Plaid Cymru, the Party of Wales, held its annual conference in Cardiff in September. Newly elected president, Dafydd Iwan, announced in every TV interview that the conference decision to adopt a position of independence is a step towards an independent socialist Wales!
Plaid's former position was self-government rather than independence. Former president Dafydd Wigley famously insisted the party had "never ever" advocated independence.
Plaid's shift to the left reflects the political period. The Blair government is in deep crisis; the US led invasion force is bogged down in Iraq and the stop the war movement continues in full force. The need for a political alternative to the left of New Labour gets stronger by the day.
There is a mad scramble to be seen to be more left then New Labour (not a hard task you might say).
As we saw in the Brent East bye-election, the Liberals have used their "anti-war" position to give them more of a left face. They won over many working class voters who should be supporting a real left alternative.
Iwan used his conference speech, punctuated by standing ovations, to claim his party was the true descendant of old Labour. He said the old Labour party was 'no more'.
"It has turned into a party which has sold its soul to big business, and has ditched all the old socialist values in favour of creeping privatisation and a naive, ugly faith in free market forces.
"Old Labour is long dead and now Plaid Cymru is the only party which can claim that radical tradition."
He went on to condemn the war in Iraq, revealing he had withheld part of his income tax as a protest against 'enforced contributions' to pay for British weapons of mass destruction.
Iwan also said that the Iraq war was fought for capitalist and commercial reasons. It was good for the arms trade and the firms who wanted to secure oil supplies for America.
Plaid has not been pushed to the left by the war - it has been moving to the left for a number of years. Last year after New Labour's First Minister Rhodri Morgan told the media he was 'a socialist of the Welsh stripe', Leanne Wood, Plaid Cymru AM issued an official press release from the party's trade union section UNDEB, titled "Labour are socialist - Pull the other one!".
"This convenient re-discovery of socialism is nothing more than a cynical media spin, to divert attention away from Labour's Thatcherite UK agenda. If Labour in Wales was really serious about socialism, then they would be crying out for a full parliament that would be able to deliver a true socialist agenda for Wales."
Welsh Labour under Morgan is to the left of New Labour in England, but that is not hard. The Blairite war drive has made Morgan look over his shoulder at the left in his own party, as he is under pressure from the anti-war movement expressed both inside and outside the Labour Party.
But it remains to be seen if the left can fight back inside Welsh Labour or like its English counterparts be marginalized by the Blairite machine.
Plaid Cymru has a social democratic programme, but as yet no formal links to the trade unions, but this could soon change
With the shift to the right, the debate inside the trade unions is whether to stay and fight inside the Labour Party or to break from it. The RMT has been in talks with the Scottish Socialist Party over giving them support. And in Wales the RMT has also said it will support Plaid Cymru.
RMT leader Bob Crow buried the RMT's historic relationship with Labour as he addressed the Plaid Cymru conference and poured scorn on Tony Blair.
The general secretary of the union which founded the Labour Party said the RMT would no longer fund a party which was "putting the boot" into workers. He told the Cardiff conference he had more respect for a mugger in the street than the Prime Minister as he declared, "I am not going to pay for my own assassin".
Crow said, "I have got to say we have been treated absolutely shabbily." He told delegates that New Labour had failed to repeal nine pieces of anti-trade union legislation introduced by the previous Conservative government and should be "thoroughly ashamed of itself".
He added, "It is not the Tory party we are against, it is Tory policies, either being carried out by the Tory party or New Labour." He went on to say: "We can't wait for the next five or ten years for a political party to deliver on our behalf."
He told delegates he would support the Welsh people if they sought independence "because England has done nothing for Welsh people or Scottish people as far as I am concerned." He added: "We will support the break up of the UK. If Welsh people want to have their own country then why shouldn't Welsh people take that decision?
Plaid Cymru's policies are generally far more in tune with the views of Labour supporters than Labour's own. It opposes privatisation, PFI and supports the renationalisation of the railways. But there is a problem with Plaid vision of independence.
They want an independent Wales as part of the European Union and specifically with the single currency - with all the constraints on public spending that this involves. This is far removed from both the SSP's vision of a Socialist Scotland and Bob Crow's position on Europe.
Huge gains in 1999, when Plaid appeared a radical alternative to New Labour, evaporated in this year's assembly election, as Plaid lost 145,000 votes, doing particularly badly in seats in Rhondda Cynon Taff and Caerphilly, where it controls councils.
Plaid in local government have shown a left face can easily turn into a party that will cut services and jobs. It has to be seen if the organised left in Plaid can turn the rhetoric of conference into real socialist polices at a local level. The Labour Left has failed to build a real alternative to attacks on services under both Old and New Labour.
We also see another challenge to the left from ex-Labour Assembly member John Marek. Marek, who was backed by the RMT, won his seat back in Wrexham on a left of Labour ticket.
Marek and the grouping around him have been in discussions with the SSP and this summer held a red, green and radical conference to debate the idea of forming a Welsh Socialist Party.
Some around Marek are opposed to this new party having platforms, and call for all groups or parties to join as individual members. This would be a disaster, as we have seen with Scargill's Socialist Labour Party. If a Welsh Socialist Party was to be built it must have the same sort of democratic structures as the SSP.
The Welsh Socialist Alliance, which John Marek supported in a recent council bye-election in Cardiff, has tried to build a Socialist Alternative in Wales, and is still an important part of the process.
But along with John Marek, Socialists in Wales have to tackle the question: do Plaid Cymru, offer a real alternative? Whatever the answer, socialists should welcome this shift to the left.
[Photograph: Dafydd Iwan]