Is Wales ungovernable?

Jonathan Edwards

In the lead-up to the Senedd election I wrote a series of articles considering the likely governing options and gave each one a stability rating.

Considering the polls in advance of the election and the statements of the soon-to-be First Minister Rhun ap Iorwerth, that he favoured a Plaid minority administration if the party did not achieve a majority, I gave much thought to the problems such an arrangement would face.

I will not rehearse those arguments in detail here, but I concluded that the Welsh Government would be inherently unstable, primarily as it would find itself at the mercy of its opponents to pass Budget and legislative measures.

There were particular dangers in relying on Labour votes alone to win key votes, considering that they would more than likely be more concerned about the existential threat faced by their party in our country as opposed to ensuring that the governance of Wales was functioning.

Even so, I didn’t expect Labour to make such a bold statement as witnessed this week with the big vote on the Supplementary Budget. Following their humiliating result in May, I expected Labour to lick their wounds, introspect and regroup before asserting their influence on the seventh Senedd.

To be clear, the Supplementary Budget vote is not a major occasion – it’s normally something that “goes through on the nod”, with the big manoeuvrings kept for the actual Budget.

In voting down the Supplementary Budget, Labour have placed a line in the sand that they are not going to do anything to help the new Welsh Government and that they are going to take a purely oppositionist role.

So much for the new politics of Welsh devolution: this is pure Westminster tactics and potentially has huge ramifications for Welsh politics going forward – especially considering that the voting system employed for Senedd elections makes it virtually impossible for a majority government to be formed.

Whether or not this is wise from Labour is for others to fight over the narrative. However, it seems obvious to me that the non-politically engaged are more likely to blame the governing party for not being able to implement its programme, as opposed to the opposition, and I suspect this would have been a major factor in the thinking of the Labour Party.

Considering that they must have known they were going to lose I am surprised that the Welsh Government did not pull the vote. What could have been contained to a Cardiff Bay bubble story is now a full-blown national crisis for the government of our country.

Gone are the days, therefore, of a quarter of century in which Plaid Cymru has effectively enabled a Labour-run Welsh Government.

Unless I am very mistaken, we are living in a new political environment in the Senedd. The only solution would be for the Welsh Government to come to some sort of arrangement with Labour, but matters may already be too sour between both sides for such an accommodation, and I detect no appetite from Labour that they want to make life easy for Plaid Cymru in return for a few financial and legislative concessions. In short, Welsh Government ministers should be very worried.

Count Binface

The one ray of light for Plaid might be the troubles facing Reform.

To indicate how quickly politics can change, I wrote only a few weeks ago that Mr Farage had a Teflon-like ability to avoid damage to his dubious financial dealings. Perhaps it was a case of a commentator’s curse, and if so, long may it continue, as Mr Farage now finds himself fighting a head-to-head by-election against Count Binface. If he prevails, he will then probably face immediate suspension from the House of Commons, a recall, and another by-election.

Instead of looking like a Prime Minister in waiting, his credibility is clearly severely damaged.

Can he recover – who knows? – but the odds are shortening that he may leave politics altogether.

This does provide a semblance of hope for the Welsh Government, leaving aside the argument that a semi credible British unionist right wing threat gives Welsh nationalism something to polarise against. If Reform plummet in the polls, Reform MSs who thought they had banked four years of a nice salary and pension contributions beyond the dreams of most working people, might think twice about bringing down the Welsh Government and forcing a snap Senedd poll.

I think we will find, come future big Budget and legislative programme votes, that sufficient Reform MSs might not be on active Senedd duty.

Regardless, what concerns me over the long term is that in deciding to take a purely oppositionist role, the political culture of the Senedd will change going forward.

Intransigent

In future Senedds, Labour might find themselves in pole position facing its rivals acting in a similarly intransigent manner. It is true that Rhun ap Iorwerth ended the Cooperation Agreement on becoming Leader of Plaid during the last Senedd, but even after that, he didn’t go nuclear on votes

that would have meant that the Welsh Government wasn’t able to operate.

If we are now in that territory, the nature of the game has clearly changed. Senedd politics will be in permanent crisis, and it doesn’t take a political genius to work out which political forces will benefit from such an outcome.

Jonathan Edwards was the MP for Carmarthen East & Dinefwr from 2010-2024