The Welsh unionist political conversion

Jonathan Edwards

When I started my time as a Member of Parliament way back in 2010, the big debates following each major fiscal event followed a particular pattern.

Supplied with fresh statistics from the Don of Welsh economics, Eurfyl ap Gwilym, I would highlight how poorly the Welsh economy was performing under UK Government macro-economic policy and how the Welsh public finances were being disadvantaged by UK Government spending decisions.

What really interested me at a political level was that while the main UK-wide parties would dismiss my arguments and defend the Westminster mothership, I would find common ground with both the SNP and the DUP.

The SNP, one would expect as a nationalist party, would hold similar views based on a political strategy of pinpointing how Scotland was neglected by UK Government rule as the building block for the wider strategy of generating support for greater self-governance.

DUP

The DUP on the other hand is the most committed of unionist parties, with a singular aim of keeping the six counties of the northern part of the island of Ireland within the British state. Yet they would think nothing of pursuing a similar grievance narrative to Plaid Cymru and the SNP while maintaining an absolute non-conditional loyalty to Westminster.

When I started raising concerns about the potential impact of HS2 on Welsh funding before any meaningful money had been spent, I was typically attacked by my opponents and even the Welsh Government.

I remember asking myself on several occasions, why weren’t Welsh unionists advancing the arguments I was making, as inherently anything to do with funding fairness (Barnett, HS2 etc) was a unionist political position – in that they could only be achieved while Wales was a constituent part of the British state.

Why didn’t Welsh unionist politicians follow the example of the DUP, who saw no contradiction between advancing more powers and funding for Northern Ireland while believing in a puritanical subservience to the UK?

See the light

Over recent years Welsh unionists have begun to see the light, in particular on HS2 where every single party in the Senedd has moved to a position of supporting a fair allocation for our country.

Some of their members in Westminster never got the memo, but as we all know the road to Damascus isn’t always designed by ruler. This has been a radical shift for the unionist mindset – that, just perhaps, the UK Treasury doesn’t always have our best interests at the forefront of its thinking.

I’d like to think that this change was down to the arguments that others and I put forward over the years.

However, far more plausibly, the evolution of unionism in Wales is being driven by the incredible work of the Wales Governance Centre team at Cardiff University. Luckily in Wales our political culture values expertise. Also Nation.Cymru which frames the political debate in a pro-Wales manner.

If we look at some recent political interventions, something is certainly stirring in the waters.

First Minister Eluned Morgan in response to the Comprehensive Spending Review this week argued for a funding system change for Wales so that Wales doesn’t in her words need to go ‘cap in hand’ to Westminster.

We are not talking about Barnett reform here: the First Minister is advancing wholesale change of system. This is exactly the sort of thing I would previously have argued, and indeed introduced a legislative solution via the creation of an Office of Fair Funding for the Nations and Regions to oversee Treasury spending decisions and arbitrate on disputes.

Savaged

Also, this week, Labour MS Mick Antoniw savaged the UK Government’s lack of progress on devolving powers with a comprehensive list of suggestions that would radically change the very make-up of the British state.

A few weeks ago, Liberal Democrat MP David Chadwick led a HS2-like critique of the proposed Oxford to Cambridge rail project.

Perhaps the best way to describe the political conversion at play would be to say that at least some of the unionist parties in Wales are moving to a Westminster sceptic position, leaving the Tories as the sole remaining traditional unionist party maintaining a position of supporting the old order.

This will all ultimately lead to different types of pressure on the two parties currently leading the polls in Wales – and indeed those parties and politicians moving to a more Union critical stance.

These are all positions that Plaid Cymru would have led on in the past. Labour and the Lib Dems are gradually encroaching on this territory. Where does this leave Welsh nationalism?

Will it also have to evolve from grievance narrative to a philosophy of advancing how Welsh independence could work economically to remain distinctive?

Similarly, Reform as the potential leading unionist party is going to have to make a decision at some stage on whether it believes Westminster knows best or that Wales isn’t being treated fairly by the UK Government.

Perhaps the ultimate dilemma will be faced by those unionist politicians who have now come to accept the blatancy of Westminster’s failure when it comes to Wales. What happens if nothing changes? Do they ultimately make the conversion from Welsh unionism to nationalism?

Jonathan Edwards was the MP for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr 2010-24