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Through the looking glass: how do Yes campaigners stop the referendum being turned on its head?

HERE’S a joke that was popular once upon a time: A travelling salesman, the best in the business, finds himself out in the wilds of Wales. He knocks at a remote farmhouse and when the door is opened, he flies into his tried-and tested routine. Pushing past the careworn woman stood on the threshold, he strides into the living room and pulls a bag of dust from inside his case.

Tipping its contents on the floor, he declares: “Madam, I sell the finest vacuum cleaner in the world. If it won’t pick up every piece of dust I’ve dropped, I’ll eat what’s left.” The farmer’s wife takes a look at the dust on the floor before heading for the door: “I’ll get you a spoon, then. We don’t have any electricity.”

Once the dust settled last Wednesday, one or two devolutionists might have been left wondering what they have to sell to a public still questioning whether it needs something it hasn’t got – and whether it is worth it.

Before any Yes campaign gets underway, it’s worth remembering that it will be appealing to an electorate with much-changed views on the political process and with not a little scepticism towards politicians. Because of the MPs’ expenses row, because of the unprecedented bailout of the UK banking industry, and because of the corresponding impact on public sector spending anticipated as early as 2010, we should expect a far harsher weighing of cost against benefit from voters. But despite such close inspection, it will be the population of Wales that will ultimately decide on the future direction of Wales in any referendum, not the political classes of Cardiff Bay.

Many have already voiced views that what is being asked for is a relatively small issue, a matter of procedure. Consequently, they argue, a referendum might be a waste of time. It’s easy for a devolutionist to become frustrated by such a response, particularly if you believe in independence. After all, this moving from Part 3 to Part 4 of the Government of Wales Act, the end of the bureaucratic and unnecessarily-involved Legislative Competence Order (LCO) system is something of a halfway house.

It has been a full five years since Lord Richard mooted primary law-making powers, an expanded Assembly, and the possibility of tax-varying powers. At the time, the First Minister said there should be no “rush to judgement” on its findings. Giving him the benefit of the doubt has meant it has taken half a decade to begin seriously considering just part of Lord Richards’ recommendations.

However, it is very hard to win the Yes argument by looking back over the shoulder. Complaining about what we could have had, or didn’t have because of the political climate at the time, isn’t going to win the argument for greater powers – greater autonomy – for Wales, because people don’t want to hear it. They will give a fair hearing to the sceptics who have decided to focus on the cost implications of further but almost routinely incremental changes. They are asking whether such a small step is worth it now. Perhaps the whole wider issue of government spending will swing voters away from “Why not?” and back towards “Why?”

As such, the Yes campaign could find itself on trial. In fact, there is a good argument that the campaign needs to be planned for such an emergency – a case of planning for the worst, hoping for the best. It needs to prepare the argument – and prove it – that remaining at a standstill will be a greater waste of money for Wales. The Convention report provides the evidence base from which it can be argued that the current system is largely unworkable.

If it does end up in the dock, the Yes campaign needs to grandstand, to ask the big questions. And it also needs to learn the lesson of the vacuum cleaner salesman. It needs to sell the benefits of why more powers for Wales will in fact help achieve the goals of social justice and the economy. And it must banish the myth that devolution is too high brow, too focused on in-depth constitutional positioning for the voter to bother about.

The first question is short and to the point: Do you want decisions about Wales made in Wales, or in Westminster? This is what this referendum surely comes to when it is boiled down to the fundamentals. It is at the heart of the issue. It’s the Oliver begging bowl question. Should we have to undergo trial by subservience, begging these London masters for more powers at every juncture, or can we get on with the job here in Wales?

At present, the LCO system relies far too heavily on the whims of sometimes poorly-informed parliamentarians who speculate on how the Assembly would apply the powers we are requesting, not whether it is right or not that we have them. Is it right, when the Assembly has so many ground-breaking ways of directly taking soundings from the electorate – such as the petitions committee on which I sit – that politicians whose constituencies are not even situated in Wales should have input into what would serve this country best? Since none of us are likely to offer governments in other parts of the UK advice on how to best manage their affairs, this is presumption of the worst kind, not least because it can have an impact on lives here. And it is quite different from the Welsh body politic giving an opinion on an issue such as Trident because, ultimately, such a decision affect us, too. It carries none of the lord-of-the-manor connotations of teeth-sucking Tories on the Welsh Affairs Committee.

Voters may have concerns about the political make-up of the Assembly or about its individual members. But the time to do something about that comes at election level, not a referendum on future powers. As such, voters will have to do a bit of looking forward to imagine how a more powerful Assembly will implement more wide-ranging laws.

The Yes campaign will also need to case study prospective legislation and map out its route into being. For example, there is an environmental LCO that has recently entered the system, and which will give the Assembly powers to legislate over waste dumped at sea, among other things. Let us suppose that the Assembly could cut right back on the two-year average that it takes an LCO to navigate the system that was outlined here last week. What could be done in that saved time?

A number of beaches could be cleaned up and given Blue Flag or other environmental status standards. This would allow fresh marketing of those shorelines, both individually and at national level, perhaps inward investment and other economic benefits for those areas. This may happen in due course. But in the meantime, areas across the rest of the UK that could compete with Welsh resorts and seaside towns may be already moving ahead, and there is only a finite pool of money that tourists and investors have to spend.

Of course, this is just hypothesis, which is why the Yes campaign must base any claims of lives improved as a consequence of additional powers in fact. This does not mean for a minute that we should use this mechanism to justify why we have an Assembly in the first place. That argument has been fought and won. It shouldn’t either be merely about headline policies like free bus passes for the elderly, or legacy plans implemented by Welsh ministers. Telling the people of Wales what we are doing in the here and now should be enough to confirm that we can be confident enough as a nation to take on more powers, and to use them well.

Tourism and economic development is just one area where the Assembly can improve matters. There are a plethora of LCOs in existence at present that cover areas as diverse as combating child poverty, improving mental health services, ensuring public transport services, better rights for carers – even national flags on number plates. All of them devised here in Wales and all of them devised to benefit people here in Wales.

A Yes campaign by its very nature must be positive. Some people will regard this as a handicap, particularly if True Wales becomes ever more vociferous in what it says. There is already some discussion among Yes campaigners about the best way of dealing with contrary untruths. In fact, the best way to deal with untruths is to forensically disprove them, one-by-one. It’s another reason why the Yes campaign must be sure of its facts.

But there is perhaps space for a little negativity, even if only as a parting shot, as it is here. Not only should people ask themselves before the referendum if they want their law making done in Wales. They should also ask if it is fair that devolution in both Scotland and Northern Ireland should continue to move at a quicker pace than in Wales, albeit in very different ways. What does that say about how Wales is regarded? Are we really less capable of governing ourselves? What, in the past decade of devolution, convinces the Westminster government that this holds true?

It is certainly worth asking, as it may help us all when we begin the journey beyond the referendum, to the next stage of devolution. After all, all of us agree that this is a journey Wales is taking. It is the speed of that journey that we disagree upon.