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The Welsh Socialist Alliance (WSA) was a
socialist
Socialism is a left-wing economic philosophy and movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to private ownership. As a term, it describes the e ...
political organisation in
Wales
Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the Wales–England border, east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the ...
. It was closely related to, but separate from the Socialist Alliance.
It was founded by the
Socialist Party
Socialist Party is the name of many different political parties around the world. All of these parties claim to uphold some form of socialism, though they may have very different interpretations of what "socialism" means. Statistically, most of t ...
and
Cymru Goch
Cymru Goch (, ''Red (political adjective), Red Wales'') was a left-wing Welsh nationalism, Welsh nationalist political party, founded in 1986 and fought for what it described as a ''Free Socialist Wales''.
Background
Following the collapse of th ...
and some independents. From the start this seemed to many an unlikely alliance given that the two principal groups involved have major disagreements over many issues, mainly over the national question. Cymru Goch called for an independent socialist republic whereas
Socialist Party Wales
The Socialist Party ( cy, Plaid Sosialaidd Cymru in Wales) is a Trotskyism, Trotskyist political party in England and Wales. Founded in 1997, it had formerly been Militant tendency, Militant, an Entryism, entryist group in the Labour Party (UK), ...
at the time supported a Welsh parliament with law making powers short of independence. However they agreed to discuss the issue while the WSA called for the Welsh Assembly to have the same powers as the Scottish parliament. The WSA ensured that no one party could "control" it through the self-denying 40% ordinance which limited members of any organisation to no more than 40% of the Alliance committees.
The Welsh Socialist Alliance stood on a joint United Socialist ticket with the Socialist Workers Party at the Welsh Assembly election, 1999.
The Socialist Workers Party has originally declined to accept the invitation to join the WSA because the SWP was opposed in principle to standing in elections. In 2000 it changed its position and entered the WSA. The attempts by the SWP to dominate the WSA destabilised the organisation and by the end of 2002 both Cymru Goch and Socialist Party Wales had left.
The SWP ignored the 40% rule and packed meetings with members to ensure that its position prevailed and its supporters were selected as candidates. Cymru Goch left when any opportunity to argue for its pro-independence position was closed off and the Socialist Party left when the SWP packed a selection meeting in Swansea to ensure that no Socialist Party candidates would be selected for Swansea seats in the General Election. The Socialist Party's open letter of resignation blamed the SWP: "To lose one founding organisation could be unfortunate; to lose both can only mark the decline of the WSA as a genuine alliance".Open letter from Socialist Party Wales to the Welsh Socialist Alliance National Council /ref>