WHOEVER is the next prime minister of Britain, we in Wales will continue to suffer under the heel of policies for which we have not voted.

To some degree, our Parliament, the Senedd, in Cardiff can counteract the consequences of policies decided in the Westminster Parliament. 

But the reality is that the government in London retains the main powers over the economy, the environment, education, housing, the NHS, the welfare state and foreign and military affairs.

What, therefore, can be done about this position?

The first thing, in present conditions, is to battle against big business and Tory government policies. 

This means supporting workers and other campaigners who are fighting real-terms cuts in their wages, benefits and pensions; people who are defending jobs, rights and standards at work and in our public services; and those who emphasise the need for peace and justice — whether in Ukraine, Palestine or Yemen — in place of militarism and war.

Secondly, we must campaign for genuinely alternative policies to those enacted at present, policies that would make a real difference to the lives of masses of people — bolder policies, therefore, than the feeble offerings from the Labour Party led by Keir Starmer.

Already, many movements can bring us together in the struggle for improvements big and small, including the trade unions and local trades councils, CND, Stop the War, the People’s Assembly, tenants’ organisations, community campaigns, political parties and the rest.

Nonetheless, we now need a rising tide of protest and campaigning in order to create the most favourable conditions for getting rid of the Tories at the next general election.

If Wales is to secure its future as a distinct nation with a just society based on the type of economy that makes these things possible, something else is required. 

We must have a Parliament in our capital city with economic, financial and legislative powers that cannot simply be reclaimed by London government.

Already, we have seen the Johnson regime using the post-Brexit Internal Market Act (2020) to withdraw the “aid to industry” powers of the Welsh Senedd. 

Most recently, the Tory central government has cancelled the Trade Union (Wales) Act of 2017 which outlawed the deployment of temporary workers by public bodies to break strikes.

Yes, indeed, it has taken the Tories five years — and today’s upsurge in industrial action — to decide that the Welsh anti-scabbing law is unacceptable.

There are three ways in which we can protect an effective right to strike in Wales.

The first is for workers and their local communities to act to make it impossible for “cynffonwyr” (a term traditionally used by Welsh miners and quarryworkers for men who tail the boss) to break a strike.

The other two ways also address the wider needs of the people of Wales through their Parliament.

We could secure the legislative rights of the Senedd through full self-government outside the United Kingdom or by winning a fully federal system side by side with Scotland and England.

How likely is “independence” within the next five or 10 years? How “independent” would Wales be as a member of the European Union and subject to its economic and financial rules — either under the fist of England’s Treasury if we are allowed to keep the pound or of the European Central Bank if we adopt the euro — and of Nato with its rearmament programme aimed at China?

We should also consider the likely impact of “independence” on the economic links — not least the rules of trade — between Wales and by far its biggest market, England, and on the unity needed across Wales, England and Scotland in the momentous struggle for social justice, peace and socialism against their chief enemy, namely, the British capitalist class.

Without British state power, there is no possibility of the people of Wales gaining their share of the wealth owned by that capitalist class and largely managed through the City of London and banks around the world.

Furthermore, we could enjoy many of the advantages of independence without facing the disadvantages above, by establishing a system of progressive federalism.

The Welsh Senedd and government would have wider and irrevocable powers to control the economy and its market forces and to raise its own finance, together with some 70 additional powers that should come to Wales as a result of Brexit (and which Welsh Labour, Plaid Cymru and the Liberal Democrats would have preferred to leave in Brussels in the 2016 referendum!).

Welsh First Minister Mark Drakeford and the Labour Party in Wales and Scotland already support progressive or “radical” federalism. 

The whole labour movement across Britain — the very movement that secured an assembly and parliaments in Wales and Scotland — must be won to such a position between now and the next general election. 

Federalism is within our grasp. Afterwards, the people of Wales will be in the best situation to decide whether they wish to move to full sovereignty.