Let Labour be Labour – but whose version?
Which of the candidates is best placed to carry forward the message of the rosette?
CARWYN Jones has today chosen to make Labour’s future the centre point of his “Time to get real” campaign – a policy area where both of his opponents have plenty to say, too. Each one has made a very clear statement on the issue. In the second of our policy analysis features we look at what all three have got to say on how the narrative of decline that has now affected Welsh Labour through three elections.
Huw Lewis is perhaps a good place to start since, as he reminded us this morning, “As Assistant General Secretary of Welsh Labour, I drove forward party reform and new campaigning techniques – qualities the party is desperate to rediscover.” In his manifesto chapter on Welsh Labour he offers this bold statement: “As a movement we must be under no illusions, it is a formidable challenge that will entail remaking and reshaping Welsh Labour from top to bottom – changing our party so that it is structurally fit for purpose and able to fight and win major elections on an annual basis.”
The chapter goes on to discuss the importance of permanent conversation within and without the Labour Party, moving away from a situation in which an election is seen “as something that happens for five weeks every year.” Referring directly to his own time at the epicentre of Transport House, he also says: “In the late 1990s, we coined the term ‘Welsh Labour’ as a response to devolution – it is time to flesh that out now and ensure that ‘Welsh’ Labour exists, both in name and entity.”
Huw’s specific policy pledges on Welsh Labour renewal are:
Edwina Hart is equally forensic in the treatment she gives to the topic in her manifesto. She too recognises the challenge facing the party in reconnecting with its electorate and says: “We have to convince them that the Labour Party still stands for the values and policies which have made them our supporters in the past, and we have to express those beliefs and the actions which flow from them in a language which our supporters recognise.” Further, she places Labour as just part of a “progressive consensus which characterises Welsh political preferences”, recognising that from her perspective Labour does not have a monopoly on progressive policy. This, she argues, is particularly urgent now since “the threat of a Conservative Government at Westminster gathers” and therefore “Coming back to a revived Labour Party will be the best way to defend Welsh interests and to resist assaults on our values and priorities from those who do not share them”.
Edwina also places revival of the party at the very top of her agenda for the next eighteen months. She makes the following specific pledges:
Carwyn Jones also reflects on these issues in the release he has made today, setting out a series of ‘bottom line’ principles that members of the Labour Party can expect from him as leader. And it’s fighting talk. He rejects any talk of defeat in 2011 – clearly seeking to set himself at odds with Mrs Hart’s platform – and says: “To accept that Labour will not form majority in the Assembly again, is to accept the spin of our opponents. We must never fall into that trap. ‘One Wales’ will be secure in my hands until May 2011. After that our gloves come off and we take the fight to all of our opponents all over Wales. I am not standing in this election to manage coalition government in the Assembly after 2011. I am standing to deliver us a majority at that election. Welsh Labour is not consigned to perpetual coalition in the Assembly and there is not a single Party member I have met anywhere in Wales, who wants the next Leader to have such limited ambition.”
Carwyn also specifically rejects the suggestion by Edwina that a new relationship should be developed between Welsh Labour and the UK Party. In blunt terms he says: “I do not believe we need to break up the existing constitutional relationship between Welsh Labour and the UK Labour Party. I believe Labour is at its best when Labour AMs and Labour MPs are working together. We do not need separatism or a blame culture. We fight together or we fall divided.”
In short, he makes the following three policy pledges for Welsh Labour:
Today’s policy statement is probably the bluntest yet to have come from camp Carwyn and has clearly been designed as a counter-point to his Cabinet rival in particular. Yet at the same time he is relatively silent about internal changes that Welsh Labour might need in order to be ready to win convincingly again. From that perspective, there is clear distance between him and Huw Lewis too.
Who said that there wouldn’t be much to choose from between the three candidates? If the tone of debate over the last 24 hours is anything to go by, this contest has become a real bruiser.
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It was a debate I used to be engaged in, but it seems that there is still too much timidity within Welsh Labour.
Labour, like the other unionist parties, seem to still be operating in a pre-devolution time of having one central centrifugal force of power. Devolution has shattered that, and you feel Huw’s analysis is strongest here – the fact that Welsh Labour seems unable to respond to the devolutionary realities of today.
The problem is that the only real way to achieve this, as I believe a certain A Higgitt called for on this very site, is genuine federalisation.
Devolution requires individual responses, based on the status of the party (Government, coaltion, opposition), Labour are not equpped for that at the moment. Bradshaw vs. Hart, clear red water etc would all be more credible under federalisation. You can hardly see the next First Minister of Wales seeing not upsetting the leader of the opposition (who come May is likely to be new Labour Leader) as a priority. Both Welsh and English Labour will need to think of new responses – the current set up does not help that.
The elephants in the room are the Welsh Labour MPs, who are a gift to Labour’s opponents, and a roadblock to the reform Welsh Labour needs.
But you can’t have lawmaking powers for the Assembly without it affecting the relationship between the Labour Party in Wales and the UK Labour Party. The Labour Party in Wales will be in a very different position to the regional Labour Party in Yorkshire. It will be responsible for developing policies on a wide renge of issues which could be very different from those being developed by the UK Labour Party and which will apply only to England.
Unfortunately for the Labour Party in Wales, there wasn’t a proper debate on devolution and its consequences prior to 1997. Devolution was inherited by Blair from John Smith, and Blair wasn’t that interested in the topic. For many party members , support grew for devolution not because they believed in devolved government but as a reaction, as the late Patrick Hannan, pointed out to Thatcherism. Very few saw devolution as part of the major constitutional changes which could see Britain turned into a federal state fit for the 21st century. The result is the confusion of today.
For the Nationalists the Assembly is seen as the stepping stone to full independence. But the key question is where does that leave those of us who believe in devolved government but very much like pre 1914 New Liberals within the context of the UK.
The three candidates have also got to spell out the answer to the question posed by K. O. Morgan in the latest Fabian Review regarding the issue of ‘No representation without taxation.’ Any lawmaking institution has to also have revenue raising powers to ensure that it has adequate finance for the implementation of any laws it might pass.