Independence By Evolution

Ben Wildsmith

The paradox for politicians is that their desire to shape society will always run into the demands of circumstance.

Who knows what great ideas Neville Chamberlain had for governing Britain through the 1940s? What would have become of Churchill had a vacancy not unexpectedly arisen for a booze-fuelled psychopath with a good line in motivational speaking?

Whatever politicians bring to the table will, at best, compete with existing matters for attention, and, at worst, sink under the demands of crises.

The rapid adaptation of core principles to address new circumstances is what marks out politicians of distinction.

New circumstances are heading to UK politics at speed, and for Plaid Cymru that will require a change of approach.

Electoral gains

Concerns about the rise of Reform UK have rumbled on for years now. Whilst a minority of commentators have insisted that the party represents a serious threat to our way of life, that threat has yet to manifest in meaningful electoral gains.

Talk of Nigel Farage becoming Prime Minister has been dismissed as alarmist by many, as if discussion of the possibility would conjure it in to being.

The Conservatives seem to have given up the ghost entirely. With the majority of their known figures quitting politics altogether, the remaining rump is dominated by concerns over whether to capitulate to Farage or attempt to oppose him.

Labour, meanwhile, is aggressively pursuing Reform voters with rhetoric about deportations, a socially conservative position on gender, and tough line on disability benefits.

According to leading pollster Sir John Curtice, in today’s Independent, fewer than half of voters intend to vote Labour or Conservative in the English local and mayoral elections next week.

If this turns out to be accurate, then it is time to accept that UK politics, in common with America’s, has entered a new era.

The Labour victory last year was aided by Reform’s capture of Conservative voters. As Curtice explains, that may turn out to be of short-lived comfort to Keir Starmer.

“The problem for Labour now is that whereas Reform, at 15 per cent, was great news for Keir Starmer, because it murdered the Tories and enabled a Labour Party with just 35 per cent of the vote to [win the general election], Reform at 25 per cent – at the same level as Labour – are in a position to take loads of Labour seats.”

Hull

John Prescott’s Labour stronghold in Hull is predicted to fall to Reform and the implication there is that no post-industrial areas can be taken for granted any more.

The English political scene is dangerously imbalanced. With Labour tacking to the right, and the Lib Dems positioning to inherit the rural Tory vote, that leaves only the Greens to challenge from the left.

Culturally, the Greens are in no position to appeal in traditional Labour seats that are now flirting with Reform.

Whilst popular in some metropolitan areas, the party has no grounding in places like Hull. For this reason, Reform UK can pose as the sole radical alternative to the status quo.

In Wales, however, the picture is different. Plaid Cymru is established, to differing extents, across the nation and is recognised by the electorate as being to the left of Labour.

To succeed, however, will require the party to reimagine its purpose in Welsh politics. Central to this is recognising that Labour is becoming a toxic brand.

Benefit cuts

For Plaid to prosper in the new landscape, it needs to condemn the new Labour Party of benefit cuts, xenophobic rhetoric, and sabre rattling. It should rule out ever entering into a formal agreement with it and resolve to govern as a minority if necessary.

The Reform UK wave is clearly a very real phenomenon in some areas of Wales, including the Rhondda where I live.

Plaid’s task is to embody a distinct Welsh, political identity that includes the socially just instincts that have been abandoned by Labour in recent years.

If England has no political party to stand up for pensioners and the disabled, then shame on it. Plaid’s ambition should be to expose Labour’s ideological vacuum and step into that space as the natural party of government in Wales.

The defining of a new, distinctly Welsh approach to politics in the Trumpian age could have far-reaching repercussions.

The politicians of Plaid have traditionally sought to shape Welsh life by promoting independence. It could be that, in response to circumstances, independence comes about by evolution and a patriotic insistence on decency.