A protest against the spiralling cost of living has been called in Bangor, in the latest in a series of demonstrations planned over the issue.
The protest will take place on Saturday 12th February, noon at the Town Clock, and is backed by Bangor Mayor Owen J Hurcrum, Bangor Students Union and the Unite trade union.
Cover Image by Tom Davies
The event coincides with similar protests in cities across Wales, Scotland and England being coordinated by The People’s Assembly coalition. Cardiff’s demonstration will take place a week later, on Saturday 19th February.
Protests are being organised against a backdrop of soaring energy and food bills, driving up poverty and leaving more people unable to eat or heat their homes. At the same time, higher gas prices are leading to bumper profits for energy firms.
On Tuesday it was announced that the profits of British oil giant BP were $12.8 billion for 2021. “It has been another good quarter for the company,” BP CEO Bernard Looney said. Last week it was announced that Shell’s profits had quadrupled to $19bn, with the firm upping its payouts to shareholders. In the US, oil firms Chevron and Exxon Mobil reported net profits of $15.6 billion and $23 billion, respectively.
Edryd Gwyfyn, who is helping to organise the Bangor protest, hit out at Tory Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s £200 rebate, which people will have to pay back. “In fact, it is effectively an extra loan on top of already sky-high fuel costs. The government is once again forcing people to decide between heating and eating.”
Edryd, who is also a spokesperson for the Breakthrough Party who are backing the protest, said that it was important that protests over the issue took place on the north Wales coast.
“As one of the most socio -economically disadvantaged areas in Wales, those living in Bangor, Caernarfon and the surrounding area will feel the impact of these steep hikes very acutely, when many already do not have the money to spare. By demonstrating our collective indignation at Westminster’s assault on our living standards we will hold them to account and demand that they listen to us.”
Jim Scott, from People’s Assembly Wales, helping to coordinate the protests, said that in the midst of a climate crisis, “the UK government is allowing energy companies to ammase billions in profits while simultaneously expecting us to take on staggering increases to our energy bills.”
“Families across Britain are already struggling following 12 long years of brutal austerity cuts and crippling rises to the cost of living,” he said.
“We have the solutions; we need radical change in how we approach our energy solutions, we need wealth taxes and public ownership of energy.”
He called for a publicly owned energy firm in Wales to bring down bills, tackle carbon emissions and secure good jobs.
“It’s a matter of priorities, workers in Wales should be getting better off as we invest in secure jobs which would tackle the climate crisis, instead the Tories expect us to bail out and add to the profits of dirty energy companies.”
“The demonstrations being organised across Wales reflect that people have had enough, and are not willing and in many cases able to pay for an energy crisis that was not of our own making.”
Over the weekend, Heledd Fychan, Senedd Member for South Wales Central, the Wales TUC and others backed the protests over the spiralling cost of energy and food prices.
Last week 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.
There was further anger when the governor of the Bank of England, Andrew Bailey, told workers not to demand pay rises that matched the rate of inflation and said people should be prepared for further financial sacrifices.
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.
“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.”
Last week it also emerged that the French Government was going to tax its national energy firm EDF so household bills for its citizens would not rise more than 4%. In the UK, bills are rising by 54%.
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.