Creating space for progressive debate in Wales

Ahead of the launch of ‘Progressive Voices Cymru’, former First Minister Mark Drakeford sets out the thinking behind a new forum for ideas, argument and progressive debate about Wales – bringing together voices from across political, civic, economic and cultural life.

There is a habit in British political writing of treating “mainstream” and “radical” as opposites. Anything genuinely ambitious must, by definition, be marginal. Anything capable of commanding broad public support must therefore be modest.

Wales is a standing refutation of that idea.

This is the country that produced Nye Bevan and the political tradition from which a health service free at the point of need was built. It abolished prescription charges. It made the wellbeing of future generations a legal duty of government. It became the first part of the UK to introduce presumed consent for organ donation and committed itself to becoming a Nation of Sanctuary.

None of those ideas belonged on the political fringe in Wales. They were radical. They commanded broad support. And, in several cases, they helped influence debate well beyond our borders.

So when we describe ‘Progressive Voices Cymru’ as radical, progressive and firmly within the Welsh political mainstream, we are not trying to have it both ways. In Wales, those things can belong together. Bold politics and popular politics are not the alternatives we are sometimes told they are.

But progressive politics does not take place in a vacuum. Ideas eventually have to meet institutions, governments and, inevitably, political parties. That question has run throughout the history of devolution.

Almost twenty years ago, Labour and Plaid Cymru came together to form the One Wales Government. Leanne Wood and I were both involved in making that agreement possible and sustaining it across a full Senedd term.

We did not stop belonging to different political traditions. We certainly did not suddenly agree about everything. On the constitutional future of Wales alone, that would have been impossible. But we found sufficient common ground to govern together and to deliver things which mattered.

It is worth asking what made that possible, what made it difficult, and what lessons – if any – can be carried into the very different political circumstances Wales faces today.

The new Senedd electoral system has produced a new political landscape. No party has a majority. Plaid Cymru leads the Government. Reform UK has a substantial presence. Longstanding arguments about Wales’s constitutional future have become more immediate.

At the same time, the practical business of politics continues. Budgets have to be agreed, public services have to function and difficult decisions about the economy, care, housing, energy and the future of our communities still have to be made.

Those circumstances raise difficult questions.

How far can parties with different constitutional ambitions work together on the Wales they want to build today? What should cooperation between progressive parties look like when cooperation may be necessary but disagreement remains genuine?

How should established political parties respond to the growth of a political force such as Reform? And where might common ground be found on the practical questions facing Wales now – from public services, care and the economy to democratic reform, public ownership, energy and Wales’s relationship with Europe?

Asking those questions is not an argument for collapsing political differences. Nor is it an argument for a permanent coalition.

Politics needs disagreement. Elections need choices. Political parties exist precisely because people have different analyses of the problems we face and different ideas about their solutions.

The purpose of ‘Progressive Voices Cymru’ is not to make those differences disappear. It is to create somewhere they can be examined properly.

That means bringing together people from different political traditions and from none: from politics and public life, business and the third sector, trade unions, academia, public services, culture and communities across Wales.

Some contributors will have spent decades in public life. Others may never have entered a committee room. What matters is that they have an argument worth making and something useful to contribute.

We want to hear from people building businesses, running charities, delivering public services, campaigning for change, researching problems, making art and working in communities. And we want to hear from people whose authority comes not from a title or institution, but from experience.

National conversation

A serious national conversation cannot be conducted entirely between people who already know one another – still less between people who already agree. That breadth will inevitably produce disagreement, and that is part of the point.

Progressive politics should be confident enough to accommodate disagreement within the progressive tradition and serious enough to learn from it.

What we do share is an outlook: a belief in a more equal, confident and outward-looking Wales; in democracy and devolution; in the dignity and belonging of the people who live here; and in the possibility that politics can still improve people’s lives.

We are interested, too, in the ways in which new ideas and practical politics meet – the place that ends in something changing for somebody. That also means being forensic about why change does not always happen.

Budgets are limited. Powers are constrained. Political compromise is real. Public services are under pressure. Policies can have unintended consequences. And, sometimes, governments simply get things wrong.

Realism

‘Progressive Voices Cymru’ should be somewhere those realities can be examined honestly, bringing together the people who make policy, the people who deliver it and the people who live with its consequences.

But realism must never become an excuse for timidity.

We want to understand why some ideas succeeded and others stalled, while making space for new arguments about what Wales should do next. That means looking beyond the immediate news cycle.

Some of the biggest questions facing Wales will not be settled this year, or even during this Senedd term. Some of the most important pieces we publish may be about the Wales of 2040 rather than the politics of next Wednesday.

We will look outward too – wanting to learn from countries, cities and regions confronting challenges similar to our own. And we will return repeatedly to the big questions facing Wales: democracy, the economy, public services, inequality, climate, children and future generations, communities, language and culture.

There are no predetermined answers and there is no approved programme. There is instead a wider conversation about the country we want Wales to become.

Cooperation

‘Progressive Voices Cymru’ is not a party publication. It belongs to no single individual or organisation. Its purpose is to bring together people who might not otherwise find themselves in the same discussion; to explore where cooperation is possible without disguising where disagreement remains; and to give serious progressive ideas the time and space they deserve.

We will not always agree, and nor should we. But we can make the argument better, widen the range of people taking part and, every so often, change the conversation altogether.

None of this will happen without contributors – people who have ideas, and who are willing to share them. The launch is a call to anyone, in the progressive tradition, who has something to say: come and be part of the debates.

Subscribe at progressivevoicescymru.substack.com

Mark Drakeford served as First Minister of Wales from 2018 to 2024.

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