Apparently, there is
a plot
afoot to change the policy of the self-styled ‘Welsh’ Conservatives to support
abolition of the Senedd. I wonder when or even whether they will spot the fatal
flaw: the Senedd doesn’t have the power to abolish itself. It doesn’t matter
one iota what the ‘Welsh’ Conservatives think, because the issue is reserved to
Westminster, meaning that only the English Conservative and Unionist party
could enact abolition (assuming they ever get back into power). A ‘Welsh’ party
asking its English masters to abolish the Senedd wouldn’t exactly be a good
look, even if that probably wouldn’t worry them greatly.
If they’re serious
about this, they should probably start by demanding more devolution –
specifically that the power to abolish the Senedd be devolved to the Senedd.
However, they may find that that would accidentally confer a range of other additional
powers on the Senedd, albeit that they might in consequence receive a
surprising degree of support from pro-Senedd parties. Otherwise, ‘all’ they need
to do is (1) ensure the return of a Conservative government in England and (2)
persuade the people of Wales, with their consistent and repeated pattern of rejection
of the Tories, to vote to abolish their own parliament by electing a Tory
majority to the Senedd under an electoral system which makes a single party
majority highly unlikely. It’s probably not the sort of cunning plot over which
we should lose a great deal of sleep. But Tory self-destruction might make for
a good spectator sport.
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