as the Welsh Assembly First Minister (and so-called Welsh Labour 'leader'). In truth he has been hounded from office. (I explain why, in detail, in my Facebook articles). Mr. Richards is stepping down as Welsh secretary of UNITE (Wales's biggest union). He is, also, no longer Chairman of the Wales Labour Party. Mr. Hagendyk has already been booted out as the man who ran a poisonous regime as General Secretary at Labour Wales HQ. These three men have imposed their own agenda on the politics of the Labour Party in Wales.
Wales is a left-wing country. Wales sent the first Labour MP to fight for The People, at Westminster. Wales was the first to fly the red flag in protest at the brutality of greedy iron-masters. Wales was, is, should return, and must remain, a left-wing country. Wales has been, you the Labour Party members and trades unionists have been, subjected to a decade of political disdain and distortion. An insidious, poisonous, corrosive infection called Blairism! Jones, Richards, Hagendyk are political dead men walking. Their blairite agenda should be booted out with them.
Their final, fatal, mistake ... the final straw, was when Labour Wales HQ interfered with the democratic rights of every Labour Member in the election of Party Leader. An instruction was sent out by Labour Wales HQ that local CLPs (Constituency Labour Parties) across Wales should vote for Owen Smith! Owen Smith, the fool who said "Austerity is right" during the leadership campaign. Owen Smith, the thoroughly Blairite product and choice of Kinnock, Kinnock, and their friends Blair, Mandelson, Campbell, all of who, along with the man-child Owen Smith are, as I write, prepared to split and destroy the Labour Party, handing power to the most vicious Tory Government since Thatcher tried to destroy Wales! These slick-tongued, self-serving, Blairite plotters are - like Blair himself - thoroughly Tory. They care nothing for you, Wales, the people, decent, social justice politics. They believe in serving themselves, and to hell with the rest of us.
This country (Wales) and this country (Britain) stands on the threshold of a Labour Government. That can only happen if you unite to root out the Blairite enemies within who have distorted every level of the Labour Party. List them, challenge them, out-argue them, out-vote them. If they repent, genuinely repent, set them to work. If they are beyond redemption, side-line them, de-select them, strip them of their title of mayor, or chair, or what other position they should have used to serve ... not themselves, but others!
As I write this the UNITE Union in Wales has just backed One Member One Vote (OMOV) as the way of choosing the next leader of the Labour Party in Wales. It is now time for all unions to do the same.
The candidate for that leadership who best represents the social justice values and long, honourable, tradition of left wing trade unionism and political struggle in Wales is Mark Drakeford. Mark Drakeford is a professor, a thoroughly decent, experienced politician, a man who knows that to lead you must first be a public servant. Mark Drakeford will revitalise a decent politics for Wales.
THE LAST THING WALES NEEDS, BRITAIN NEEDS, IS MORE BLAIRISM, WHICH IS TORYISM BY THE BACK DOOR.
Paul Starling is a former BBC, ITV, Daily Mirror journalist and a Morning Star contributor. For more by this author visit his Facebook page