From teacher to Montgomeryshire and Glyndwr’s first Labour MP, Steve Witherden made history during the 2024 General Election as every constituency in Wales has now been represented by a Labour MP at some point throughout history.

Not afraid to challenge reactionary policies where he sees them, Steve joined the Socialist Campaign Group of Labour MPs just weeks after his election. Since then, he has been a vocal critic of the Government’s complicity in genocide in Gaza, plus its cuts to welfare payments.

A proud trade unionist, Steve has been standing up for the need to end fire and rehire and zero hour contracts. He has also been sounding the alarm on issues that affect rural constituencies like his, from inaccessibility to healthcare to the closure of village schools.

Steve agreed to speak to us for the latest edition of The Educator, which you can read below. Interested to know more about him? Check out this video below.

⬤ First I’d like to say a huge congratulations your election last year. It’s great to see more socialist and progressive Labour MPs such as yourseld enter Westminster to fight for real Labour values. How would you summarise your experience of being an MP so far?

Difficult to summarise as it has been a very mixed year. My mother died on the day Parliament opened. I had to leave the chamber as Sir Lindsay Hoyle was being dragged to the speaker’s chair and get on a train back to North Wales. Thankfully I did make it back in time and was able to hold her hand when she passed away just before midnight the same day. With a young family, who were very close to their granny, I took some bereavement leave to stay with them and I am glad that I did.

When I went back to London I had to be sworn in a lot later than the other MPs and had missed a lot of the inductions and training, which put me out of kilter – in what was always going to be an extremely intense career change (I’d never lived in a city before). This was perhaps best illustrated by me drinking milk in the House of Commons chamber and the Daily Mail running an article about this. After those first few months, I managed to find my rhythm and have found the role at times invigorating, exciting, exhausting, frustrating and – in some instances – archaic.

⬤ You’ve been an outspoken proponent of investing in our public services. And as a former teacher, you know how vital our public services are in our communities. With inadequate funding for our public services, how has this impacted your constituency?

Yes, this is something I feel very strongly about. As well as spending over twenty years as a coach and teacher – and as a teacher trade unionist – mainly in North Wales, I have witnessed first hand the effects of 14 years of Tory austerity and just how mammoth the task of restoring it will be. My constituency is very rural (geographically, it is by far the biggest Labour seat in Wales and – of 121 Tory seats – my seat has more farms than 118 of them) and we have seen issues with rural primary schools being shut.

Before my election I campaigned to keep the village school in Pontfadog open and since my election I have campaigned to keep the village school in Llansilin open. Healthcare is perhaps the biggest issue in the seat, despite being one of the largest in Wales it does not have a single hospital and, in one instance, has a GP practice covering a landmass 1.5x greater than New York city. For some constituents, the nearest hospital is in England and for others it’s in the Wrexham or in Ceredigion constituencies. Cross border healthcare, unhelpful changes to local community hospitals in Powys, performance issues in Betsi Cadwaladr hospital in Wrexham and proposed cuts in Bronglais hospital, all make for a complex healthcare landscape heading in the wrong direction for constituents.

⬤ Polls show the Labour Government losing vital support and the far right looks set to benefit. With Reform UK creeping ahead, how is it best for Labour in Government to tackle the surge of the far-right?

At the General Election Reform UK came second in 13 of 32 Welsh seats My view is that we should never ape Reform UK’s vile rhetoric about immigration, Brexit and Asylum Seekers.

This would be ethically reprehensible and electorally foolish because it would lose Labour more votes to the Lib Dems, Greens and Nationalists (depending on where you live in the UK). Most importantly, there is delivery: we have to improve the material living conditions of the people of this country in a way that they can see it and feel it. We are always told that this will take time. This is 100% true: 14 years of savage Tory austerity cannot be reversed in 18 months.

However, it is also important that we are bold in the trajectory we place our Party on: policies like the 16% increase to the National Minimum Wage, the abolition of zero hours contracts, the abolition of fire and re-hire, building new homes to bring down rent and housing costs (whilst also abolishing No-Fault Evictions), and investing in childcare provision to enable young parents to be able to continue in work more easily, will all help with this.

In contrast: not implementing a wealth tax, not increasing corporation tax (which could be done whilst still remaining competitive with comparable OECD countries), not reintroducing the bankers levy (which Rishi Sunak removed, as one of his final acts in office), not focusing on tax avoidance and evasion as energetically as is required, and not robustly chasing down and recouping public monies which went into dodgy COVID-19 VIP lanes during the pandemic, will make it a damn sight harder to bring about any meaningful change, over the life of the parliament. If we fail to do this we risk handing the keys to Number 10 to whichever far-right vehicle Farage and his ilk will be leading in 2029.

⬤ You have given clear indications that you are on the left of the Labour Party. How can socialist and progressive MPs have an influence even though you’re in a minority in the Parliamentary Labour Party?

I would certainly class myself as Left. You’re right that we do currently constitute a minority within the party. As to how we can have influence, this is something I have given a lot of thought to. It is about pragmatism. If you negotiate, if you meet people half-way, you can often make things happen. You might not get everything you want but you will get some of what you want.

I got into this knowing that the Left of the party were not in the ascendency but with an optimism – probably borne out of my 9 years as a trade union negotiator – that you can often obtain what you want in part, through cordial dialogue and respectful negotiation, so long as you’re willing to work with others and make compromises. This was perhaps best illustrated by the recent shift around PIP scoring. What was essentially a 3-way combination of Left MPs, Soft Left MPs and MPs who were not particularly left or right but who had a disproportionately high number of PIP claimants in their constituencies (these 3 different groups not agreeing on everything, even around this bill), managed to initiate a rather large volte face from the government, which none of these 3 groups could have attained in isolation – if they had just all said no, no, no in their own 3 separate bubbles, the PIP changes would have gone through.

⬤ What advice would you give to ordinary Labour Party members who are concerned about the reactionary policies of the Starmer Government? How can they use their energies effectively?

I fully share the concerns of current and former Labour members about the current direction of travel in the Labour Party. But for me the strategic question is clear. If we are in it, we can have an influence, and if we’re not, we can’t. Like many, I was greatly distressed to lose Zarah Sultana earlier this month, who has been a great comrade and a true friend to me. However, British history is littered with examples of breakaway parties – like the SDP in the 1980s and Change UK’ (who paved the way for both Thatcher and Brexit, things they both sought to avert) – that fizzle out and are soon forgotten. I think you have to pick your subject – an area you have knowledge of and are passionate about – and focus relentlessly on working with others, building alliances and taking your campaign from fringe to mainstream to ‘so completely obvious that everyone always supported it’.

⬤ How and when did you first get involved in politics? What motivated you?

It was exactly a decade ago (prior to, whilst interested in politics, I had never been involved with any political party). My wife was a Labour Party member and after the election of Jeremy Corbyn as leader, she persuaded me to join on the grounds that a political party now had the economic policy I was always talking about. So I joined. It was this economic policy of utilising nationalisations and fiscal policy to bring about progressive change and a more equitable society that motivated me. I have always believed that if you join something, you should be actively involved and so I served as the CLP Fundraising Officer, CLP Acting TULO and as Vice-Chair of my Branch Labour Party before seeking to become the Labour candidate in my home constituency, for the 2024 general election.

⬤ What does socialism mean to you?

I’ve never been one to get fixated on labels. But most of the people who describe me as a socialist subscribe to similar views as me: eradication of poverty; scientific progress for the benefit of all; elimination of hunger; equality; internationalism; anticlericalism; and an overall system based on co-operation rather than exploitation. It is for these reasons that I am very happy to be called a socialist by them.