Will Welsh Labour Die of Cowardice?

Ben Wildsmith

There was a time when I felt a deal of hope for Mark Drakeford’s version of Welsh Labour.

Having flexed our devolutionary muscles, albeit with questionable results, during the Covid-19 outbreak, he occasionally made noises about the potential of devolved government that even extended to the administration of his own party.

As well as mooting alliances with other devolved administrations, it seemed at one stage that the Welsh branch of the Labour Party might be looking to press for independence from its UK parent. Imagine that: all grown up and able to buy its own stamps!

Given the shape of politics in Wales now, how many in Labour must be rueing their failure to insist on a distinct identity before Keir Starmer’s uniquely unpopular government came to power?

In a sense, this is the defining error of both the Conservatives and Labour throughout the UK. Led by politicians from the post-Thatcher era, their default setting has been to govern managerially, fearing that the politics of identity vision are distrusted by the electorate. Even the ostensibly imaginative Boris Johnson ended up being an incompetent light show that masked business as usual for the UK’s affairs.

The exception to this, of course, has been Nigel Farage’s decades-long attempt to leverage patriotic sentiment at the expense of any policy detail whatsoever. Much has been made, not least by me, of the unpleasant ethno-nationalism inherent to Farage’s various campaigns, particularly his role in Brexit.

Latent xenophobia or racism amongst the electorate, however, doesn’t fully explain his sustained appeal.

The rapid takeover of Britain by transnational capital that was enabled by Thatcher’s ‘Big Bang’ created an opaque façade to the levers of power.

As our high streets were homogenised and run down, call centres replaced in-person service, and the impression grew that our democracy was a front for a permanent investment class who were anonymous, international, and unaccountable.

In those circumstances, it was easy to sow distrust about a supranational body like the EU. Tony Benn’s prime question for the holders of power, ‘How do we get rid of you?’ seemed, for many, to echo through lives that were being lived unnoticed by those who were supposed to care for them.

Unaccountable

I’ll tell you who aren’t unaccountable: local councillors. A glance at your town or village’s Facebook group will reveal the very personal consequences they face for missteps, often receiving the blame for budget constraints imposed by the Senedd, Westminster, or both. We know who they are, and they have nowhere to hide.

That, I suggest, is what people demand of democracy more widely: the facility to have our voices reach those with power and receive answers to our concerns. That most people pay their national taxes at source is a relief for national politicians, it lets them off a hook that councillors are perpetually on as their constituents have, monthly or yearly, to fork over their Council Tax instead of buying new shoes for their kids.

Labour, which was founded to give voice to the concerns of working people, should be the natural vehicle for bringing decision-making closer to us. Instead, it seems to have evolved into an organisation that is as remote from our lives as the clergy or judiciary.

It sits above us populating committees, quangos, and government-related private enterprises that speak a language few of us understand.

In its complacency, engorged by a century of easy elections, Labour in Wales has missed an obvious open goal. Having brought devolution to Wales so rapidly under Tony Blair, the party here should have been relentless in pursuing the expansion of powers at the Senedd level and then their devolution to our local communities.

Welsh Labour could, under more imaginative leadership, have become the standard bearer for the localism that is now being claimed by Plaid Cymru here and the Greens UK-wide.

Constitutional matters

Current polling suggests that we might be looking at a Plaid government here and then a Reform UK administration in Westminster. If that’s the case, then constitutional matters are going to dominate politics for a long time to come.

If Welsh Labour remains owned by the national party, then it will effectively be off the pitch for those debates. Its logical position would be to demand not only its own independence but the federalisation of a UK that will be dominated by southern-English values like never before.

There is a clear constituency of Welsh people who favour staying in the UK but feel no affinity for the exclusionary rhetoric and Thatcherite economics of Nigel Farage and his cohorts.

If Labour continues not to represent these people, then somebody else will, and recent anti-independence messaging from the Liberal Democrats suggests that they have woken up to the opportunity.

The Labour Party in Wales was birthed by the bravery and independence of spirit that working people demonstrated when under attack from vested interests in England. On its current trajectory, it will die from cowardice.