Is Plaid in crisis?

Bubble — By WalesHome on August 13, 2010 7:00 am

Daran Hill: the party must face up to its core problems

THE PAST few weeks and months have not been kind to Plaid. In the immediate aftermath of the General Election I wrote:

“For Plaid, last night was bleak. I’ve previously contended that Plaid just can’t do well in UK General Elections, pointing toward previous losses. But last night was their worst one yet.”

Three months later, I stand by this statement. Nor aim I alone. Richard Wyn Jones writes on the quiet crisis affecting the party in this month’s Barn and there was a consensus on a panel last Friday at the Eisteddfod between myself, Vaughn Roderick and Arwyn Jones that Plaid was facing a period of serious soul searching. Many Plaid activists in the tent to hear us nodded their heads in agreement.

Other public pronouncements have been made too, and from within the party. John Dixon, the effective former party chair, resigned that position in July and offered the following tantalising reflections on his blog:

“[the decision to resign] it isn’t as simple as just the personal and it would be dishonest of me to pretend that it is; there are some significant political reasons as well. There are a number of ways in which I feel that the party has moved, or is moving, in a direction which I cannot support, but being a national office-holder has fettered my freedom to say so.”

Even with more recent elaboration, John Dixon’s resignation points to a fundamental problem: Plaid need a frank debate about what’s gone wrong and where to go next. But to begin one will invite the usual leaks and sniping. Throw constituency and regional selections for the Assembly Elections into the mix and the situation gets even more difficult to navigate. In the world of perpetual selection and election there is simply not enough time to stop and think.

My own disbelief at Plaid’s seeming lack of reality was explained in a couple of blog posts I wrote in the week following the election. Although I look back at the second one as intemperate and regrettable now, they were borne out of a sense of exasperation at the way in which Plaid was not facing up to its electoral catastrophe. The analysis by Dr Carwyn Tywyn on this site also addressed this point:

“It would have been refreshing to hear senior Plaid spokespersons call a spade a spade on election night. Instead, they have played down Plaid’s problems, and return to the tired mantra of blaming the TV leadership debates.”

Essentially, Plaid spent most of the General Election moaning about the UK leader debates and then, in the cold light of election morning, realised they had missed the bus. The main reason the double decker sped past was the same problem that Plaid faces today: its core messages on voting for it to defend public services are the same ones used by Labour. On election day in Wales it was Labour’s version of that mantra – repeated in Buddhist chant by Peter Hain – that connected with the Welsh electorate. And judging by the recent opinion polls for ITV Wales, that remains the case.

Last week a senior elected politician from Plaid added his own voice to this contemplative narrative. Rhodri Glyn Thomas AM spoke to the Western Mail and admitted:

“People have been coming up to me on the Eisteddfod field and telling me they no longer know what Plaid stands for. I fully understand what they are saying.

“We have a very short period of time to put things right. It’s certainly the case that we failed to get a clear message across during the General Election campaign. Going on about the fact that we were excluded from the TV leadership debates is the only thing many people remember. What we need to have is a message that is distinctive from what other parties are saying.

“I think we have done a good job in government and our ministers have been impressive. The danger is that while we as a party have been very instrumental in making the Assembly a success, and getting the referendum that will hopefully be won and see the Assembly with more powers, that hasn’t necessarily translated into greater support for ourselves.”

At the Eisteddfod panel last Friday, I was asked what Plaid needed to do in order to regain its edge.  I believe the first priority for Plaid is to find different ground from Labour. You simply cannot compete with the tanks parked on that lawn. This may be frustrating for Plaid and you may be angry that the electorate is siding with them not you, but that’s the way it is.

And it shouldn’t really be the one around reforming the Barnett Formula. Yes, Plaid, you were right. What you said all along for a decade about it being unfair and unjust has been borne out not only by the Holtham Commission but also – and this is the rub – by the other three parties now agreeing with you. Yet in an age of cuts and reductions arguing for more cash is not only a difficult line to sustain, it also potentially sends out the wrong signal about Wales’ ability to fund itself. Alan Trench recently shared some pretty gobsmacking figures on Welsh tax yield through this site. Over and above them, however, is the subliminal messaging: if Plaid keep calling for more money from England, what does that say about the psychology of Welsh nationalism?

This leads onto the constitutional conservatism which Plaid has adopted in relation to the political architecture of Westminster and Whitehall. When was the last time Plaid called for anything radical to happen in terms of the representation of Welsh interests there? The most recent meeting of the Welsh Grand Committee was a farce. Plaid should be thinking about what value that body brings and acting accordingly. Similarly, not a word about the Welsh Office other than to attack the appointment of an English MP to it. They also have little to say about how the Welsh Affairs Select Committee operates now even though it’s role has evolved in influence over the last Parliament, arguably to the detriment of the Assembly. Surely there is a fuller narrative to be developed here which looks beyond how things have been done in the past and recognises that defending Welsh specific representational tools in London can sometimes be contrary to the aspirations of a nationalist party – and certainly one that wishes to be radical.

Over a decade after devolution, surely it’s time that Plaid was a lot clearer about really changing the focus of politics in every way possible away from Westminster to Wales? They even oppose the reduction in the number of Welsh MPs from 40 to 30 and do so on the same grounds as Labour – keeping a strong voice for Welsh interests in Westminster and ensuring “Wales’ special place” there. Bearing in mind what Plaid’s ultimate constitutional aims are, how on earth have they arrived at such a position? If the Assembly is accruing powers then Westminster is losing them and the current imbalance in representation should be examined. So why won’t Plaid agree to it? At least with Labour there is the additional political motivation in retaining 40 seats as any reduction in numbers will surely hit them, but the same cannot apply to Plaid as they are so poorly represented there. Based on the last two General Elections that isn’t going to change for a long time to come, either. So why adopt Labour’s line so full throatedly? Their focus needs to be on the Assembly not defending the status quo in London.

Perhaps they have become what many radical parties that find themselves in government become: risk averse. It is certainly more difficult for parties in coalition to sound different and radical when not on a government stage. But they need to do it or they will look and sound ever more like a constant adjunct of Labour. Ieuan Wyn Jones’ speech on broadcasting last week was exactly the type of clear vision statement they need and such big ideas must keep coming. But preferably not just on matters of predominant concern to Welsh speakers or they will simply be playing to the home crowd, and that crowd isn’t as large as people in Plaid kid themselves sometimes that it is.

Finally, Plaid needs to move away from the cult of personality. For as long as I have watched politics in Wales, Plaid has looked for messianic figures. The Dafydd Wigley Effect is the most potent. For decades many in the party have wrapped their ambitions in a leader who, however capable, relinquished power in his party a decade ago. Alex Salmond may have made a comeback in the SNP, but the same has not happened here. Yet the party has failed collectively to move on and even where it has done so it has pinned its political aspirations too much on individuals and not enough on policies, progress and party development. When a party does that, it is bound to falter and suffer a crisis. This is exactly what is visible to all with the decision of Adam Price not to contest an Assembly seat next year. So many in Plaid – often those not in the diehard Wigley camp – have watched and waited for their chosen saviour to appear that they have stopped thinking about the party’s direction and how it builds on impressive outcomes in the 2007 and 2008 elections.

Looking forward it is tempting to predict that Plaid’s messianic tendency will now transfer to Ron Davies, their would-be candidate in Caerphilly and the former Secretary of State for Wales. Yet his election is by no means secure and, bearing in mind Plaid’s recent efforts at electoral targeting, even less so.

A year from now Adam could be outside active politics, Wigley might be in the Lords (it’s more likely now than in recent years) and Ron might still be a member of the Caerphilly Cabinet and not the Welsh Assembly Government one. And it might well have fewer AMs than now and no electoral dividend from being in government for four years, just like the Liberal Democrats found in 2003. My impertinence doesn’t extend to offering too many positive solutions to this place of dilemmas. But my final advice would be for the party to face up to its core problems before it’s too late.

Adam Higgitt: if it ain’t broken, don’t try to fix it

Daran’s analysis of a party in sore need of a radical reappraisal is one you might expect me to enjoy or endorse. But I just don’t see it.

Yes, Plaid had a relatively poor General Election characterised by an excessive focus on its exclusion from the televised Prime Ministerial debates. Arguably, it doesn’t amount to a hill of beans that a party committed to seceding Wales from the UK can win only three rather than five seats in a Parliament of 650 odd, but I’m prepared to concede it has an effect on morale and that all-important sense of momentum.

Secondly, Daran is right to suggest that focusing on the reform of Barnett as a main campaign would be a mistake from here. Plaid’s existing message – that it wants the best fiscal settlement for Wales in lieu of independence – may have a logic to it, but to voters the appearance of Plaid asking for more money merely underscores a sense that a separate Welsh state could not stand on its own two feet. Any self-respecting nationalist party should as a minimum argue for self-sufficiency for its nation – not in the medium nor long-term, but ASAP.

Daran argues that Plaid must escape from Labour’s policy shadow, but this is surely a forlorn hope in an arena where the action is almost entirely focussed on the mainstream centre-left. Being more radical and less safe in this context means becoming more extreme and harder left. The Welsh electorate has seldom rewarded such lurches; in 1983 Labour was punished more resolutely in Wales than anywhere else for such a leftward tilt. More persuasively, Labour’s success in Wales was not built upon the espousal of class politics, but on sensible, practical and moderate policies for working people. To vacate this fertile territory (if indeed such a manoeuvre is possible within the confines of block grant devolved lawmaking) would surely be a route to marginalisation, despite an arguably more revolutionary air to politics than some time.

Propping up Labour always came with a risk for Plaid, namely that it would vanish from view: neither the voice of opposition nor the face of government. This now seems to have prompted a minor panic within Plaid ranks as it approaches the Assembly elections. Why? The party is unlikely to go backwards from here and may well emerge with an increased tally, even if Labour’s support ticks upwards once more. More fundamentally, the overall mission is surely still on track. One Wales has delivered the referendum, and therefore the only chance of upgrading the Assembly to a Parliament. Before that is even secure, the party has begun to talk of the next wave of devolution, and will be able to play this more forcefully into the debate during the next Assembly term. And now fiscal autonomy, or at least fiscal responsiveness, is on the agenda.

In every way that matters the meta-debate is about how to widen and deepen Welsh autonomy. Plaid’s long-held incremental approach can be said to be working – even if there is nothing yet secured nor mooted that any good devolutionist should feel uncomfortable with. Moreover, faced with an opposition still in disarray about its own vision for a modern federal state, the gradual loosening of Britain appears unmistakable and almost inexorable. The forces that have shaped the world over the past two decades, from a deepening EU to the collapse of the old Soviet empire and to increased mobility, communications and cosmopolitanism all lend credibility to the notion that the strong European plurinational state has had its day. The frailties in the alternative vision, meanwhile, go unexplored and un-probed.

Within this broader, if for some in frustratingly slow, progress Plaid’s acquiescence in Parliament is trivial – and may even be helpful as it serves to underscore a rational and moderate approach that voters prefer to risky looking and sectarian sounding grandstanding. Another source of Plaid angst is that it goes into the elections without its leader-in-waiting, Adam Price. Yet in Ieuan Wyn Jones the party boasts a much greater asset than it seems willing to admit – a pragmatic centrist capable of earning the respect of the people and cementing for Plaid a reputation as a competent party of government. Of course he lacks the baritonal oratory of Adam Price or Dafydd Wigley, but this is a nice-to-have feature once the basics are in place. It is not a prerequisite, and should not be confused for real leadership.

How then to forge these elements into a coherent political strategy? Plaid appears anxious that it must be seen to extract something juicy from Labour as a price for One Wales Mk II, should that option commend itself next May. This might be useful from the perspective of internal management, but it is hardly so in terms of the overall mission. A second coalition in which the Assembly adjusts to becoming a Parliament, and puts flesh on the bones of the case for more devolution, including of a fiscal nature, represents excellent progress on the incremental path. Ieuan Wyn Jones is ideally placed to see through this second term of Labour coalition, at which time the party can either anoint a returned Mr Price, or skip a generation and go for someone like Nerys Evans, who by that time should be an experienced Minister. It is quite possible that by 2015 or thereabouts, the UK’s economic situation will have improved such that calls for proper fiscal reform of the devolved settlement will be difficult to answer. Instead of seeking a big step forward in each term, it may make more sense for Plaid to think in terms of cycles of perhaps two or more terms. It will be very difficult to make the case for more devolution in the next term, before law making powers have really been tested, but fast-forward the clock a few years and such a call could have much more credibility, especially if the Senedd has used its new competence well.

The problem with this approach it is that it represents a means to advance the Welsh polity, rather than Plaid Cymru. But that, surely, is a more important objective to Plaid, and the alternative – supplanting Labour as the largest party in Wales – now looks a more difficult mission for as long as the Lib-Con coalition holds the reins. Daran suggests that Plaid faces a dilemma, but the real choice confronting it is between advancing nation or party. For Plaid, this should be no dilemma at all.

Tags: 2010 General Election, 2011 Assembly elections, Ieuan Wyn Jones, Plaid Cymru, Rhodri Glyn Thomas, Welsh Assembly Government