I recently joined the Wales Co-operative Party and I want to tell you why. I represent a Valleys constituency in the Welsh Parliament, and every day I see the deep damage caused by austerity and the abandonment of communities that the Tories inflicted on us for 14 long years. Our basic public services are still reeling from the blows the Tories rained down on them. Local government is impoverished. Our NHS is still suffering. Our schools, colleges and universities struggle to deliver life chances to the young. Our people struggle with a housing crisis and the wider impact of the sheer cost of living.

But I also see resilience, and, so very often, that determination to fight back comes from the bottom up – the grassroots. I see credit unions helping to turn around family finances and the dead weight of personal debt. I see community energy initiatives that have so much potential to cut fuel bills. I see mutualised housing associations genuinely involving their members.

I’m proud that the Welsh government has fought back too. We have doubled the size of the employee-owned business sector, working with Cwmpas (formerly the Wales Co-operative Centre). We’ve sponsored pilot projects in Co-operative Housing. We’ve supported thousands of families with children with support for school meals and the most generous student support in the UK.

We are about to enter five months or so of a political fight against forces of the right even darker in their intentions than the Tories. These are malign actors, happy to have our communities see themselves as victims, so long as they can harness that victimhood to promote division and prejudice. They have no solutions – just lists of scapegoats to divert attention from their real agenda- to further enrich the already wealthy.

The mouthpieces of millionaires and billionaires don’t come to the South Wales Valleys to offer solutions. They have no answers. No ideas to empower people. Just snake-oil and ragebait.

And that’s why the Co-operative Party now has my support: Answers. Ideas.

Soon we will launch a Co-operative Agenda for the next Welsh Government. A document packed with ideas for positive change. The very opposite of what our opponents preach. I’m proud to say I’ll be a part of the fight for that agenda. If you have not joined us yet, then join us now.