Have the Senedd parties an answer to Reform’s rust belt politics?
Jonathan Edwards
This week’s whirlwind visit to Port Talbot by Reform leader Nigel Farage gave a clear indication how the next year in Welsh politics will develop.
Mr Farage will swan into Wales with the UK media entourage in tow, make some bold statements and disappear back over the border after dispatching a stun grenade leaving the other parties dazed and confused.
The promise this week to reindustrialise south Wales was of course completely cynical, opportunistic, illiterate and has been eviscerated by commentators such as Owen Williams in Nation.
I won’t rehearse his arguments which were put more artfully than I could hope to achieve, but his points are completely valid and are a must read.
President Trump
The speech by Mr Farage was straight out of the rust belt politics employed by President Trump and completely foreseeable. Its main significance however was to place the economy front and centre of the forthcoming election campaign and to be perfectly frank the response of the current Senedd parties was far from convincing.
Reform has taken a position on the economy that prises open a gaping wound – namely the failure of economic policy in the former coalfield areas of the south of our country since the employment associated with heavy industry was lost.
Port Talbot was the obvious location for the speech by Farage as the closure of the blast furnaces in the town was the final act in an economic story that has plagued the Valleys for decades.
Past glories
Reform will fight the election promising a return to past glories, offering meaning to Valley communities instead of being commuter suburbs to Cardiff or Bristol. I would include Swansea here but the neglect of our second city by the government of our country is another story. The question is, what exactly is the policy answer of Reform’s opponents?
Plaid Cymru Cllr Rhys Mills in these pages wrote despairingly last month about the failure of successive Welsh governments when it came to overturning the economic fortunes of our post-industrial communities. He described the last 25 years as ‘managed decline masked as maturity’. This is the perception that Reform hopes to capitalise upon over the next 12 months and use as the foundation for its politics in the Senedd in the next term.
Looking at the quotes provided to the BBC in response by Labour, Plaid Cymru, Conservatives and the Lib Dems they may as well have been written by the same press spokesperson, attacking along the lines of ‘empty promises’ and ‘fantasy costings’. This is of course the case, but Reform will be delighted to create a division line of them against the rest, especially when their opponents failed to respond with one alternative policy proposal.
Timely
In this context therefore the Comprehensive Spending Review announcement of a 10 year £445m rail funding package for Wales was timely. Equating it to HS2 was understandable politics by Labour though misses the point completely about how HS2 impacts on the overall departmental comparability factor which is so damaging to Wales.
I would far prefer the full HS2 consequentials and a 100% Statement of Funding rating to an ad-hoc payment if I was a Welsh Government Minister. The announcement does at least give Labour Senedd hopefuls an opportunity to don their hard helmets and announce some projects to build a narrative that Wales is on the go.
At the end of the day, the only way to defeat the snake oil on offer by Reform is for the current Senedd parties to promote their own visions with a more credible solution to the deep social and economic problems faced in post-industrial Wales. A failure to respond positively could lead to the debate on the economy in Wales being framed on the chosen battleground determined by Mr Farage.
Jonathan Edwards was the MP for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr 2010-24
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Spot on, namesake. I can’t spell out fully-worked out plans, but I can dream for Wales. We’d need a group of individuals of far higher calibre than we get in Cardiff Bay We’d need access to very large amounts of capital, more than England will supply to us. We’d need talent and we’d need vision. (As Wales did have a generation or two ago). Deep breath – here goes. Steel – restart virgin steel making at Port Talbot using a small nuclear reactor for the energy. Plans do exist. Airport – look again at Severnside/Llanwern, to take over from Cardiff… Read more »
Unless you are going to lie your backside off and promise the moon, you will fall flat when the press give this bunch of grifters credit.
If reform get in, Wales is stuffed. The other partied need to work together and not use reform to attack each other. Looking at you Plaid and Labour and Libs and Green.
On his visit to Port Talbot, in South Wales renowned for its steel industry, Nigel Farage engaged with the local community to address socio-economic concerns. His discussions with steelworkers centred on issues of employment stability and the challenges associated with post-Brexit trade agreements. Mr Farage advocated for the protection of British industries and underscored the need for increased investment in domestic manufacturing. During a public forum held at the Port Talbot Civic Centre, Mr Farage interacted with a diverse group of attendees, including residents, business leaders, and community representatives. Topics of discussion included trade agreements, tariffs, and policies aimed at… Read more »
Seems the only thing farage didn’t propose was unicorns, Jonathon Edwards stated that reform have focused on a gaping wound, namely the economic failure of the valley communities since de-industrialisation, fair point but farages only real idea was to drag Cymru back to the past with the type of industrial set up that the rest of the world is leaving behind in the quest to modernise. You state that farage discussed challenges associated with post brexit trade agreements, tariffs etc plus ensuring that trade agreements post brexit are fair & beneficial to critical sectors such as steel. Farage knew all… Read more »
Quite. His suggestions were disingenuous, and, I suspect, intentionally so. The blast furnaces at Port Talbot, having been shut down, are now full of solidified s**g which I understand simply can’t be ‘cleaned out’. So presumably they would have to be demolished and then rebuilt from scratch. The cost would be vast, Tata and not the state owns them, and Tata have already made their own decision about the viability of the Port Talbot works. The Welsh government lacks the powers to nationalize it and no conceivable UK government would ever do it – especially given the current economic state… Read more »
The answer to the question posed is clearly “No”. They have spent 35-40 years looking for it.
The only way we are going to boost our economy is for Wales to have full wealth creating autonomy. This means real innovation, white collar jobs, and not just roles that most people don’t want. How does Farage plan to tackle Wales’ brain drain? Its not just Reform, Labour wasted millions of EU structural funding on factories, warehouses, call centres, and a statue of a Welsh dragon in Ebbw Vale. I’m not criticizing anyone who works in those roles but these industries are not make us self-sufficient as a nation.