But where’s the
big idea behind such a government – the big win for Wales which would justify
the pain which would inevitably be felt by at least one of the parties? There isn’t one, and the need for one is not
even understood. The only common thread
between that disparate bunch is that they’re not Labour - it would essentially
be a government pieced together on the back of a negative. That was part of the problem with the similar
proposal in 2007 for some of us – and I’ve often wondered since then whether
Mike German really understood how much damage he did to the whole idea in the
eyes of some in Plaid when he referred to it as an “anti-socialist alliance”.
But the fact
that the proposed prescription – a rainbow government – looks to be the stuff
of fantasy, doesn’t mean that the underlying diagnosis is wrong. Wales has a political problem in that there
is not currently a credible alternative to a Labour, or Labour-led, government
in Cardiff. I concur with the view that
continued Labour rule is not only a recipe for complacency, it’s holding Wales
back. I also concur with the view that a
healthy democracy needs a credible alternative - although ultimately it’s the way
people cast their votes which creates that situation, and we need to bear in
mind that Labour only enjoys its hegemony because people vote for the party.
If Labour is
the problem, what is the solution? There
are, it seems to me, three potential responses to that question – push it,
reform it, or destroy it.
The first is to
attempt to push Labour in a particular direction from the outside and is
effectively – although not always openly stated as such – the route which Plaid
has been following for many years. It
depends on winning the intellectual arguments and/or simply posing a sufficiently
strong electoral threat. I’d argue that
it has not been without its successes.
The question now is whether that approach has run its course.
Whether the
second possible approach – trying to change the Labour party from within –
would have been even more effective is a matter of conjecture; it’s certainly
something that I’ve often pondered. But
we only live history once; choices were made and we have to live with the
outcomes. What has happened is in the past
and cannot be changed – but it leaves open the question as to whether that
could yet be an effective way forward in the future. Is Labour beyond all hope or not? I concluded long ago that it is. Whilst hope always resurfaces when the party
is in opposition, a year or two of a Labour government is sufficient to dispel
any illusion.
The third
option is to destroy the Labour Party in Wales and replace it with an
alternative which can articulate a different vision for our future. The SNP have achieved just that in Scotland –
could we yet achieve it in Wales? The
honest answer is that I don’t know, even though it’s my preferred option. But if it were to be the aim, it would need a
determined and consistent strategy to achieve it. I’m fairly certain that forming a
Conservative-led rainbow government in 2016 would be more likely to have the
opposite effect. And continually referring
to the Labour Party as a ‘progressive force’ and reinforcing their narrative of
needing to stop the evil Tories seems equally unlikely to accomplish the
objective.
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