A Conservative candidate for the Senedd
elections identified a serious
problem with the way the Senedd works this week. Apparently, some
of the people elected to the Senedd on a pro-independence platform have been
using their elected position to promote the idea of independence. It’s easy to
understand why this might be a strange concept for a Tory; decades of
experience have made them entirely comfortable with the idea that Labour
campaign as socialists and then fall into line with Conservative policy, with a
few minor embellishments, once elected. This is the way UK politics is supposed
to work – it’s not about choosing whether the country is run along Conservative
lines, but about choosing which bunch of Conservatives should hold the reins at
any particular time. Promoting manifesto policies after being elected, as some independentistas
are doing, simply isn’t playing the game.
This particular Tory candidate has said
that it hasn’t led him to demand the abolition of the Senedd, but whether
that’s because he believes what he says or because he is simply afraid to say
what he does believe (abolition doesn’t exactly sound like a vote-winning
policy in Dwyfor Meirionnydd) is something only he knows. It is, though, part
of the logic which leads many in his party – including the current PM – to wish
that devolution had never happened.
The idea that ‘democracy’ can be tolerated
only for as long as electors elect the ‘right’ people was taken a bit further
by another
Tory
back in January, when he argued that the Senedd should be abolished because the
Tories could never win a majority. That they think that way is no surprise, but
it ought to be astonishing that anyone could argue so openly for the abolition
of any element of democracy which might deprive them of power. It should serve
to remind us that the ‘conservatives’ (in the widest sense of the term) have
only ever allowed us to vote in elections in the UK’s semi-democracy on the
assumption that ‘they’ would remain in power whatever the outcome. It’s one of
the reasons for their keen support of an electoral system which gifts an
absolute majority to a party on the basis of a minority of the votes.
Devolution (particularly in Scotland) and any system of proportional
representation threaten that assumption.
But a system of democracy which is only
allowed to produce minor variations on a single outcome isn’t democracy at all,
it’s a sham. And any system of devolution is part of the same charade. We can
choose who we like but our choice will be over-ridden if we make the ‘wrong’
one, as Scotland is finding over the question of a second referendum. Ultimately,
only independence gives us the right to choose the future for Wales. It would
be naïve, though, to think – in the light of experience to date – that
obtaining independence is as simple as electing a majority of independentistas
to the Senedd and then holding a referendum. That involves an implicit and
wholly erroneous assumption about the commitment of any currently conceivable
UK government to honouring the democratic wishes of the voters. The shock of
that one Tory candidate at the idea that independentistas might actually
want independence is more of a warning than I suspect even he realised.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment