Burnham’s watered-down coffee

Phyl Griffiths, Chair of YesCymru

Ain’t devolution fun! Yes, terrific fun, especially as we await the coronation of Burnham, the king of the North. North of England, obviously.

But, devolution is not a party, or an event. It is a process – a journey that, once begun, is extraordinarily difficult to reverse.

You can slow it down, you can muddy the waters, you can pretend it was all a misunderstanding, or even hint at it being a mistake. But you cannot simply put the genie back in the bottle.

Across Europe, and especially on these islands, devolution has acted less like a tap that can be turned on and off, and more like a current that gathers strength the further it flows.

Let’s Dish Out Some Powers

To understand where we are, we have to go back to the 1990s, when Westminster decided – in its infinite generosity – to gift some powers to Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Gift is, of course, the operative word. This was not about recognising sovereignty or democratic maturity; it was about management. Control. Containment.

Northern Ireland was the key. For the Good Friday Agreement to work, the north needed a degree of autonomy – a strange, colloid-like state of being neither fully subsumed within the UK nor part of the Republic of Ireland. A delicate suspension, designed to hold peace in place. But this could not exist in isolation. So Westminster, ever the master strategist, decided to kill two or three birds with one stone.

Scotland was getting restless. Wales was beginning to find its voice. Better, Westminster thought, to build a mechanism that might secure peace in Ireland, appease the Scots, and, as a little cherry on the cake, offer Wales just enough power to keep the question contained. And oh, were we happy! Dancing in the streets we were. Institutions! A whiff of responsibility! The bar was low, but the celebrations were genuine.

Unionists were happy too. After all, what threat could this pose? The mighty muscular unionism of crown and military, of Team GB, Broadcasting House, jubilees and war commemoration street parties would surely keep the national voices of Wales and Scotland firmly in check. Devolution, they told themselves, was a pressure valve, not a pathway.

Everyone was happy. Or so they thought.

Baby Steps Grow Up to Confident Strides

And then something unexpected happened. Devolution became real.

The Celts – on the whole – loved it. They found a voice. They voted for more powers within a few short years. They discovered a fundamental truth that Westminster has always struggled to accept: the best form of democracy is the one closest to home.

Confidence grew. In Scotland, it grew to the point where a referendum on independence was not only conceivable, but winnable. It was close. Very close. Then the pandemic hit.

For the first time in living memory, borders mattered again. Many people looked around and realised they were relieved to be on this side of the line, under a government that exercised greater caution. It was a far cry from the chaos over the border, where a Westminster government managed to turn a pandemic into a pandemonium.

Here in Wales, something stirred too. Voices grew louder. A mass movement was born. People who had never thought of themselves as radicals began to contemplate the final leap. Independence stopped being an abstract idea and started to feel like a practical question.

And that, of course, is when the panic set in.

Watering Down

Ah yes – devolution. That curious concept that means very different things depending on where you happen to be standing.

Which brings us neatly to the latest chapter in this long-running constitutional drama. Andy Burnham, Westminster’s prime-minister-in-waiting, has made devolution the centrepiece of his political vision. A “rewired Britain”, they call it. Power flowing out of London. A No. 10 North. Metro Mayors. City Regions. Local empowerment.

On the surface, it all sounds familiar. Indeed, many of us have spent decades arguing precisely for the principle that decisions should be taken closer to the people affected by them.

But look a little closer and a different picture begins to emerge.

Because for Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, devolution is not simply a question of administrative efficiency. It is constitutional. It is national. It is about the recognition that these countries are political communities in their own right, with democratic institutions that exist for a reason.

Yet increasingly, the message coming from parts of Westminster appears to be that power should leapfrog those institutions altogether. Not Cardiff. Not Edinburgh. Not Belfast. Instead, straight to councils, local authorities and regional bodies.

As Richard Wyn Jones recently observed, there are those around Burnham who would rather work directly with local authorities than strengthen the Senedd or Holyrood. In the context of Wales and Scotland, that is not an extension of devolution at all. It is something else entirely. It is an attempt to redefine devolution so that national institutions become merely one layer among many rather than the democratic expression of a nation.

And there it is again.

Café para todos

In Spain, there is a phrase: “Café para todos.” Coffee for everyone. It describes the tactic of offering the same treatment to all parties in order to please – or, more accurately, to neutralise – everyone equally.

If national devolution creates confidence, dilute it. If national institutions acquire authority, bypass them. If Wales and Scotland begin to think and act as nations, scatter power so widely that national politics becomes only one voice in a crowded room.

Of course, none of this is presented as a rollback. Nobody talks about taking powers away. That would be politically impossible. Instead, powers are dispersed, fragmented and redistributed until the original purpose of devolution begins to blur around the edges.

Coffee for everyone.

A mayor here. A combined authority there. A local board somewhere else. Everybody gets a cup.

But history has a habit of disappointing those who mistake management for resolution.

Because once people begin making decisions for themselves, they do not suddenly lose interest in who governs them. Once a nation develops democratic confidence, it rarely volunteers to become a region again. And once people have tasted agency – real agency – they do not forget the flavour.

No matter how many cups of watered-down coffee are poured.