The Great Unrest Group for a Welsh Socialist Republican party celebrates the Merthyr Uprising in 1831 a defining point in Welsh History when the Welsh Working Class in open rebellion announced itself on the world stage.
The raising of the Red Flag on Hirwaun Common was a symbolic act of national and class defiance from the new Welsh Working Class.
The Red Flag was the gift of the Welsh Working Class to the workers of the World just has workers in the USA and in particular Chicago gave the world's workers day May Day.
Gifts of working class struggle are the most precious and the new generation needs to learn to honour them.
We at the Great Unrest Group for a Welsh Socialist Republican Party seek the renewal of the spirit of Hirwaun Common in Wales in our ceremonial renewal of the raising of the Red Flag in the 21st century on June 1st 2013.
We have messages of Solidarity from England, Brittany and Occitania and Galicia and Italy, Iceland and Norway and the Philippines for our ceremony on Hirwaun Common.
Our ceremony is not only national but international like the class we represent, we reject supra national bourgeois cosmopolitanism, the ideology of global capitalism for proletarian internationalism the true friendship of peoples based on mutual respect for each others struggles for national and social liberation.
Let the message from Merthyr in 1831 ring our across Wales and the World, We have a Wales to win - we have a World to win.
Hold the Red Flag high beyond the reach of our enemies and false friends, the battle for the 21st Century is just opening and by rectifying our past mistakes we will speed capitalism's demise - socialism is the future, its day is dawning has the 21st century progresses.
The Great Unrest Group for a Welsh Socialist Republican Party has received the following messages of support for its Red Flag ceremony on June 1st 2013.
We at the Great Unrest are Welsh Socialist Republicans with the working class spirit of the Miners Next Step of 1912 we believe in the power of our class the working class to change Wales and the world.
On this May Day 2013 we call for the social and economic decline of Wales to be arrested and to bring forth a new spirit of Revival and Renewal in Wales based upon the ideas of Welsh Socialist Republicanism.
Socialism and a Welsh Socialist Republic is our aim.
To achieve that aim Wales needs social movements to bring together the forces for social change, these social movements need to address the
10 Point Programme of The Great Unrest Group for a Welsh Socialist Republican Party. The Mass Line for Wales with radical First Step Up Policies.
Welsh ownership of Land is key to the regeneration of Welsh National Life.
Without Land there is no Liberty.
2. Welsh Utilities like Electricity, Gas and Water to be placed under the control of the People through the creation of new socially owned worker controlled Welsh Public Enterprises. . 3. We require a Welsh Banking System with a Welsh currency and a Central Bank and Welsh Banks for urban and rural development. We reject the pound and the euro has being financial instruments unsuited for Welsh National development. 4. Welsh language survival in now in the hands of the British State with its corrupting grant system, a dangerous place for the Welsh language to be in times of austerity. In the hard place between the British State and the treacherous Cultural Crachach
Without addressing the Welsh Land Question which has been ignored for a 100 years the Welsh language is in serious danger of decline, the Crachhach has failed the Welsh language.
6. Bring forth new democratic institutions of the Welsh people like a Welsh Republican Congress or a Senedd Glyndwr.
Reject institutions of the British State for managing Welsh Decline in Wales like the Welsh Assembly.
7. Protect The National Health Service in Wales by halting any further privatisation of Health Service
Ensure community and not bureaucratic capitalist control of the Welsh Health Service, community need not private profit should guide the Health Service in the spirit of Aneurin Bevan..
8. Implement Great Unrest First Step Up policies for the visitors to food banks, unemployed and part time workers by giving them priority for allotments.
New Allotments will result from new proposed Welsh Land Act.
9. Township and Village Enterprises, Councils would be empowered to take over empty shops and make them into small units for new business start ups - twelve months free rent would be offered has part of the Great Unrest First Step Up policies.
10. Implement Independence not Dependency Policies, restructure relationship with British State in Economy whereby the proper price of Welsh resources are paid for
.
All raw material exports from Wales should be subjected to value added/ high energy processing evaluation and over time all raw material exports will be reduced has value added processing exports will replace low value material exports.
Bring all unemployed into productive activity - through public works and land based rural food sovereignty projects.
Wales : Brechfa West Windfarm Statement, from Great Unrest Group for a Welsh Socialist Republican Party
Today 6th March 2013 in the British Parliament in London, Jonathan Edwards the Plaid Cymru member for Carmarthen and East Dinefwr managed to get a debate on the proposed Brechfa Forest West Windfarm Development.
What is clear from this debate is that the decision for the Brechfa West Windfarm will be made in London in the coming week by a Minister who never been to the Brechfa Forest in Wales or visited the site to hear the views of the local people.
When the local people have a say like at the neighbouring Llanllwni, they convinced Carmarthen not to proceed with a proposed windfarm project.
However the Brechfa West Windfarm decision will be not be made in Wales or Carmarthenshire but in London to avoid more Llanllwni's and local democracy.
Here is Statement of Jonathan Edwards Plaid Cymru MP in the London Paliament.
"The Merched Beca uprising of the 19th century was spawned in the communities of north Carmarthenshire, and if the worst fears about pylons are realised, there will be huge protests throughout Carmarthenshire, as we have seen in mid-Wales.
If the Minister is not prepared to give a guarantee, my constituents would expect a moratorium on the Brechfa West application until additional planning applications for electricity infrastructure are submitted.
As UK Government energy planning policy dictates, the applications should be considered together, otherwise the people of Carmarthenshire would rightly feel they have been misled by his Department, the Labour Government in Cardiff and the multinational companies involved in the development.
Given that there are 10 turbines in Alltwalis, that 15 turbines are currently being erected on Betws mountain in TAN 8 area E and that a proposal for 21 further turbines was recently refused for Llanllwni mountain in the TAN 8 area of north Carmarthenshire, it seems logical for electricity infrastructure proposals to be submitted in tandem. Only then will those passing judgment on the applications have a true and accurate picture of the impact the developments would have on the communities I represent"
The Great Unrest Group for a Welsh Socialist Republican Party finds it extremely insulting to the people of Wales and Carmarthenshire that London can enforce a decision on the people of Brechfa against their democratic will.
We welcome the good work of Jonathan Edwards exposing the actions of The Con Dem London Government but we are not foolish enough to believe that Plaid Cymru will defend the Brechfa Forest and its good people.
Plaid Cymru has been at the forefront of promoting the Great Windmill Corporate Scam in Wales under a completely fake "green " banner powered by the great bag of wind that currently resides in the English House of Lords has one of the Plaid Cymru's London representatives.
The Great Unrest Group calls on people throughout Wales to take up the banner of Brechfa - the banner of a battle for democracy in Wales.Corporate Scamsters go Home - Llanllwni exposed your schemes the good people of Brechfa will see you off.
RWE like other multinationals , we know you well, the good people of Swansea have recently been forced under legal duress to agree to desicrate the Mynydd y Gwair for you, you have aroused deep feelings of burning injustice,do not underestimate the good people of Swansea or Brechfa.
We are the Welsh people and our anger will not cease until justice is done.
Statement of the Great Unrest Group for a Welsh Socialist Republican Party
Between 1893 and 1894 Post Offices throughout Wales carried notices of a Royal Commission on Land in Wales and Monmouthshire, inviting people to attend public meetings with the purpose of taking evidence about the problems of Land tenure in Wales.
In all, Wales was to witness eighty such meetings with an additional nineteen meetings in London making for a total of ninety nine meetings to take evidence of tenants, landlords, the churches and other interested organisations.
The background to the Royal Commission was the activity of the Welsh Land League and Cymru Fydd and Gladstone's discussion of Home Rule all Around for Wales, Scotland and Ireland.
New disturbances erupted in the 1880s in Wales caused by tenant farmers and labourers being charged high rents by the landowners. The Welsh Land League that resulted in 1886 from this crisis approached the Welsh Land problem in a throughly constitutional way.
Whilst the problem of Land Tenure was central to the Royal Commission, there was also a tithe question in Wales where tenants were forced to pay tithes to the Anglican Church of Wales even if they were Non Conformists. The Welsh Land League was also active concerning the tithe problem and the issue was not finally resolved by legislation until the 1920's.
Whereas Ireland was to see a series of Land Acts effectively turning 10,000 large estates into 400,000 Irish owned farms overturning the Landlord tenant relationship.
The Royal Commission on Land for Wales and Monmouthshire concluded that the landord tenant relationship was the most "appropriate" for the Welsh.
The Royal Commission Report was a victory for the Landlords who were seen a "benevolent", despite mountains of evidence to the contrary.
There was to be no buying out of the Landlords like in Ireland, but the Commission concluded that if some Welsh tenants were alreading buying their land then maybe assistance should be provided, however it was only retrospective and was not a future policy to be endorsed by the Commission.
Historians have interpreted the differences in the final Royal Commission Report between a majority report and a minority report has being the reason for the abandonment of a Welsh Land Act.
While the minority report was full blown Landlordism the majority report while acknowledging problems with Land Agents, compensation for improvements etc was only a more watered down version of Landlordism that we would expect from Liberals rather than Tories.
The fact that nothing happened and the Welsh Land Act was dead by 1900 shows that the constitutional approach to these matters did not work.
Lloyd George was consciously or unconsciously being absorbed by the interests of the British State, despite his flirtation with the Boers and despite his rhetoric against landords he was well on his way to becoming a servant of the British State.
Irish Land was going to be returned to the Irish people but Welsh Land was not going to be returned to the Welsh people.
One of the most deeply hidden secrets of the Victorian period was the massive expansion of Royal ownership of Land including Welsh Land enabled by an Act of 1862 which lifted restrictions on the Monarch's ownership of Land.
Since the Glorious Revolution and the placing of William of Orange on the throne through to the reign of William IV the monarchy was restricted by the rising bourgeoisie and landlords from owning more land has this was seen has a source of Royal social power and the bourgeoisie and the landlords wanted a tame symbolic monarchy.
Queen Victoria changed that, when she came to the throne, there were forty Lords owning more Land than her and she set about acquiring Land by any means necessary to restore the social power and prestige of the monarchy.
The Act of 1862 was a enabling mechanism for the monarchy to achieve real social power. A wide variety of vehicles were set in motion to achieve an increase in Royal power, the Crown Estate, The Duchy of Cornwall and The Duchy of Lancaster.
I have estimated that Royal Lands from approximately 316,000 acres in Victorian Times approach 677,000 acres today. I would stress this is probably an underestimate has the Monarchy goes to great length's to hide it's extensive Land ownership including in Wales.
Needless to say the Monarchy has increased its Land ownership in Wales in the 20th Century.
Leaving aside the English Conquest of Wales in 1282 and The Tudor robbery of Welsh Lands one of the most invidious acts of expropriation of Welsh Land occurred between 1795 and 1874 aided and abetted by Welsh Landlords and Gentry collaborators in the Tudor Taff tradition, the real English lickspitals in Wales.This was accumulation by dispossession of the Welsh people.
Between 1795 and 1874 some 1,696,827 acres of Welsh Land belonging to the common people out of a total Welsh acreage of 5,121,013 was enclosed, deprived of community land for survival people many were driven into the industrial valleys for work, survival for ordinary folk in the nineteenth century Wales on the land was extremely hard and it looked to some with the Royal Commssion on Land in Wales and Monmouthshire in 1893 and 1894 that help was at hand.
However hopes were dashed and the Welsh were betrayed by their erstwhile petty bourgeoise leaders who where more interested in the British State than the state of Wales.
Of course Lloyd George never failed to employ anti Landlord rhetoric when it suited him, but Wales was not going to be like Ireland or France with a large independent farming class owning its own land, the British State had decided that.
Kevin Cahill has pointed out in "Who Owns Britain" Wales remains a country with a small percentage of its people owning land. This of course also has implications for affordable housing has land is a key element in building new homes.
In 2012 the fallen banner of 1896 was picked up by Cymrwch Y Tir Yn Ol and the struggle for a new Welsh Land Act is underway and a campaign has been launched for the return of our stolen land and an electronic petition is circulating calling for the return of Royal and Aristocratic Lands in Wales to the people. Sign Here :
We are not calling for the redistribution of Welsh Land to Welsh tenant farmers like in Ireland but for the redistribution of Welsh Land to the people, the re-creation of Welsh common land that our fathers lost, like the one million acres lost between 1795 - 1874.
We support new land vehicles like community Land Trusts, priority right to buy Land by Welsh communities similar to the Scottish Land Reform Act of 2003. Although the Scottish Land Reform Act is far to limited.
We should set ourselves the task of recovering one million acres of Welsh Land for the community land trusts and other community land owning vehicles over the coming years.
The Great Unrest Group for a Welsh Socialist Republican Party has set up a Welsh Land Commission for ongoing research into the Welsh Land Question and we appeal to you on St David's Day,our national day, to reclaim the Land of Our Fathers.
If the Land of your Fathers is dear to you it is time do something about it apart from singing - challenge people to sign the petition.
Sources:
The Royal Commission on Land in Wales and Monmouthshire 1896.
Wales - Depopulation, Emigration and Immigration - Statement from Great Unrest Group 2012
The right wing has a obsession with inward migration to Wales which it sees as the source of all problems, while always missing the main problem in Wales that of the neo liberal capitalist economy which drives many of the most able and resourceful young people into outward migration from Wales.
Wales is the second poorest country in Western Europe after Portugal with a GNP per capita that is unfavourable to that of Greece.
The focus on the immigration into Wales takes the focus away from the more fundamental question of Welsh Depopulation. It is comparable to focusing on symptoms rather than of the main cause of illness of the patient.
In Wales the problem is the terminally ill neo liberal capitalist economy and immigration is just one of its many symptoms.
The Welsh population is ageing and the productive working population is shrinking, therefore there is an urgency to fighting depopulation in Wales which none of those parties that participate in representative democracy in Wales have so far seriously addressed.
A quarter of the Welsh population will be 65 or over by 2030, compared to 22% for the UK average. The representative parties in Wales represent themselves.This shoud be no surprise and was clearly seen by the early Greek Democrats thousands of years ago, which was why they favoured direct democracy over representative democracy.
It is time for a new real democracy in Wales - Direct Democracy.
The question of an ageing population and a shrinking productive population has been tackled by some capitalist economies like the Japanese by promoting inward migration and that can only contribute to a solution to the problem on a temporary basis.
We at the Great Unrest Group 2012 propose to tackle this problem by a series of economic measures to stop Welsh depopulation - a more permanent solution to the problem.
Welsh Depopulation and measures to overcome it, are at the centre of the politics of the Great Unrest Group 2012 for a
Welsh Socialist Republican Party.
Amongst the measures we recommend in the fight against depopulation is the passing of Welsh Land Act which will transform Wales from being a country with very low percentage of Welsh people owning their own land into a country like the Irish Republic where a much higher percentage of Welsh people owning their own land.
Land ownership in Wales was identified by Kevin Cahill as early as 2003 in Who Owns Britain as being one of the underlying causes of rural and urban poverty in Wales.
The Welsh Land Commission established by a Welsh Land Act would give priority to provide land for Township and Village Enterprises along the successful model of Chinese economic development.
Apart from the development of a Welsh Land Act - Welsh Economic development would require the development of a Welsh Banking system with a Welsh Central Bank at the core of the system. It would be supported by Welsh Banks for Rural and Urban Development.
Therefore we at the Great Unrest 2012 also call for Wales Bank Act to implement this development.
These banks would have public service mandates and be owned by the people of Wales and would not be allowed to speculate - we can learn the lessons from the Icelandic Banking collapse here to ensure a Welsh Banking system would be both transparent and accountable.
For those who think that Wales could not support its own Banking system - Iceland has its own banking system and currency with a population lower than Cardiff.
With Land and Capital in the hands of the Welsh people we have the real possiblity of regeneration of the Welsh Economy in the 21st Century.
Land and Capital should be made available to resource processing industries in rural areas rather than just seasonal tourism as a way of combating depopulation.Norway or example has high energy processing projects in the countryside which we could study.
There have been various successful schemes against depopulation in Europe but they have relied heavily on tax concessions and seasonal promotion of tourism, we want to put the emphasis on processing raw materials from Wales to lessen the historic colonial relationship with England which has seen Wales a source of raw materials to be processed in England.
We want to establish relations of equality with the English Nation and this calls for a restructuring of the economic relationship between Wales and England.We want a relationship based on mutual benefit with the working people of England not one based on an unequal colonial or imperial relationship.
With the tools of a Wales Land Act and a Wales Bank Act - Land and Capital combined with the Labour of the Welsh people would arrest Welsh national decline and start the Renaissance of a new democratic Wales - A Welsh Socialist Republic.
Clearly the Labour Party in Wales connects better to the people because it is seen as the champion of class issues which are more important to most Welsh People than Welsh national issues.
Whether the Labour Party is a true champion of the working class is another issue, that is how they are perceived and perception is what bourgeois politics is all about.
Plaid Cymru is not seen as a working class party to champion working class issues, but has a party of cultural nationalists and until this perception is changed Plaid Cymru is condemned to the margins of politics and Welsh Independence will be a pipe dream.
Electing a leader from the valleys does not change the perception of Plaid Cymru only militant defense of the working class interests will.
How many Plaid Cymru councilors would not just vote against council cuts but risk going to prison to oppose cuts in Wales ?.
Has our comrade Gethin ap Gruffydd says they talk the talk but do not walk the walk.
In 1935 Phil Abraham and 10 others in Blaina and Abertillery were send to prison for fighting the national assitance cuts by the then National Government following the Blaina Riot of 1935.
Phil Abraham’s talked the talk and walked the walk, and the National Government changed its policy of further cutting national assistance, fearful of full scale revolt in the Valleys of Wales.
Sweet talk from Leanne Wood will take Plaid Cymru nowhere, radical action in the sprit of Phil Abrahams will.
The task facing Welsh Socialist Republicans is to create a political movement where working class and national interests converge and become indistinguishable.
When the Welsh national party is recognized as a working class party we will have arrived on the political scene.
We have Wales to Win, we have a World to Win – Long Live the Great Unrest Group 2012 for a Welsh Socialist Republican Party.
Bread or Blood - The Cry of 1831 when Red Flag first raised in Wales
Welsh Socialist Republicans - Celebrate - May Day 2012
Welsh Socialist Republicans rejects the fake "independence" of Plaid Cymru which replaces capitalist Britain with capitalist Europe,the euro with the pound.
We will not be party to utilizing Plaid Cymru's Welsh Nationalism to put a set of bureaucrat capitalists in power in Wales to better serve the Eurocrats of Brussels rather than London
Welsh Socialist Republicans reject the anti English nationalist fringe with their separatism and closet racism.
The Welsh Socialist Republicans believes the only class in Wales which is capable of leading Wales to the new democracy of autonomous self government in Wales is the working class. That is true Welsh Independence !
Our Welsh national struggle is a class struggle.
In the struggle for national and social liberation in Wales we need to enlist the support of English, Scottish and the Irish working class and other national minorities.
Organizationally we seek to strengthen ties with working class organizations throughout the British Isles to support working class power in Wales, as this will also give a base area for their class struggles against the British State.
We are Welsh Socialist Republicans with the working class spirit of the Miners Next Step of 1912 we believe in the power of our class the working class to change Wales and the world.
Long live the spirit of the Great Unrest of 1910-12 - Long Live The Great Unrest of 2012 and Wales Next Step – Welsh Socialist Republicanism.
Statement of the Great Unrest 2012 Organizing Group for A Welsh Socialist Republican Party
Second Statement issued calling for support of new Welsh Land Act
It is unacceptable that in 2012 that Land in Wales is owned by the English Crown and Aristocrats.
These Lands were stolen from the Welsh People and never were or never can belong to the Aristocracy or Monarchy of another country because of historic conquest.
Welsh People are being denied a say or even access to their own land because of the ownership of Welsh Land by the English Crown and Aristocrats.
Today we have the Duke of Beaufort trying to impose a wind farm on the Mynydd y Gwair in Carmarthenshire against the wishes of the local Welsh People because of his historic title to the land based on robbery and conquest.
Mynydd y Bettws is a 100% protected and very large habitat area of supreme beauty has had a Wind Farm was imposed on this community by using the Enclosure Act of 1845 by Carmarthen County Council in violation of EEC rules for the benefit of an overseas company.
All Crown and Aristocratic Land in Wales should to be returned to the people of Wales for Welsh People to decide the use of their own Land. We support the call for a new Welsh Land Act to achieve that aim.
A Welsh Land Act electronic petition to remove the Duke of Beaufort's lands and Crown Lands by compulsory purchase is now being organized throughout Wales. Sign the petition below
The Campaign for a Welsh Land Act will be launched on the Myndd y Gwair on the 10th June 2012
Sign the petition for the new Welsh Land Act here :
Toward a Welsh Socialist Republican Party reject Plaid Cymru's Great Deception
Leanne Wood of Plaid Cymru, a woman from the Rhondda, is now primed to play the role that Neil Kinnock played before in Welsh Labour Party History.
By winning the leadership of Plaid Cymru Leanne Wood is the new Kinnockio. That role is to deceive people into believing that Plaid Cymru is something which it is not.
Wales is in accelerated economic decline, being the second poorest country in Western Europe after Portugal. The fact is disguised by taking the United Kingdom as a whole, thus glossing over the dire situation in Wales. The per capita income in Wales compares unfavourably with Greece.
Wales urgently needs new political leadership.
The political and business establishment know they are in deep crisis and that widespread misery in Wales will lead to mass resistance sooner or later.
Leanne Wood taking the leadership of Plaid Cymru will spread and perpetuate the illusion that Plaid Cymru is or can become a vehicle for a progressive, socialist and republican movement, that Plaid Cymru can challenge the Westminster imposed austerities, take Wales out of the neo-imperialist wars in the middle east and elsewhere, and get rid of those imposters posing as the Prince and Princess of Wales.
Plaid Cymru cannot really do this, because it is at bottom the party that represents Welsh businessmen, and not the working people of Wales. Its call for an independent Wales inside the European Union only seeks to change one set of rulers from Westminster for another in Brussels, the pound for the Euro.
The essential link between national and class oppression was exposed in Ireland by James Connolly. In Wales, Gethin ap lestyn Gruffydd is one of the few Welsh patriots that recognises that at root the national question in Wales is a class question.
Leanne Wood's leadership will deceive people for a while, but it is obvious that a new party is needed. One that can struggle for the working people of Wales in deeds and not just in words.
Leanne Wood by winning the Plaid Cymru Election is helping to spread the illusion that Plaid Cymru is indeed the long awaited Welsh Socialist Republican Party that Wales needs.
But this is a lie that has to be nailed, Plaid Cymru is a petty bourgeois cultural nationalist party that will betray the working class just like the Labour, Liberal or Tory parties in Wales have done and many people already know that in their hearts.
Plaid Cymru will dissipate all the revolutionary energy that the new great unrest will create unless we bring forth a genuine Welsh Socialist Republican Party.
That is why we call for the convening of a Welsh Socialist Republican Congress in June 2012 to charge a working group to bring forth The Welsh Socialist Republican Party.
Forward to a Welsh Socialist Republican Party !
First Statement of the Great Unrest 2012 Organizing Group for A Welsh Socialist Republican Party
