A growing backlash over an historic rise in household energy bills and the soaring cost of living is feeding into support for protests over the issue.
Heledd Fychan, Senedd Member for South Wales Central, the Wales Trade Union Congress (TUC), and others have backed protests over the spiralling cost of energy and food prices.
Cover image: Anti-poverty march in Cardiff, September 2021, by Tom Davies
On Thursday, the full scale of the crisis became clear as Ofgem confirmed it was lifting the energy price cap by almost £700. The rise – which comes as the cost of food and other essentials is also going up – means that from April energy companies will be free to charge household’s up to around £2,000 a year for gas and electricity use.
“Everyone living in Wales has been hit by the rising costs of everyday items and household bills, and many are in crisis,” Ms Fychan, a Plaid Cymru MS, told voice.wales.
“We need to do everything in our power to address this problem and I look forward to joining protesters in Cardiff on the 19th of February”
The Cardiff march, organised by the People’s Assembly, kicks off at 2.00pm on Saturday 19th February at the Betty Campbell statue, and will march to the British Gas offices nearby.
Ms Fychan said there would also be a separate protest organised in Pontypridd, adding that the rise in bills “will push those already struggling even further into debt.”
“For too long the UK government has imposed financial cuts on the most vulnerable people in Wales.”
Meanwhile, the Wales TUC has also put its weight behind the protests. Shavanah Taj, Wales TUC General Secretary, said that workers in Wales had endured over a decade of stagnant pay “only to be hit now with huge spikes in the cost of living.”
“We need to send a clear message to Westminster that the half measures and sticking-plaster solutions that they have announced come nowhere near properly addressing the problems they’ve created,” she said. “Wales needs a pay rise.”
Elsewhere, the Scottish TUC are also backing a protest in Glasgow on 12 February, as are TUC North West for demonstrations in Liverpool and Manchester on the same day. 12th February has been called a day of action and will also see a major protest in London organised by a variety of groups.
Cardiff’s protest is a week later because a march marking the year anniversary since the death of Mouayed Bashir will be held in Newport on the 12th February.
The number of planned protests has been growing following the announcements on Thursday. As well as energy and food bills rising, housing costs are set to increase even further as well. Yesterday the Bank of England announced a rise in interest rates to 0.5%, costs that will not only hit people in mortgage debt, but will also be passed on to tenants by their landlords.
Acorn, the renters union, said that in Wales rents rose by 12% last year and are climbing faster than anywhere else in the UK.
“The cost of energy, basic food items and other essentials are rising much faster than wages,” said Acorn Cardiff spokesperson Sam Coates. “All this is catastrophic for people on benefits who’ve had payments frozen or capped for over a decade.”
“We can’t keep handing over more and more of our incomes to the landlords and profiteers while the rest of us struggle to get through each week.”
The situation facing ordinary people is stark, with the socialist writer Paul O’Connell describing it as “what class war looks like – the working class being bled to pay for a crisis caused by the system that makes the rich richer”
This message was reinforced when the governor of the Bank of England, Andrew Bailey, told workers not to demand pay rises that matched the rate of inflation.
The call by Bailey, whose pay packet of £575,538 is more than 18 times the average salary, drew a furious response from Sharon Graham, the new general secretary of the Unite union who has been on the front foot when it comes to organising workers’ pay strikes.
“Why is it that every time there is a crisis, rich men ask ordinary people to pay for it?” Graham asked. “Enough is enough, we will be demanding that employers who can pay, do pay. Let’s be clear, pay restraint is nothing more than a call for a national pay cut.”
As the cost of gas and electricity bills was dramatically raised yesterday, devastating the finances and livelihoods of those on lower incomes, global energy firm Shell announced a huge rise in its profits.
The company described the quadrupling of its annual earnings to $19bn as a ‘momentous’ day as it cashed in on growing demand and higher prices. The news gave the idea of public ownership of energy more traction than usual.
“The entire system profits the few at the expense of the many,” said Carolyn Thomas, the Labour MS for north Wales. “Tinkering around the edges and offering loans deceitfully packaged as ‘discounts’ are an insult to working families. Now is the time for public ownership.”
Her stance is a break from the pro-market dogma of Labour Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves, who just a few months ago ruled out nationalisation. But with the market falling everyone except energy bosses, and the apparent invitabiiyt of price rises has been shown up as a lie by the course of events.
On Thursday, Tory Chancellor Rishi Sunak repeatedly claimed there was little he could do to stop soaring energy prices, and instead set out plans for a £200 loan that would go straight to energy firms and be paid back by consumers.
But his position was torn to shreds by news that French households will only see a 4% rise in energy bills (compared to a 54% rise in Britain) after the government forced French energy firm EDF to take a £7bn hit to stop sprillaning household bills.
With an election coming up next year, French president Emmanuel Macron cannot afford the public outrage that would follow a steep rise in energy prices. The biggest factor in the decision by the pro-business Macron, however, is the memory of the militant street protests known as the ‘yellow vests’ that rocked France from late 2018.
The prospect that the Yellow Vests movement, which exploded after a rise in fuel prices and the cost of living, could return will terrify the French ruling class and is a sign of the effectiveness of such movements.
Opposition forces in Britain find themselves in a situation where they have little option other than to pursue extra-parliamentary action against the rising cost of living.
Equally, the crisis affecting the government of Boris Johnson means that the Tories will be less able to brush off popular anger over sky-rocketing bills.
After two years of riding high in the polls following a successful election, Boris Johnson’s premiership has been completely derailed by outrage over Number 10 lockdown parties.
The ‘party gate’ scandal has also seen unheard of levels of internal division for a government just two years out from winning an 80 seat majority.
All this can be capitalised on by a political opposition seeking to take from the rich and give to the poor.
