Former Valleys Labour MP Beth Winter eyes up a new role as an Independent MS

Martin Shipton

A big test for the new Senedd electoral system is whether a local champion who isn’t affiliated to a political party can win a seat as an Independent.

Conventional wisdom suggests that the odds are stacked in favour of the big parties, but if anyone can defy such expectations it is surely Beth Winter.

She succeeded the redoubtable Ann Clwyd as Labour MP for Cynon Valley in 2019, but when constituencies were merged following the reduction in the number of MPs sent to Westminster from Wales from 40 to 32, the left-winger lost a selection contest to the more right-wing Labour MP Gerald Jones and stood down in 2024.

After an involvement with what came to be the faction-ridden Your Party – of which more later – Beth, as she is known on her home patch, is standing for a Senedd seat in the super constituency of Pontypridd Cynon Merthyr.

Her campaign is being run from a tiny room in Aberdare Market, where she and a number of helpers were busy folding leaflets for delivery across what amounts to a significant part of the Valleys. I had a cup of tea with her nearby.

Asked why she was standing, she said: “I was encouraged to do so. My heart and soul are in the valleys, and there’s lots to do alongside the people in these valleys. We’re trying to offer an alternative, which is embedded in what matters to people in our valleys communities – that we’ve been let down for centuries and it’s time that politics is done differently.”

Spelling out what that would mean in practice, she said: “Politics isn’t working for people in these communities, and I think politicians of all persuasions need to reflect, and I include myself in that, as to how we’ve reached a stage where a far right party is gaining so much traction here.

“For me, being on the doorstep, I’m speaking to people who are saying they just want change. And that vacuum is being filled by an absolutely terrifying prospect, in my opinion. So we need something different. And for me, it’s about giving voice to people in the valleys.

“I’m a proud socialist – people in the valleys know I am. And I will never compromise my socialist principles. If I ask anybody in the valleys if they want to keep the NHS in public hands, and if they think the rich should be taxed more, everybody says yes. If that’s what socialism is, then I think we’re all socialists.”

At this point an elderly couple who had known Beth when she was a child, but had moved away to Merthyr. They asked after her parents and said that having voted Labour all their lives, they would be voting for Beth on May 7.

Beth said: “I think the tide is turning a bit. There was quite a backlash last week when Farage had his picture taken next to the Keir Hardie statue. People didn’t like that.

“I’ve been getting quite a few coming in to help with leaflets – some who are former Labour members who have quit the party in disgust. They don’t like Farage parachuting people in as candidates who have nothing to do with the area. It’s very cynical. Even the local Reform people are sick because he’s brought in people above them who have no knowledge of valleys communities. They couldn’t care less about the valleys and are using our communities to get a career.”

Cuts

She’s totally against the kind of cuts that have led to patients waiting outside hospitals in queuing ambulances and thinks Labour governments in Wales have been too ready to accept and normalise austerity.

“They should have been standing up for our communities by demanding more, but were too ready to accept the cuts as they were imposed. I think the fact that there’s not going to be one party rule any longer would give leverage to an Independent like me if I was elected. I’m very much in favour of working in conjunction with progress parties to get things achieved. But I definitely think more needs to be done to force Westminster to give Wales the money it’s due from projects like HS2 and devolving the Crown Estate.”

Beth knows she’s up against it, fighting in a huge constituency with an electoral system that favours the bigger parties. She wishes the Senedd had opted for STV – the Single Transferable Vote – which puts far more power in the hands of voters, and is used in Ireland, where 16 of the 174 TDs (members of parliament) who won seats at the last election were Independents. But she hasn’t given up hope of success.

“I’m well known in the valleys,” she said. “And people know that I work hard. To get elected I need to win around 12% of the votes, and I definitely think I am in with a chance of taking the sixth seat out of six in Pontypridd Cynon Merthyr.

“I know people want change, and I’d like them to consider voting for me. The only change Farage and Reform would bring is imposing cuts on public services and tax cuts for the wealthy. Farage isn’t concerned about communities – how much time does he spend in his own constituency, Clacton? He has 12 side jobs on top of his MP’s salary and is earning a fortune. His backers are millionaires and billionaires who are concerned about their own interests, not those of ordinary people in valleys communities.”

Scathing

Beth is also scathing about the direction the Labour Party has taken: “There’s very little about them which is truly progressive. And the fact that they are continuing to sell arms to Israel after all the people – 70% of them women and children – who have been slaughtered in Gaza is shameful and nauseating.”

She said she had been upset by the faction fighting that has derailed Your Party – the left-wing movement founded by Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana. Beth had been the co-convenor of it in Wales with Mark Serwotka, the former general secretary of the PCS union.

“It’s heartbreaking when you think that 800,000 people expressed an interest in signing up,” she said. “I left it because of factionalism that was diverting it from its true purpose. Faction fighting doesn’t interest me in the slightest. I’m much more comfortable standing as an Independent in the valleys that I’ve known all my life.”