Interpreting the vote

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The IWA website, Click on Wales, published an article yesterday by the Chair of Wales for Europe, Geraint Talfan Davies, setting out his views on the forthcoming (maybe) European elections.  There was much in his analysis with which I entirely agree, particularly his assertion that Wales has little political leverage as a result of the way we have chosen to vote over the years.  He references particularly the 1979 vote on devolution itself and the 2016 referendum on the EU.  I’d be tempted to add all the times when Wales has voted by a majority to support a Labour Party whose main interest is, and always has been, in gaining power at UK level rather than in winning – let alone exercising – significant leverage for Wales.  I can understand, however, why his criticism of Labour is rather less direct and more nuanced than that.

I also understand, and find myself entirely in sympathy with, the frustration he expresses at the failure of the pro-Remain parties in Wales to find common cause for an election which will surely be fought largely on the issue of future membership or not of the EU.  I agree with his assertion that this is the over-riding immediate issue facing us (albeit probably not for exactly the same reasons) and I share his frustration that a fragmentation of the pro-EU vote will facilitate what he describes, rightly, as “the prospect of a disruptive UKIP/Brexit Party presence in the European Parliament”.  However, despite all that basis for potential agreement with his analysis, I still find the expectation that Plaid Cymru, the Green Party, the Lib Dems and Change UK could somehow arrange a combined campaign for the European elections to be profoundly unrealistic.

It isn’t about what he describes (rather unfairly, I thought) as “the narcissism of small differences” between the parties named; the differences between the parties concerned are rather greater than those between the Judean People’s Front and the People’s Front of Judea.  Perhaps many years as a member of one of the parties concerned gives me a different perspective, but what looks like simple logic from the point of view of an organisation campaigning for one single defined aim doesn’t look anything like as logical from the point of view of the leaders of any of the relevant parties.  In this particular context, ‘winning a majority for a pro-Remain position’ is an eminently desirable outcome on election day itself – but how does it translate into the subsequent behaviour of the member or members elected once they enter the parliament?  Such an alliance would almost certainly win one of the four seats from Wales, and maybe even two, but from which party or parties would they come – and what would be the expectation of the way in which they would then try to represent the very different views of those who voted for them in the first place? 

My questions illustrate the difficulties of using an election for members of a parliament to try and answer an entirely different question, and no matter how much I want the same answer to that question, I can see the difficulties of trying to get it via this route.  It isn’t obstinacy or selfishness which drives parties to behave as they do, it is an attempt to express differing perspectives in an imperfect political system, recognising that those elected will serve for up to five years (depending on what happens with Brexit), during which time they will have to ‘choose a side’ in hundreds of debates and arguments on which the parties hold very different views.  We, the voters, would have absolutely no clarity in advance what position our elected members would take on any of those questions if they were elected solely on the basis of an anti-Brexit platform.

Even if it would have been possible in principle to hammer out some sort of minimal agreed manifesto between parties (let alone agree who the candidates would be and how they could be democratically selected by a multiplicity of parties acting in concert), the timescale between the announcement that the elections were to take place and the close of nominations on 25th April simply did not permit the detailed and complex negotiations which would have been required.  What is, perhaps, a more realistic and achievable ambition (and something which, maybe, Wales for Europe could broker?) is to draw up some sort of ‘lowest common denominator’ statement about the way forward for Brexit, which all the relevant parties could sign up to, so that their combined total of votes could reasonably be interpreted as a vote for a particular outcome whilst the pro-Brexit parties remain fragmented.  Failure to achieve even that would be, for me, a much more valid reason for criticism of parties than their failure to agree a common slate of candidates.

Learning the right lesson

Tweet In response to the Welsh results in the European elections, the UKIP lead candidate suggested that the result proves that Wales is as Euro-sceptic as England.  I’m not sure that it proves any such thing.  I don’t actually disagree with the assertion that the difference between England and Wales on the EU is very small (indeed, I’ve posted on that previously); I just don’t think that this particular election result tells us much about opinion on Europe.

It probably does tell us something which I find much more worrying than people having a different opinion on the EU, and that is that people in Wales are as likely as people in England to vote for a party which sees immigration as the root of almost all evil; the EU is merely the instrument which they blame for immigration.  Immigration was the issue on which they actually led, not the EU.  And that similarity of opinion was being expressed across Wales, even though actual recent experience of immigration (from outside the UK at least) is minimal in much of Wales.  Indeed, previous waves of immigration into Wales (again, from outside the UK at least) have largely been well assimilated; yet still this hostility to more is visible across the nation.

It’s tempting to interpret the UKIP vote as being a result of English in-migration into Wales, and I’d be surprised if that isn’t at least a factor.  Dafydd Iwan got into hot water a few years ago by suggesting that there were English people who’d moved to Wales to escape multiculturalism in England.  His remarks were labelled unacceptable by the Labour Party, but he was just reporting what many doorstep canvassers will be well aware of.  I remember one English in-migrant telling me that he’d moved to Wales ‘to be amongst my own people’, without realising for one moment how that might sound to anyone who sees themselves as Welsh rather than English or British.

But an occasional piece of individual anecdotal evidence is not enough to blame the thousands collectively, and given the high level of support for UKIP in parts of Wales where it is hard to imagine that there has been a significant level of in-migration from England, I find it impossible to avoid the conclusion that this hostility to immigrants (which usually excludes those from elsewhere in the UK) is as prevalent amongst Welsh people as it is amongst English people.  Sometimes we see differences in opinion because we want to see them rather than because they are real.

And that is perhaps the more important lesson from UKIP’s success in Wales.  The assumptions we make about Welsh opinion are no longer valid, even if they were in the past.

Some of our political class have spent a lot of time and energy theorising over the potential constitutional crisis which might arise if Wales were to vote to stay in the EU whilst England voted to withdraw.  That time might have been better spent trying to persuade people in Wales to take that different view rather than merely assuming that they would follow the politicians’ lead.  Similarly, theorising about who voted for UKIP, or even worse, trying to attract those same voters by demonstrating a tough attitude to immigration, might be better replaced by countering the underlying prejudice.

Winners and losers

Tweet I would, of course, have liked to have done better than this in the constituency in last night's count; but it wasn't a bad result for us. Could have been better, though!


If I were a Lib Dem, I'd have added a banner headline saying "Can't Win Here!", with arrows pointing to the third, fourth, fifth parties... But I'm not, so I haven't.

There are lots of reasons for being careful about extrapolating results in one set of elections forward into a different election, not the least of which is the fact that the turnout was less than half of what I'd expect in a parliamentary contest. It's also the case that in any election where there is an element of 'proportionality' in the voting system, people can feel freer to vote for their real first choice, and there also tends to be a wider range of choice than in a Westminster election.

But even with all those caveats, would I prefer to be going into the next election with Plaid having come a very clear second rather than third in the immediately preceding contest? Of course – which candidate wouldn’t? I'd have preferred first place, mind…

There are problems also with interpreting the results across Wales as a whole, for the same reasons. Not so long ago, the idea that the Tories could finish in first place in terms of the popular vote in Wales would be unthinkable. It hasn't happened since the introduction of universal suffrage in the nineteenth century. And no party other than Labour has finished in first place in Wales since the khaki election of 1918, when Wales supported Lloyd George's Liberal Party.

The margin was very small, of course - indeed, less than 3% of the vote separated the first three parties. Nevertheless, there is a psychological impact from Labour having been beaten into second place, and from Plaid having come so close to Labour as well. Knowing that Labour can be beaten, in the right election and at the right time, will spur both the other major parties in Wales to greater efforts over the remaining time of the current parliament - and both have a more credible narrative about their potential for success.

Will the result be repeated in that coming election? I find that hard to judge. Neither Plaid nor the Tories made any great advance in terms of share of the vote – Tories up 1%, Plaid up 2%. The big story was how far the Labour vote fell (down 12%) – and where it went. Clearly, some Labour voters switched to other parties. (Including, sadly, both UKIP and the BNP. All parties need to be careful about taking it for granted that their supporters all share all of their core values.) However, I suspect that a lot also simply stayed at home – too disillusioned and fed up with their usual party to make any effort to go out and vote for them, but not yet ready to switch to an alternative.

The big question is what that group will do in the Westminster election – and I don't think any of us know the answer to that as yet. From our own door-knocking activities, I don't see any signs that the level of disillusion with Labour is limited to just the one set of elections; but that could change as a General Election approaches.

My own suspicion is that Wales is moving from an era of Labour hegemony into a short period of three-party politics, from which will emerge a different long term pattern. Personally, I don't believe that Wales' flirtation with the Tories would last very long if there was actually a Tory government in London. No surprise then that I think Plaid will turn out to be the real long-term beneficiary from yesterday's defeat of Labour in Wales.

Swansea Hustings

Tweet I was away last week, and missed the party's hustings meeting held in Carmarthen to select our list of candidates for the European elections. So last night, it was down to Swansea to see the candidates put through their paces - and of course, to vote.

Under our rules we give no protection or preference to incumbents, who have to go through the same process as aspiring candidates. It is, however, inevitable that the experience of doing the job for a period will influence their knowledge and understanding of what is, or isn't, possible. The standard of questioning was high, with some big issues being raised. It was almost unfair to expect the candidates to respond to some of the issues in such a short time.

Most encouraging, for me, was the way in which the question of globalisation was aired by one questioner. This is one of those issues which goes to the heart of what makes Plaid different from the other parties. The others tell us that globalisation is inevitable, and we have to fall in with the trend and accept it. I've never been convinced by this. On the contrary, I think we need to be re-localising the economy, processing raw materials and using goods closer to the point of production as far as possible.

Globalisation is sold as benefiting the developing nations, but it seems to me that the only people who really benefit are the multinational companies. Replacing manufacturing jobs in Wales with sweatshops and child labour in the developing nations doesn't look to me like a particularly good deal for either side. The only aspect of globalisation which is remotely encouraging is the way in which it spurs like-minded groups across the world to come together to oppose it.