"Our policy is independence for
Wales within Europe"
BRITAIN
Plaid
Cymru
Interview with Plaid
Cymru Euro-candidate
Peter Keenan OULD YOU describe the constituency you're running in and what Plaid's history in it is?
The constituency is the South Wales European constituency. There are four Euro-constituencies in Wales and each one consists of either nine or ten Westminster constituencies. The number of voters is about half a million. The two constituencies of South and South-East Wales are the most densely populated, with all of the industrial valleys and the towns and cities along the coastal belt.
The campaign that Plaid is running is for greater representation of Wales directly in the European community, without having to go via Thatcher's government in London or via the Tory-controlled Welsh Office, which doesn't seem to be doing enough in terms of bringing in regional development grants, structural grants or in terms of putting the Welsh point of view across in the European community. • Does that amount to demanding independence within the European Community like the Scottish Nationalist Party?
Our policy is for full independence for Wales within the European community. The platform that we're fighting this election on is seen as a step towards that. It is also an anti-Thatcher campaign, because of her stance of opposing social dialogue within the European Community, of simply pushing for the development of the market within the European Community. We know that we would lose from that in Wales for two reasons.
In the first place, with the bringing down of trade barriers within the European Community, Wales' industrial sector of small and medium-sized enterprises is going to be very badly hit. Secondly, we don't have 16 the representation we need in Brussels to ensure that we get the best possible deal out International Viewpoint #162 • May 1, 1989
THE VICTORY of the Scottish nationalists in the Govan by-election on November 10 sent a shock through both of the big British parties, the
Conservatives and Labour. The gains for the nationalists, moreover, were clearly related to their promise to wage a militant campaign of civil disobedience against Thatcher's regressive poll tax.1
Since the fates of the Welsh and Scottish nationalist parties have historically been closely linked, attention turned to the by-election in the south Wales valley constituency of Pontypridd at the end of February. The Plaid Cymru (Welsh Nationalist Party) candidate, Syd
Morgan, did win a substantially higher vote, five times the party's previous score and nearly twice that of the
Conservatives. But he still got only about half that of the Labour candidate. Moreover, Plaid Cymru had gotten big votes before in the south Wales valleys, which are in a way intermediate between the anglicized southern coastal belt and Welsh-speaking west and north Wales, where the nationalist party competes on a basis of equality with the big British parties. Plaid Cymru and the SN responded in opposite ways to of the new Europe and to assure that the social dialogue is taken on board. • Your constituency is in industrial south Wales, where Plaid is historically weak, isn't it?
That's true. We've had a number of individual successes in the past in industrial south Wales in certain of the Westminster constituencies, Merthyr, Caerfilly, Rhondda, and we did very well recently in the Pontypridd by-election.
the defeat of the 1979 Labour-sponsored referendum on devolution for Wales and Scotland. The SNP strengthened its nationalist profile, and tried to project itself as the leadership of Scottish struggles, even at the cost of appearing sectarian toward the Labour Party. The Plaid Cymru leadership tended to dissolve the demand for independence into vague formulas of regionalization all round and equally murky notions of alliances with all sorts of forces, some even more to the right than the right-wing centralist Welsh Labour Party. In this context, it also took a swerve to the right on the question of defending the rights of militant Irish nationalists, throwing the left wing of the party into confusion and demoralization. Some of the ideologues who theorized the right-wing turn in left-wing terms have extended their woolgathering to European horizons.? However, there seems now to be some pressure for a turn back toward Plaid's traditional, if limited, radicalism. The European elections will be a test of that, among other things. The following interview was given to Gerry Foley in Cardiff shortly after the Pontypridd by-election by Peter Keenan, a Plaid Cymru Euro-candidate in a key constituency. Gerry Foley • Your constituency includes the valleys then.
It does. The South Wales constituency includes three of the valley constituencies. That is, Pontypridd, Maesteg and the Ogwr valley and the Afan valley, coming down to Port Talbot at the coast. The rest of them 1. See IV 152, November 28. 1988. 2. See "Europe and Nation" by Gwyn A. Williams in the British Euro-Communist magazine Marxism Today, April 1989.
are coastal constituencies, including all of the Westminster constituencies in Cardiff, the Vale of Glamorgan and Bridge-End. • You have got a considerable vote in the valleys previously. But the real question would be the coastal zone. Do you expect anything different this time?
Yes. In the European elections, always do much, much better than in the Westminster elections. There are a number of reasons for that. One is that the election campaign is not fought in a purely British context. It is fought within a European context, and our policies at the European level are policies that do appeal to people right across the spectrum. Our line of better representation within the European community is obviously something that appeals to a wide spectrum. Also, since this takes place in a European context, the media aren't as toward London-based parties. Thirdly, this time around we're also much more integrated into the European Free Alliance, which is a part of the larger Rainbow Group in the European Community, which has 20 MEPs. When you're fighting as a part of that sort of grouping, people take you more seriously. • Do you have a program for the EEC itself?
Our program for the European Community itself is to see the European Community superseded by a fully European body, elected by proportional representation, and elected from the regions rather than from the nation states. We do not see this as a military bloc, but as an economic, social, international and environmental bloc that would try to implement some of the more progressive policies that are coming from the center and center-left parties, including the Greens within the European Communi-
So, in terms of economic policies, that would mean greater control of multinationals. It would mean decentralization of economic control to the regions, not the nation-states. In terms of social policies, it would mean more progressive and socially egalitarian policies. And that means obviously vastly increasing the structural, regional and social funds. Some of the money for that would have to come from a big transfer of funds from the military to social and
However, that has to be done via the European Community at the moment. That is where we differ from some of the fringe left elements, who say that we should pull out of the European Community now. Our stand is - and this is being taken up more and more by the left in England as well - that you have to use the European Community as a more progressive platform than we have in Thatcher's Britain at the • How do you define a region? Is it an economic or a traditional ethnic
That basically has to be decided by the people of the area in question. We have to accept that power should be decentralized to the level that people want it to be. It is clear that that is not just down to the level of the [existing] nation-states at the moment. You have decentralist political tendencies within Spain, France, Italy, the UK, Belgium, a whole range of countries in the European Community. You can see that happening as well within the Soviet Union.
One of the biggest failings of the left in the past has been their failure to take on board the progressive elements in these regional and national movements. In that way, they split the left so that Thatcher has a majority in Britain today and the parties of the right have a narrow majority in the European Community. • Are you in favor of the breakup of the imperialist nation-states - Britain, Germany, France, Italy?
We're in favor of opposing imperialism or colonialism anywhere, whether that's within the European community or further afield. In Nicaragua, for example, there has been a movement that has been revolutionary in comparison to anything happening in Europe. That struggle was fought within the confines of one nation, Nicaragua. We see that as very, very similar to what we're trying to do, but within the institutions of the European community, because we have democratic channels where we can win political power. They did not have that in Nicaragua; it had to go to an armed strug-
That fight was decided within the confines of one nation-state against a very aggressive imperial government, that of the United States, and particularly that of Ronald Reagan. What we're saying is that you can see these imperialist tendencies in the USA, in the USSR, as well as in some of the older nation states within the European Community, such as Britain, such as France particularly. What we're saying is that we're not breaking up anything; what we're trying to do is prevent further imperial and colonial tendencies within the European Community. • Have you had any contact with
BRITAIN organizations representing the peoples on the Nicaraguan Atlantic coast, for example?
Those organizations have been in contact with some of the organizations we've been working with, because they're seen as minorities within Nicaragua and have been recognized as such by the Nicaraguan govemment, and we think that is a welcome trend. We thought it was a very good example to the rest of the international community as to how national OT regional governments should recognize minorities within their own borders. • Did you participate in the protests against funding for the contras, for example?
Yes. We had policy against funding of • Within the EC are some very powerful and very aggressive imperialist states. Margaret Thatcher's response to the Govan by-election was that she wouldn't have any truck with separatism, and that she was sure that the other European powers wouldn't have any truck with
Mrs Thatcher tends to talk with two tongues. She says that she will have nothing to do with separatism, and yet her Bruges speech showed her to be a total isolationist within the European community. The UK is a signatory to the treaties of Rome - that means that she is just one of the partners within the EC. And yet she has said that if there are further integrationist tendencies, she will pull out. That is, she is
Now what the parties of the European regions and nations are saying moment is that we want to take part in the European Community, because we know there are progressive tendencies there, and there is a popular basis of support for our type of politics, the rainbow politics of working with a number of groups on the left and the center left and the Greens.
What we're finding nowadays is that the older nation-state parties - particularly those on the right, but also some that see themselves on the left, like the British Labour Party — are seen to be the isolationist parties, not us.
• You mentioned the Soviet
Union a number of times, the explosion of national movements
In the Soviet Union. Do you think that that is an Important example for Welsh nationalists.
I think that what is happening in the
Soviet Union at the moment is important for everybody right across the world because of the progressive tendencies that I think Gorbachev is trying to follow. But to do that he needs support, and I think that's why the national beenrilies in the Soviet Union bays 1 7 been backing Gorbachev's proposals May 1, 1989 • #162 International Viewpoint
BRITAIN for perestroika and glasnost, because they see that as one way forward for reestablishing their rights as minorities within a larger grouping, within the Soviet Union.
I think that is very similar to what's happening in the European community. We both have to find our path through the channels that are opening up at the • In an interview that I did with him some years ago, the president of Plaid Cymru, Dafydd Ellis Thomas, said that the non-capitalist countries were a different world, and that whatever national questions there might be there were not relevant to
That was true at the time. I think things have changed now. The Soviet Union has become much more open. We've got a lot more information. It's much easier to go there and talk to these people. • Are you interested in contacts, say, with the People's Fronts in the Baltic republics?
The political movement that we're involved with in the European Community is interested in making links all over the world with minority groupings, with ethnic groupings, with progressive left groupings, with environmental groupings. The movements in the Soviet Union would offer interesting lessons for us, as would those in Central America. • Have you made any attempts to contact the People's Fronts in the Baltic republics, for example?
Within Wales, the first contacts were made by CND-Cymru, when they invited some people from the Latvian People's Front to speak at last year's CND-Cymru annual general meeting, and then some people from CND-Cymru were invited back to see how the peace movement is developing in Gorbachev's Soviet Union. We'd also like to develop that further afield within Central America, North America • So would you protest against the repression of the Karabakh movement?
We're not going to act as an apologist for any large, powerful authority, which tries to use its power against ethnic or national minorities for their own narrow political ends. There's no way we would support that, wherever it happens.
We have a general policy on these sorts of developments. We haven't got a specific policy on every one of these instances, because we feel they're all subsumed under our general political program. What you have at moment, not just in the Soviet Union, but right across the world, are problems of ethnic minorities within national communities. Until we can establish interhave the right to be treated humanely. an International Viewpoint #162 • May 1, 1989 that democratic channels of expressing their grievances and progressing their own political program should be open to them, then there will be repression anywhere. • To take the Baltic republics for instance, what you say about perestroika is true, it created openings for them. On the other hand, they do not identify totally with Gorbachev's projects. There are conflicts. And those movements will probably need all the outside support they can get as this process develops.
There is no way in politics and society over the next decades that we're going to avoid differences of opinion, conflicts and so on. What we've got to do is have a much wider perspective on where we want to go in the future, and with that larger aim in mind work through these smaller prob-
We can do that at the moment with the opportunities opening up for us in the EC, the Soviet Union and certainly at the moment in Central and South America with the more democratic forums opening up there,. The dictatorships there are one by one losing ground fairly steadily. • What about population movements within the EEC? Obviously, there's the problem of rich English people taking up homes in rural, Welsh-speaking Wales. In the USSR, the Estonians, for example, are protesting about being flooded by Russians. What's your answer to the problem of English immigration into
In Wales we've identified this problem first and have brought out a series of programs for tackling the problems that arise in terms of large flows of people around the
What we see as essential is that the European regions and nations have the democratic control over their own economy and over their own society necessary to ensure that they can adapt to the sort of changes that are taking place, not just at the economic level, but at the social level, the cultural level, and the level of demography. • How do you propose to establish this type of control? Nationalization and a planned economy?
No. Our economic policies are for decentralization of economic control, coordinated at the level of a Welsh parliament. Our policy is for decentralization of political control to district authorities, at the moment, to get rid of one level — the county level — and to concentrate it at the lower
At that level of political control they'd have available a whole array of economic tools to regenerate the local economy, and maintain and develop it. That would include the private sector at the family and small-firm level. It would include the cooperative sector. It would include local government intervention into the economy, either as employers or as initiators of industrial and economic projects. And that would take place at the level of Wales as a nation. • You defined the private sector in terms of small businesses. What about the multinationals?
Multinationals can only be tackled now at the level of regional economic blocs, such as the EEC, North America, or the Andean Pact. Multinationals can only be controlled and made to work for the benefit of people, if they can at all, at the level of these new economic blocs. And so our policy is to ensure we get the type of European Community and broader European political grouping that is large enough to have some control over the multinationals. Then by working at the UN level - which is what the European Community could do more effectively than any one nation-state -ensure that there are regulatory controls over their activities at the international • What you are talking about then are controls and not nationalization by a supra-national state?
We are not in favor of supra-national states as they are understood today. The idea that people have is something like a Britain writ large. We're not in favor of the kind of state, or the political structure that we have in Britain.
What we want are coordinating mechanisms combining progressive development of policies at these international levels, with detailed control decentralized to the lowest level possible. That way, people can control their own lives at the level of the community, the region and the national community, while taking part at the same time in these European regional and international groupings. We see no conflict • If you are talking about something strong enough to control the multinationals it has to be a state struc ture of some kind. It may be decentralized or more democratic than the European nation states as they exist now, but it would presumably be some sort of a government that would have the power to nation-
I think that nationalization by now is an old-fashioned way of looking at it. It's being abandoned right, left and center as a way of looking at things.
I think what we need to talk about is how people control their own lives economically, as well as in other spheres. Nationalizations didn't work, because what they created was a bureaucracy which didn't fulfill the demands that people made upon it. That has failed, in one sense, as has the private sector at the national and international level with multinational companies. They also fail to meet the needs and fulfill the wishes of ordinary people. *