Carwyn Must Respect the Union
Bubble — By David Melding AM on June 24, 2010 11:00 am
The First Minister fought on an important strapline - and must do so now
I AM sometimes described as a nationalist-leaning Welsh Tory. This label causes me little difficulty, although it masks an important difference between me and any member of Plaid Cymru. I carry dual nationality – Welsh and British – and believe it the most coherent identity for the devolved era. While I am keen to embrace Welsh nationalism Welsh nationalists are intent on squeezing the life out of Britishness. Quite a distinction. I believe that the vast majority of Labour and Conservative voters in Wales share this dual identity. So step forward Carwyn and do something for the Union!
Britishness will move out of the shadows once the Conservative and Labour parties start to have a meaningful conversation about what devolution will ultimately create. The British state is still in transition and it will only reach a robust and durable settlement when Labour and the Conservatives agree on the essentials. So far Welsh Labour has got no further than questioning Cheryl Gillan’s suitability for the office of Secretary of State. This is very tiresome: Cheryl Gillan is Welsh, served as Shadow Secretary of State for five years, and the office is far different in function compared to its pre-devolution incarnation. The First Minister is Wales’ chief political executive. Of course a John Redwood-style appointment would have contradicted the respect agenda that the PM set out for his relations with the devolved institutions; but in Cheryl Gillan Wales got an effective champion not a political tourist.
The British constitution and Wales’ place in it will be weakened if Carwyn Jones does not respond to the PM’s respect agenda. The only Party that would gain political advantage would be Plaid Cymru, although to be fair to Plaid they have shown more maturity than Labour in their response to the budget. The First Minister has also played some silly games on the timing of the referendum and got into a tangle on whether or not to defer the budget cuts. Incidentally, Cheryl Gillan’s judgement was vindicated when both the Electoral Commission and the Assembly chief legal adviser warned about the practicalities of an autumn referendum.
If the Wales Labour Party can’t work with a Conservative UK government, the British state is in real trouble. It is crucial that the Joint Ministerial Council works effectively and that the First Minister forges an effective relationship with the PM. This is even more important if the Scottish First Minister starts to play fast and loose on issues such as Trident in an attempt to weaken the UK. It falls to Carwyn to demonstrate how robust the devolved settlement is under ‘cohabitation’. The PM has already done so – visiting all the devolved institutions during his first week in office. No one believes that the First Minister should compromise his mandate but he needs to respect the spheres of interest that now exists in the British constitution.
If I was admitted into the next conflab between Carwyn and the PM this is the advice I would give them. Agree the big projects that will inevitably have a profound impact on the health of the first Union – that between Wales and England. The list would include the St. Athan Military Academy, rail electrification and high speed rail, and reform of the Barnett formula.
Reform of Barnett will be difficult because the current formula so favours Scotland that sudden reform would damage the Union there. However, the need to reform Barnett should be re-stated but not in the bombastic manner that has marked Carwyn’s early exchanges with the UK government. Only those who believe profoundly in the British state can back a needs based formula for the allocation of public spending. Plaid supports such a formula now but they would fight for every pound to remain in Wales if Barnett ever favoured Wales in the manner it favours Scotland today. Only Britishness can accommodate the transfer of large sums around the UK to meet different needs, Welsh and Scottish nationalism cannot. The fairness agenda is something that both the Conservatives and Labour can agree on. It is one of the great pillars of the Union.
If Barnett is difficult to reform in the devolved era, the House of Lords is not. Or at least an obvious solution offers itself. Now that Wales and Scotland have devolved political institutions it is difficult to justify unequal representation in the House of Commons. My advice to Carwyn would be to urge House of Lords reform on a devolved basis. The House of Lords could become – like the Bundesrat or American Senate – the chamber where national interests are protected. England is a big neighbour – so why not balance the inevitable strength of England in the Commons with over representation for Wales and Scotland in the House of Lords? Additionally, such a reform would ensure that the House of Lords did not compete with the House of Commons as the most democratic chamber.
Devolution has brought great benefits to Britain. Labour were right to establish a Scottish Parliament and National Assembly, as David Cameron bravely acknowledged in his last party conference speech as leader of the opposition. But what Ron Davies termed a process must become an event – a settled, stable constitutional position.
David Cameron has offered a way forward with the respect agenda. It is now up to Labour to respond. They need to respond first in Wales.
Tags: Barnett Formula, Carwyn Jones, David Melding, devolution, House of Lords, identity, leadership
Tweet This
Share on Facebook
Digg This
Bookmark
Stumble
75 Comments
“the political localisation you champion would I think stand a better chance of taking off in Wales”
Where’s the evidence for that? Labour’s attempts to decentralise have been rolled back. Council consolidation is on the cards. Wales is becoming a more central and centralising statelet, all because we love the idea of all-Wales solutions.
You can’t do it just be handing out power from the centre. That doesn’t work. You need to reverse the flow.
” I do not think that I am any more immoral by identifying with Wales than anyone who identifies with the UK as a whole”
Do not put words into my mouth, CapM. I’ve explained why I believe your argument lacks a moral dimension to it, and it has nothing at all to do with your identification with Wales-only.
Welsh Ramblings quotes Adam Higgitt’s point – ““I’d like the approach I’ve talked about being adopted more widely, and certainly throughout the EU. But it would be possible to do it on a UK-basis as a starter ” – then responds thus: “Yes it could be done on a UK-basis, if we ignore the entire history of the United Kingdom and its resource exploitation of Wales. I would prefer a strategy based on real life”.
What strategy for real life is dependent on some burning resentment of centuries-old history? It’s nothng more than living in the past to obsess over “the entire history of the United Kingdom and its resource exploitation of Wales”, rather than to address the actual issues NOW facing Wales’s – and the UK’s – economy, society and polity.
And sorry, Ramblings, but isn’t “It is an entirely noble cause to fight for the survival and betterment of what you consider to be your nation” just a bit, you know, Bravehearty?
I’m going to outline my view and then leave this discussion.
The most pressing issue facing Wales at this time is its economy. I am hugely fearful that not only are we in for a double dose of pain in the coming two-to-three years at least, but that the current devolution settlement sets Wales up for the same thing to happen again perhaps another decade down the line.
I am extremely interested in economic independence. In fact, it’s an abiding preoccupation at this time. This doesn’t mean pulling up the roads between us and England. It means exploring what climate, factors, institutions and legislation we need to have in place to make this a reality, and a sustainable reality at that.
There are all kinds of promising signs, certainly for this glass-half-full merchant, that it is quite possible to build a successful, stand-alone economy, given time, commitment, a thousand other factors and probably not a little luck. That is to say it won’t be easy.
If economic independence is achieved, and if Wales has those institutions in place that would support it, then the case for full independence, within the European Union, could well become a full and nationwide debate. But that’s only part of the attraction as far as I’m concerned. As one Plaid pal said to me: “They’ve had a go and got it wrong. Now give us a chance to try ourselves.” Absolutely amen to that.
To that end, I am not interested in competing with any other part of the UK, and certainly not for handouts. You just don’t get to where I want to go by vying for the title of most economic-downtrodden region. Let me also make it clear that this is a different debate to Barnett. I can’t pretend I understand that topic properly, so I’m staying away from it.
I wish the rest of the UK well, I really do. But that is for someone else to sort out. I live here in Wales, and as someone who believes that we all have a responsibility to our society, our country, I believe we should start looking for our own solutions. Adam is right that all parts of the UK should be devolved. Why? Because it allows local solutions. Let’s please stop arguing among ourselves about who said what to who about England and start concentrating on the job in hand.
Regarding the morality issue I think you’re indulging in a bit of revisionism.
Regarding political localism I think that in the UK it’s got about as much chance of developing into what you have outlined as a chicken has of developing from a Cadbury’s Creme egg
Not least because if political localism didn’t develop from the grass-roots of communities it would be a pretend political localism, a fake.
And I just can’t see why you think alteriing the course of a entity of 60 000 000 is less difficult than altering the course of an entity of 3 000 000.
Just opinions
Dunc
I know you want to say your piece and leave it. I respect that. My issue however is the excessive focus on Wales as the appropriate level of government for what you want to see achieved. Yes, you live in Wales. But you also live in Cardiff, and the needs and opportunities for Cardiff are about as different from those of Cardigan as it’s possible for two parts of the UK, if not two parts of much of Europe, to be. Why do we persist in the idea that a tier of government that deals with localities are divergent as these will succeed because the total population size it covers is smaller than the one you (i.e Plaid) deem to have failed? Why do we suppose that that same critique of the UK – that it concentrates wealth into one corner of the territory at the expense of the others – will not be replicated by a central and centralising statelet? The answer, as far as I can determine, is that Wales is a nation, with its own culture and language and because the people of Wales are somehow kinder, more community-minded people than those beastly, rapacious Anglo-Saxons. It’s a fiction that goes hand-in-hand with the other great myth that the Assembly is closer to the people than Whitehall, simply because it is more accessible to lobbyists and journalists.
Surely what is needed is a form of government that places the power at a level far closer to Cardiff than to Wales or – God forbid – the UK as a whole, and then leaves it to these local levels to federate according to what makes the best sense? For some issues, it’s clear that we would have many such municipalities joined together in something approaching permanent federation. For others, it would make sense to act alone and for others you might see a loose alliance of just a few. It would enable all-Wales solutions where these really make sense, cross-border working where that worked best and so on.
CapM
“Just opinions”
Indeed, and clearly formed in a wilful refusal to read what I’ve actually written. That being the case, it makes no sense for me to write any more on your behalf.
It may be nice to think that a rich locality would pool resources and join with a poor locality to form a federation for an equirable education system across their two localities. In reality its much more likely that the rich locality would federate with another rich locality for their mutual advatage.
You can’t impose preconceived ideas on political localism. Setting at what level functions and soverignties should be discharged at or work to parameters set by current arrangements this just introduces a hypocrisy to the whole effort.
It’s a grass roots up development and if rich localities choose to federate together to the exclusion of poor ones there can be no grounds for complaints from the advocates of the system.
“You can’t impose preconceived ideas on political localism. Setting at what level functions and soverignties should be discharged at or work to parameters set by current arrangements this just introduces a hypocrisy to the whole effort.”
I don’t understand this sentence. If it means what I think it does, you have to direct your criticism at those who think it’s all about handing power down from the centre. I say it’s about handing power up from the local if and when that makes sense.
I’m saying that even it’s about handing power up if ,when and as decided by the lower locality if those that advocate and nurture this method have a preconcieved idea of the levels at which functions and soverigntiies should end up there is a hypocrisy.
If the people of Aberflyarff (104 plus 1 sheepdog)wants an army it has the right to have one. Any other alternative is control /handing out power from above.
It’s an absurd scenario, less absurd would be a federation of localities across the UK that recognised the pre-eminance of sharia law.
Or quite likely there could be a group of University towns federating to create a super research entity and grab the Lion’s share of research and development money with attendant manufacturing advantagees over every other University town not in their federation.
People will decide what to do for their own interests. I don’t think that anyone should assume that if a political localsim system is initiated that it will head off in the general direction of Utopia.
It’s fine to have a rough idea of the sort of functions it would make no sense at all not to share (defence would be one, since you mention it). That’s merely a recognition that the trade-off between (exclusive) local control and economies of scale/effective service delivery are towards the latter end in some instances. Abertflyarff might wish to raise and maintain its own army, but it wouldn’t do so once its 104 electors weighed up the arguments. I have more faith in people to do the sensible thing that you, apparently.
A federated University over a wide area? Whoever heard of such a thing?
As for utopia – like regions – only you mentioned it.
I did point out the absurdity of An Aberflyarff army,
The Uniiversity of wales was not “federated” for the same reason and purpose as I pointed out that a group of University towns might federate. And of course Universities aren’t towns.
You’ve missed out commenting on a sharia law federation.
I’m sure you can think of many examples where you’d consider the result of federating to be negative.
Utopia, well no but given the paradigm shift in the political cultural and Political scene and the massive extra input by ordinary people into coming to grips and remaining involved with a multidimensional web of federations that genuine political localisation would bring requires the destination to be in that general direction to make it all worthwhile.
Sorry I ommitted this from my previous post
Aberflyarff may well think that maintaining it’s own army (- Dai, Will and the sheepdog ) makes far more financial sense than contributing to a UK army, navy, airforce and nuclear deterant. It’s making more sense to me allready. Aberflyarff the Welsh Costa Rica..
“You’ve missed out commenting on a sharia law federation.”
I’m not here to rebut every single objection you want to try and dream up. There’s always a 101 reasons not to do a radical thing, and perhaps only one reason to do it. You’re in favour of the status quo, or something very much like it, so I expect you only to dream up all the sky-falling-in things that could happen, even if you haven’t thought them through, or they may little sense or they mischaracterise the case I’m making, or they depend on an assumption that ordinary people are stupid, selfish and atavistic.
It’s a very green idea, I’ve never said anything other than that. There would be tons of detail to work through, lots of resistance from those who stand to lose out, and lots of ways it could fail or fail to take hold.
If you wish to discuss the idea seriously, I’m happy to. If you’re just going to blow rasberries I’m less inclined to waste my time.
“the paradigm shift in the political cultural and Political scene and the massive extra input by ordinary people into coming to grips and remaining involved with a multidimensional web of federations that genuine political localisation would bring”
It wouldn’t. But even if it did, and as I’ve already said, I’ve rather more faith in people to know what’s right and what’s good for them and their neighbours than you clearly do.
p.s the mockery, albeit very badly done, reminds me of the way arch-centralists used to deride the prospective institutions of a Welsh state. I wonder if you felt quite the same way then?
Gez Kirby,
“What strategy for real life is dependent on some burning resentment of centuries-old history? It’s nothing more than living in the past to obsess over “the entire history of the United Kingdom and its resource exploitation of Wales”, rather than to address the actual issues NOW facing Wales’s – and the UK’s – economy, society and polity.”
You claim to be a member or at least supporter of the Labour party. If your Labourism is NOT driven by the burning resentment of the exploitation of the working classes then I’m sorry but you need to take a long hard look at your principles.
To “address the actual issues NOW” we need an understanding of the history of the UK and how it works, surely! You are saying “let’s ignore the inconvenient truth about how the UK has failed Wales”. The only way we CAN address the issues you’re presumably concerned about is if we look at how we have gotten here.
I can see why from your view it’d be convenient to ignore history and pretend that the Union has served Wales well. It has not. I reject historical revisionism.
Neither is it a centuries-old history. The extractive nature of the British economy is ongoing and the current relationship is still post-colonial.
“And sorry, Ramblings, but isn’t “It is an entirely noble cause to fight for the survival and betterment of what you consider to be your nation” just a bit, you know, Bravehearty?”
It is a bit Bravehearty, a bit Castroey, a bit Ghandi, a bit James Connolly (I suppose you reject James Connolly because we shouldn’t be driven by ‘history’?), and so what? I’m sure it’s a very nice world where New Labour’s managerialism has won and “history is dead”, but it isn’t one I want to live in.
As an aside I can also comfortably reject Adam Higgitt’s point that “the…great myth that the Assembly is closer to the people than Whitehall, simply because it is more accessible to lobbyists and journalists.”
It isn’t a ‘great myth’ just because you say it is. The Assembly IS closer to the people than Whitehall because it is more accessible to ORDINARY PEOPLE. You will have tried to go to Westminster many times, I am sure. The process is arduous and restrictive. Go to the Assembly and you can walk through one security point and you’re in. It’s your building. The visitor numbers are superb.
Seeing as you are insisting on denying the viability of an all-Wales solution I can see why you’d want to indulge in revisionism and suggest the Senedd is less open than the Westminster Parliament.
The point that a Welsh unit is more desirable than a UK unit is solid. A Labour academic once (ignorantly) told me that “in Wales the majority of the population live within a few hours’ drive of the National Assembly”.
Wales is a national entity in the minds of the majority of the people who live in it.
When you spoke to Duncan you said that-
“Why do we suppose that that same critique of the UK – that it concentrates wealth into corner of the territory at the expense of the others – will not be replicated by a central and centralising statelet? The answer, as far as I can determine, is that Wales is a nation, with its own culture and language and because the people of Wales are somehow kinder, more community-minded people than those beastly, rapacious Anglo-Saxons. ”
The critique of the UK (concentrating wealth in the SE) wouldn’t apply equally to Wales because Wales does not contain one of the world’s major financial capitals. The UK has the widest regional disparity of any EU member state. I will ask my friend if he could calculate whether inequality between the ‘regions of Wales’ would be similar. It might well be similar but Wales is a manageable and more democratic entity than the UK because of scale.
If you think a case for Welsh distinctiveness is made on ‘people in Wales being kinder’ then you are deliberately choosing not to understand the national narrative. The distinctiveness is based on the balance of class forces (different to the UK as a whole) and the history of exploitation that has not even endowed us with our own Welsh capitalist class, such was the level of utter subjugation. You could (and would) come back and say “but it’s the same thing in Yorkshire” but Yorkshire is not a nation and the people of Yorkshire might resent London, but they still identify with the English flag.
Ramblings
You’re an intelligent bloke, so I’ll assume you know the difference between someone questioning the wisdom of placing too much decision-making at the Wales level and “denying the viability of an all-Wales solution”. In a similar vein, I’ll assume you know the difference between suggesting the Assembly is no more accessible than Westminster and suggesting that the “Senedd is less open than the Westminster Parliament.” You’re an intelligent bloke, so I’ll assume these were just rhetorical flourishes, and not an attempt to put words into my mouth.
I’d like to share your faith that the absence of a major financial centre is a guarantor against a concentration of wealth in south east Wales. Sadly, there is already a disparity emerging which I’m not sure the present system of government will do a great deal to reverse. We can also see this in other parts of the UK – Northern Ireland for example is in danger of becoming a city-state around Belfast.
“you are deliberately choosing not to understand the national narrative”
It’s not deliberate, I can assure you, but I am struggling to see how this national narrative is so utterly transformative. All your analysis does indeed apply to many parts of England. I just can’t see how identifying with the English and not the Welsh flag makes one group of historically exploited workers so different from the other.
To Adam Higgitt
“You’re in favour of the status quo, or something very much like it.”
I’m as fallible as anyone else regarding assuming I know what the person I’m in discussion with thinks, but you seem to use this approach as a fundamental of your debating style. Or maybe not, anyway you’ve subjected me to this treatment a few times on this thread alone.
I think political localism in reality would be fake and that it’s inevitable that higher levels would determine what lower levels could and could not do and what they must do, ie it’s just a variation of top down. I think it would make the mechanisms that deliver our society’s very many and very diverse needs far too complicated and so put understanding and therefore scrutiny by people even further out of reach than the existing (flawed) systems do.
I think that the power originating in the lowest level and the subsequent delegation upwards is an illusion, some reasons would be:
1. Because higher levels will set the agenda for what lower levels have the power to do;
2. Higher up federations will make lower down ones comply. For example you can join in with our education federation but only if you join our environment one also;
3. If there is any locking-in regarding agreements/federations only those that were around at the time the agreements/federations were made actually had any power.
My Cadbury’s Crème Egg comment was mockery. How about I do my best not to mock the idea you’ve presented and you do your best not to attribute opinions to me that aren’t mine.
Aberflyaff’s army was me arguing reductio ad absurdum. However the converse, that the people of Aberflyaff decided to not have an army and therefore not pay for one is a reasonable proposition. They or any higher level federation would be financially much better off regardless of any pacifist motives they might have. Unless of course at some higher level a decision was made that forced them to pay towards a military.
Maybe this Government’s Free schools initiative will enable us see some examples of how localities respond to the opportunities of a sort of power up rather than power down system. Will it result in an improvement in education throughout society or will it be a charter for the “I’m alright Jonty” ( that’s meant as joke at the expense of middle class pushy parents and not mockery of the idea of political localism) brigade.
CapM
I can only go on what you have said on this thread, and others like it. In those comments you have said that the issue for you is which nation assumes statehood over the territory of Wales (your preference being a nation-state of Wales). That is why I described you as an advocate of the status quo, or a close variant of it.
You believe that a proper attempt at political localism, as you call it, will be subverted by attempts to impose control from the top. I can see why you might think that; as I have said, it is a very green idea. I can also see why, given that you want a strong (and by the sounds of it, centralised) Welsh nation-state, you might want to see localism fail. As with so many of these things, it comes down to a view of human nature: you seem to believe that when given the power people will act fundamentally selfishly and short-sightedly, forcing control upon others, locking in arrangements, bullying their neighbours and so on. I tend to take the oppositie view, broadly speaking.
I suspect there’s little point us arguing about which view of human nature is correct, but the difference is that I don’t see any need for any local unit to be forced into anything; I think some form of union in currency/macro-economic policy/defence/foreign affairs would be obvious and would commend itself as such, as would some safeguards to ensure it could not be capriciously dissolved.
To Adam Higgitt
“I can also see why, given that you want a strong (and by the sounds of it, centralised) Welsh nation-state, you might want to see localism fail.”
You’ve done it again. Assuming to know what I think. I’ve said what I think about political localism then you fill in the rest and present it to suit your arguament.
I think Political localism is in reality no better than ,and in many respects akin to top down delegation/devolution and in it’s theoretical form too complicated to accomodate required levels of scrutiny and accountability. This DOES NOT then mean that I am an advocate of a centralised state ( as in wiki -In political science, this refers to the concentration of a government’s power – both geographically and politically, into a centralised government).
It is not a case of wanting political localism to fail, I think in it’s pure form it is flawed and would fail.
And my opinion on political localism certainly does not mean that in the wider sense of the term localism ( food as just one example) that I wish to see it fail. There are aspects of our lives where I want localism very much to succeed.
Regarding my preference for a Welsh nation state ( and I have expressed that). Political localisation does not prevent Wales from being a nation state any more than it supports the UK as a nation state. Whether I or anyone else want a Welsh, British, Atlantic “Celtic” Fringe, Dyfed, Marcher counties of England and Wales, Swansea or any other nation state is irrelevant to the debate on political localisation. At some point localities will decide on what nation state they are part of.. And if political localism is to be genuine existing nation state (or nation) arrangements would not limit the possibilities.
Although a possibility I think we are very far away from a global political system that doesn’t include the reality of nation states
CapM
Like I say, I can only go on what you say. You do not believe localism can work, and think that “my” version would lack proper scrutiny. At the same time you believe in a Welsh nation-state. Put the two together and it’s clear you are a centralist.
I’m surprised that you think that being against political localism and for a nation-state I must therefore be a centralist, as the term is normally defined anyway.
And it’s political localism that I find fault with, you keep on saying localism which is a much broader response to societies’ needs and aspirations and which I’ve said has a lot to commend it.
By the way in case you’ve misinterpreted previous posts it’s the resulting reduction of scrutiny by the people rather than by levels of government that I think is an inherant weakness of political localism.
It’s levels of scrutiny now. Prior to that it was the fact it wouldn’t be real. Next it’ll be something else.
Probably better if you simply admit that you don’t like the idea in principle.
This is getting irritating.
I brought up the issue of scrutiny in my post at 5:56pm, on the 27th June.
You support a Welsh nation-state, with power concentrated at the national level – all your comments on this and earlier thread (in which scrutiny got not a mention) . It’s not a dishonourable position. Your reticence to declare your position doesn’t look sinister, it just looks odd given what else you’ve said.
Try and see around the false dichotomy
Either Political localism or centalism
CapM
Ok. I’ll try. What’s your formulation?
Here’s a definition of centralisation, in the political sense from Wiki (yes I know) that fits my understanding of the issue reasonably well.
” refers to the concentration of a government’s power – both geographically and politically, into a centralised government.”
My back of a fag packet preference would include things like
power to lie at different levels and places as appropriate to what’s being dealt with.
a simple and obvious set up where it was clear where the buck stopped regarding any issue
a mechanism where if there was dissatisfaction with the performance of any level or place appeal to a higher level was possible.
a much better system than we have now regarding communication and feedback accountability and responsibilities between levels and places and including the general public.
Where that power lies and what it’s applied to and within what parameters in applies to, to be ultimately ( ie right of veto) the decision of a higher level.
a written constitution
Implementation of above after consultation with public ( lots of) and though democratic election of a national government .
However I’m not interested in justifying or elaborating my Fag packet agenda it’s just a list of things I like the look of and which combined make it different I think from the preference of a centralist.