An Opportunity for Wales

Ben Wildsmith

As voters went to the polls in Makerfield yesterday, with the immediate future of UK politics in their gift, a story emerged in Wales that was representative of why they were there.

After a catastrophic loss for Labour in the Caerphilly by-election last year, you might have thought that regaining trust in Wales would have been a priority for the government. Instead, as the Senedd elections approached, Labour appeared to have given up on us as a lost cause.

Having been unchallenged since the Pleistocene Epoch, Labour just faded away with a shrug, as if losing its most loyal powerbase was of no consequence.

Yesterday, it emerged that Keir Starmer had been unable to fix a date for a planned first meeting with Rhun ap Iorweth as First Minister. Several dates had been offered for a meeting to discuss the constitutional settlement for Wales, but none were taken up.

Last night’s result suggests it would have been a waste of the First Minister’s time.

Wasting time has been the defining frustration of Keir Starmer’s premiership. As his first months in charge unfolded, the electorate was left wondering when something was going to happen.

The impression grew that his team had not planned beyond the winning of an election and the ‘surprise’ discovery of a huge hole in public finances seemed as implausible as it was expedient. As he played for time, the fragile goodwill upon which Labour had come to power evaporated into a fog of U-turns, missteps, and Mandelsonian politicking.

Starmer’s inability to communicate a case for himself as a force for change allowed Nigel Farage to assume that role and project an air of inevitability to his eventual accession to Number 10.

The idea that a peasant army of disgruntled, provincial types was rising was great copy for the media. Each electoral test was breathlessly reported as the potential fulcrum upon which Reform rebalance politics.

It hasn’t happened, though. Reform has now lost six by-elections in a row, and it is polling nationally at 27%, which is below the figure that Michael Foot’s Labour Party achieved in 1983.

The notion that average voters are convinced there is a knife-wielding immigrant behind every lamp post has, repeatedly, been debunked at the ballot box. The persistence of this nonsense in the media reveals that too many high-profile journalists are algorithmically deranged into swallowing stereotypes about people who live in areas they never visit.

They appear at by-elections as if parachuted into a far-flung tribal conflict. Perhaps we should sacrifice one to a local deity next time.

In meaningful elections, the electorate has expressed a consistent response to its disappointment with Keir Starmer. That is to find the most viable candidate to the left of Starmer and vote accordingly, regardless of which rosette that candidate wears.

From Plaid’s Lindsay Whittle in Caerphilly to the Greens’ Hannah Spencer in Gorton & Denton voters rewarded a clear progressive ethos if it was expressed by a local candidate who spoke to them like a human being.

Starmer

Now, in Makerfield, Andy Burnham has proven that Starmer’s unpopularity is not fatal to Labour as long as the party behaves in the way its voters hoped it would.

The scale of Burnham’s victory last night – outpolling Reform and Restore combined with a majority of 7000 – should see him propelled into Number 10 very quickly, perhaps by this time next week.

Labour MPs will see the potential salvation of their careers in those numbers and will not be in the mood to entertain any clinging on from Starmer or a challenge from Wes Streeting. There is, however, an old joke to consider. ‘A Blairite, a Brownite, and a Corbynite walk into a pub. “What are you having, Andy?” the landlord asks.’

If Burnham’s principles have seemed suspiciously flexible to this point in his career, now is the moment that he must define them clearly and demonstrate what they mean for the future of the UK.

His campaign in Makerfield suggested that his modus operandi as PM would be to scale up solutions he’s implemented in Manchester and devolve the engine of decision-making away from central government.

If he remains true to this ambition, disaffected Labour voters might begin to see something of Labour’s past that has been lost. The NHS, we should remember, was taken from Tredegar to Westminster by Nye Bevan.

Labour’s evolution into a centralising force has resulted in a perceived remoteness which has alienated the party from the communities it was founded to serve.

Embarrassing

Here in Wales, Labour’s Westminster contingent, which is currently predicted to disappear at the next election, has behaved as if devolution is an embarrassing sideshow from which they must distance themselves. Jo Stevens’ occasional interventions in Welsh affairs tend to arrive as instructions from the mother country to a restive colony. If Burnham is to be consequential then reversing this instinct in his party is crucial.

To counter accusations of opportunism, Burnham’s campaign in Makerfield was understandably focussed on regenerating and empowering ‘the north’, of which he is monarch.

As Prime Minister, that ambition is only credible if extended across the UK and this offers a rare opportunity for the Welsh government to align with a prevailing attitude in Westminster. It would be perverse for Burnham to argue that powers he enjoyed as Mayor of Manchester, such as policing, should be denied to Wales.

A constitutional revamp of the UK, which sees English regions receiving unprecedented autonomy, would be indefensible unless Wales enjoys a commensurate upgrade in its governmental clout.

Parity

Plaid Cymru, unencumbered by party management from London, is free to argue for national parity with Scotland as an immediate objective.

Keir Starmer finding no time to meet with our First Minister was an overlooked story in UK politics yesterday. It was, however, emblematic of why his leadership has been rejected by so many.

Politics can be done by us, and with us in a fairly constituted nation, it must not be done to us.

If Andy Burnham is to succeed as Prime Minister, it will because he finds space in his diary for the people who paid for it.