Get lost, Rob Roberts! Why disgraced MP’s bid to scrap the Senedd is itself a disgrace

Martin Shipton

Why is Wales uniquely ridden with a minority of individuals who want to dismantle our democracy every time the Welsh Government makes a decision they disagree with?

Partly, of course, because they are led by the nose by politicians who should know better.

The latest politician to jump on this disreputable bandwagon is the odious Rob Roberts, the Tory MP for Delyn. He’s a man who shouldn’t even be in Parliament. In 2021 he was suspended from the Commons for six weeks for repeatedly sexually harassing a male member of his staff who was left feeling “shocked” and “horrified”.

But because Roberts was suspended by an independent panel rather than a parliamentary committee, a legal loophole meant he was not subject to a recall petition – which would likely have led to a by-election in his constituency.

Angered by Roberts’ political survival, MPs voted to change the rules so members suspended for offences including sexual harassment or bullying can now face a recall petition. However, they voted against Labour’s proposal to make the rule changes retrospective, meaning they couldn’t be applied to Roberts.

Now, doubtless in a desperate – and hopefully vain – attempt to revive his career, the man has the effrontery to propose a referendum intended to result in the Senedd’s abolition. Announcing his plan on Facebook – arguably the sure sign of a charlatan – Roberts stated: “This morning I have emailed the House of Commons Public Bill Office to ask them to assist me in drafting legislation which will provide for a referendum to be held asking the very simple question: ‘Should the Welsh Senedd remain in place, or be abolished?’ It is my intention to present this Bill to Parliament in the new session after the King’s Speech.”

The disgraced MP described devolution in Wales as a “failed experiment” that had “run its course and should come to an end. Enough is enough.”

20mph speed limit 

Roberts is doing this on the back of the furore over the introduction of the default 20mph speed limit on restricted roads – an issue which has led to a sprinkling of other calls on social media channels for the end of devolution in Wales.

The people involved have been banging the same drum for years. They are mostly from the hard right, and in many cases are also Brexiteers, anti-lockdown, anti-vaxxers, anti-migrant and hostile to the Welsh language.

I can’t think of anywhere else in the world where people actively campaign to abolish their own democracy. Many countries have authoritarian regimes that people would love to be rid of, but don’t have the means to achieve that, usually because the power structures and weapons are controlled by the oppressors. It’s absolutely perverse to argue that a democratic national institution which holds regular elections should be scrapped. If people are disenchanted with a government in a democracy, they have the opportunity to vote them out at the next election. But we still have a minority that doesn’t accept that. Why?

There are, I think, two main reasons. Firstly, many on the right are frustrated that as things stand there is little prospect of them ever winning power at the Senedd. They can’t stand the fact that left-wing parties have a majority that seems impregnable.

It wasn’t necessarily always thus, of course. In 2007 a Plaid Cymru / Tory / Lib Dem coalition very nearly formed an administration. But today, after approaching a decade and a half of largely regressive policies at Westminster and with a Tory Senedd group led by a dinosaur, the immediate prospect of such a coalition being formed again is non-existent.

Self-hatred

Secondly, there is a minority group in Wales that seems to thrive on what can be characterised as self-hatred. I explored this phenomenon a few years ago in a book I wrote about George Thomas, a former Secretary of State for Wales and Speaker of the House of Commons.

Thomas moved to the right as his career progressed, becoming not simply a sycophant to the royal family but a creature of Margaret Thatcher when she was Prime Minister and he was Speaker. He had a pathological hatred of the Welsh language, arguably having its roots in the fact that his Welsh-speaking father abandoned his mother for another woman.

Thomas was also a rabid anti-devolutionist as well as a Brexiteer. Despite presenting himself as a professional Welshman, he in fact opposed any question of self-government for Wales. He died four days after the 1997 referendum that narrowly gave the green light to the establishment of a National Assembly.

Thomas represented a shameful tradition of anti-Welshness within Wales that had existed for many centuries. Wales’ position as England’s oldest colony and its subsequent incorporation into a British union meant that its people’s relationship with power was not straightforward.

Never a united country, the death of Wales’ last native prince Llywelyn ap Gruffudd in 1282 ended what remained of it as a separate political entity. Llywelyn himself was killed as a result of an ambush perpetrated by noblemen related to him by blood and marriage – an early example of collaboration with the English that amounted to treachery.

Many members of the Welsh gentry enthusiastically joined the English armed forces, seeing it as a means of advancement for people denied progression in their own country.

When Owain Glyndwr undertook his rebellion a little more than a century after Llywelyn’s death, the support he gained in Wales was by no means universal and a large proportion of those fighting against him were Welsh. After the rebellion was defeated, and Henry V went to Normandy to fight the French, many of his captains and infantry were Welsh. It was the skill of Welsh bowmen that was most decisive in Henry’s victory at Agincourt.

Material advantage

To escape the harsh penal laws that affected Welshmen, those wishing to make their way in the world gave up rebellion and bought what were known as letters of denizenship which declared them to be English. Rejecting Welshness therefore became associated with seeking and obtaining material advantage.

Centuries later the satirical poet and balladeer John Jones, known more widely by his bardic name Jac Glan-y-gors, devised and mocked the character Dic Sion Dafydd, who in his desperation to ingratiate himself with the English rejected the Welsh language and Welsh culture.

In his rousing anthem Yma o Hyd, which celebrates the survival of Welsh against all the odds, Dafydd Iwan alludes to “Dic Sion Dafydds”, the Welsh equivalent of an Uncle Tom.

Mostly the Dic Sion Dafydds have been consigned to history, but they’re still around, trying to persuade the people of Wales that they would be better off run without mediation by the kind of Westminster government whose corruption became rampant during the Covid era.

No thank you, Rob Roberts.