Updated August 2020
This blog started off life as the Bridgend Green Party blog, but I am no longer a member of the Green Party. After 18 months unaffiliated to any party, I then joined the Labour Party. This may well shock some people, given the ferocity of some of my criticism of Welsh Labour over the years, but I did so in solidarity with Jeremy Corbyn at a time of the Blarite post-EU refrendum ‘Chicken Coup’. As a green leftie, it is obvious enough that Corbyn offered the only realistic, prospect of a socialist advance in the UK. Corbyn’s excruciating demise, primarily at the hands of his own Party, and the subsequent huge backward leap to Blairite politics under the awful Sir Keir Starmer, meant my time with the Labour Party was done.
The story of my withdrawal from Wales Green Party can be found here. I finally resigned my membership completely after the 2015 General Election.
Sadly, given the huge amount of time and energy I spent setting it up and establishing it as arguably the most active and successful local Green Party in Wales, Bridgend Green Party floundered after my departure and as of June 2016 ceased to exist, instead merging with Neath Port Talbot Green Party to become the somewhat cryptically named Seven Valleys Green Party. Their new Facebook page is here.
Time will tell how much I continue to use this blog, but I plan to maintain it even if my postings become increasingly irregular, as it was recently added to the archives of the Welsh National Library.
It will remain a place for me to share my views on the world around us. This is useful therapeutic exercise for me, but I hope others may find some value in some of it at least.
Thank you.
Andy
ECOSOCIALIST HORIZON’s definition:
What is Ecosocialism?
Ecosocialism is a vision of a transformed society in harmony with nature, and the development of practices that can attain it. It is directed toward alternatives to all socially and ecologically destructive systems, such as patriarchy, racism, homophobia and the fossil-fuel based economy. It is based on a perspective that regards other species and natural ecosystems as valuable in themselves and as partners in a common destiny.
Ecosocialism shares with traditional socialism a passion for justice. It shares the conviction that capitalism has been a deadly detour for humanity. We understand capitalism to be a class society based on infinite expansion, through the exploitation of labor and the ransacking of nature. Ecosocialists are also guided by the life-ways of indigenous peoples whose economies are embedded in a classless society in fundamental unity with nature. We draw upon the wisdom of the ages as well as the latest science, and will do what can be done to bring a new society, beyond capitalism, into existence.
We recognize that ecosocialism on a global scale is a long way from being realized. But it is on the horizon: far off, yet rising; indefinite yet vital, a terrain to be mapped, explored, and brought into existence. Our mission is to facilitate a global movement toward the ecosocialist horizon. The whole future depends upon it.
Bridgend's Green Leftie 
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Eco socialism? I can agree with the eco bit but why cling to such an old out dated idea as socialism, which is part of the problem, not the solution?
I’m begin to think that the Chinese are on to something, a ruling technocracy that runs the economy and state, but monitors the internet to a high degree so it can pick up on developments and change policy as and when required. I’m not talking about state oppression for it’s own benefit, but as an alternative to voting. The constant monitoring of the mood of the people would replace voting and adjustment to policy made as required, but not to such an extent that the state becomes a collapsing, unaffordable free handouts machine buying votes and making empty promises at each election, as we see in the UK today.
After all, if the point of socialism is the elimination of the class based system, what follows when it has been successful? Socialism is dead with out divisions in society and thus needs to perpetuate and exaggerate the myth that all differences are damaging. Fairness and equality must and should be pursued, but nature and culture means differences will always exist, but they should be welcomed not exploited.
Trevor Prew
Sheffield
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Some interesting and valid points, Trevor. Thank you for your considered contribution.
Let me provide you with my working definition of socialism:
Socialism is a political and economic ideology that advocates for collective or public ownership and democratic control of the means of production, distribution, and exchange for essential goods and services. Its core aim is to reduce or eliminate private profit‑driven inequality by ensuring that resources and wealth are allocated according to social needs rather than individual market forces.
How we go about achieving this in the modern age will likely have to be somewhat different than previous attempts at progressive socialist policy (not without its successes) but the aims are arguably more relevant than ever in an age of increasing inequality, obscene wealth in the hands of a few, and global issues.
We need to re-imagine what a socialist future should look like. I’d invite you to start by broadening your reading. I’d commend the following, not as manifestos but as ways of looking at possibilities:
Fully Automated Luxury Communism by Aaron Bastani (an avowed socialist)
Utopia for Realists – And How We Can Get There by Rutger Bregman (self-identifies as a social democrat)
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