Why is Labour killing its own creation?

Desmond Clifford

It may be that time’s up anyway, but Labour’s doing everything it can to lose the next Senedd election. Bored, undermined, divided, Labour has pointed the aircraft’s nose towards the ground and activated the autopilot.

For 25 years Rhodri Morgan, Carwyn Jones and Mark Drakeford led devolution with proper autonomy, both from the UK Government and the UK Labour Party. The craven surrender of that tradition and the docile embrace of branch-status in a UK Labour party which staggers in its ignorance and contempt towards Wales has been painful to witness. As Alun Davies MS noted in the Senedd, Welsh Ministers have been humiliated by their own Whitehall colleagues.

I salute the 11 Labour Senedd Members who wrote to Keir Starmer asking he respect devolution. But crikey, how did we get here? The Welsh party asking the UK party and government to honour its own creation?

The First Minister “raised” the matter with the Prime Minister at Chequers. I don’t doubt it but, just occasionally, a fist smacked on the table is the right approach.

Let’s give him benefit of the doubt. It may be that Starmer blundered, ignorantly but without malice. If so, the smacked fist would jolt him back to understanding, especially when the First Minister spelt out how she is undermined by, of all people in the world, the UK Labour Government.

If Starmer didn’t blunder, but acted with deliberation, the table-fist would serve as a gauntlet and signal that the Welsh Government will not lie prone while HMG walks all over it.

It’s easier to explain the Higgs Boson particle, or the properties of dark matter, than the unravelling of Welsh Labour this last year or two.

Drakeford left the shop in good order when he stood down as First Minister exactly when he said he would. His ratings were down a little on the Covid high point and the strong election result he delivered in 2021, but nothing beyond a routine mid-term range.

Vaughan Gething could scarcely have hoped for a stronger legacy on which to build. A pragmatic co-operation agreement with Plaid Cymru had delivered three budgets and Senedd Reform. Manifesto delivery was well in-hand. A UK Labour Government was in view. The Commission on the Constitutional Future of Wales provided a text for the parties to draw on and a near-term agenda for the Welsh Government and its incoming UK colleagues.

Gething proved deficient in the quality that matters most in a First Minister: judgement. He alienated many party colleagues before the leadership contest was even finished and, as First Minister, he quickly alienated the Senedd.

He should have resigned with dignity, as Alun Michael did, the day he lost the confidence of the Senedd.

Instead, he lingered without credibility or purpose, driving a widening wedge among his Labour colleagues and went only when resignations forced him out. His legacy is a gaping hole below the waterline and a sinking Welsh Labour Party.

Jeremy Miles

Jeremy Miles was going to stand again for the leadership, then didn’t. Now he’s leaving the Senedd altogether. After Drakeford, he was head and shoulders above the rest and their last chance to reverse fortunes. His departure is Labour’s loss.

Eluned Morgan was persuaded to grasp the chalice. She acted dutifully in what she saw as the best interests of her party. No glass ceiling was smashed, she wiggled through a cracked windowpane and a footnote will record she was elected neither by her party nor the public.

That limited sense of mandate is part of her difficulty in office.

The Welsh Government was inexplicably unprepared for the election of a Labour UK Government. There was no statement of ambitions, no list of Conservative wrongs to be righted, no plan for safeguarding and developing devolution. Nothing. It seems Keir Starmer gave scant thought to a Labour victory either.

I repeat: “inexplicable” is the word.

Any suggestion that constitutional practice matters is airily dismissed by the Welsh Government, in contrast to its backbenchers. The First Minister predicts a Plaid Cymru government will “whine” constantly about the UK Government. Why is this a criticism?

Whined

The Welsh Government whined for 14 years solid about the Tories. The First Minister ought to be whining herself. The UK Government’s systematic undermining of the Welsh Government is costing Welsh Labour votes and is one reason why they’re doing so badly. This is obvious to everyone except Keir Starmer and his Welsh proxies.

Only a couple of years ago Labour was celebrating one hundred years of electoral success in Wales (what’s the Welsh for hubris?). A century of support, unprecedented in European democracy.

For what reward? Side-lined by a UK Government taking Wales for granted, a land of limited options, a political dependency. There’s nothing a political party loves more than a client community and, with England’s Red Wall now so unreliable, Keir Starmer thinks he’s found one.

He feels free to parachute crony candidates into Welsh parliamentary seats.

He foisted on Wales the worst Secretary of State since John Redwood. Jo Stevens appears clueless about the country whose name features on her office’s brass plate.

There is no credible voice for Wales in the UK Government; small wonder they’re so ill-informed and prone to misjudgement. Nearly two years in, there’s no sign that the UK Government has the slightest interest in Wales or even basic respect for it. This would matter much less if they honoured their side of the devolution settlement.

Recently the UK Government has been using something called the United Kingdom Internal Market Act (UKIMA) to force its will in Wales. UKIMA was a piece of legislation introduced after Brexit to enable the Boris Johnson government to snatch powers which should correctly have transferred from the European Union to the Welsh Government and Senedd.

The Welsh Government opposed it tooth and nail. So did the Labour Opposition in Westminster, whose Shadow Minister for Brexit was – you couldn’t make this up – Keir Starmer.

Animal Farm

Remember the farmyard at the close of Orwell’s Animal Farm? “The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but it was impossible to say which was which.”

It’s tragic. Devolution was conceived and delivered by Labour. People forget, but it was a struggle. The Ron Davies-Peter Hain-Win Griffiths-Rhodri Morgan generation fought hard to get devolution on the agenda and to keep it there.

Rhodri Morgan saved the project from early death and gave Welsh devolution personality, standing and self-respect. He created Welsh Labour when the word “Welsh” meant something. The divisions of today and the chasm between Labour’s Cardiff Bay cohort and its Whitehall should-be-colleagues speaks of tensions many believed were nailed years ago.

The actions of Starmer’s administration, and the Welsh Government’s tepid acquiescence, demonstrates with disillusioning clarity that Welsh Labour no longer has the desire or the will to defend devolution.

Increasingly, Welsh Labour is two parties. The split that matters isn’t left or right, but between those who believe in Wales and those who don’t.

For those who really believe in Wales and devolution, Labour has become a cold house.

How did it come to this?

Why did the party which had so much throw it away so cheaply?