I can
understand the anger and disappointment with which members of any party react
to a defection by one of their elected members.
In the case of Dafydd Elis Thomas, those feelings will no doubt be heightened
by the fact that (and not for the first time) his actions seem timed to occur
with maximum impact just before a conference or election. There is a danger, though, that in
over-personalising the question, the substance of the underlying issues gets
lost or ignored. He has, over the years,
said much with which I agree and much with which I disagree. I’m not going
to dwell on the more personal aspects of his decision. There is one thing he said this week, however, which
has largely been ignored, but on which I have considerable sympathy with his
diagnosis, even if not with his proposed cure.
It’s not the
first time that he’s expressed his view that Plaid has not adapted well to
the new political situation post-devolution; and it’s not the first time that I’ve
agreed with him on that question. It
seems to me that there are two potential roles for a nationalist party
post-devolution, but neither is without its problems. Part of Plaid’s problem is that it has never
clearly opted for either.
The first is to
concentrate on becoming a party of government, seeking to use the limited
powers of the devolved legislature for nation-building, doing what it can to
improve the lives of the people of Wales in the short term, and seeking further
devolution of power on a gradualist and opportunistic basis. The major problem with that approach is that
Wales already has one (and arguably up to three) parties trying to do much the
same thing. Differentiation from the
Labour Party becomes difficult to say the least; and it might even be that the
most effective way to pursue the goal would be through membership of the
Labour Party and seeking to change it from within rather than playing the role
of an opposition to it. That underlying
similarity is part of the reason why Plaid can’t seem to make its mind up from
one day to the next whether the Labour Party is a progressive force with which
Plaid should ally itself, or a bunch of pink Tories who must be opposed at every
level.
The second is
to harden the party’s stance on the national question; to accept that devolution
has a logic of its own by now and that the role of a national party is always
to be arguing for more, and sooner; to be putting the case for the end goal of
independence for Wales. The problem with
that approach is that, unless and until the case is made and a substantial
number of people come to support that aim, it’s unlikely to be an electorally
successful strategy. For those who judge
success in short term electoral considerations, it’s an unattractive option.
There are a
number of reasons for Plaid’s failure to adopt either of these paths, including
the fact that for ten of the post-devolution years its leader actually didn’t ever
appear to agree with the party’s formal aims.
But it was never down to one individual – there have long been others (Dafydd
Elis Thomas amongst them) in prominent positions who would never accept a
decision to go for one or the other of these options if it wasn’t the one that
they wanted. And I'm not without a certain amount of personal experience in trying to maintain a balance between the two very different perspectives.
But am I positing
a false choice? Can the two be
combined? The case of the SNP shows,
surely, that they can. It is perfectly possible
to go to the electorate and argue that a party has a clear vision for where it
wants the country to be and will continue to strive for that, but that it is
also willing and ready to serve the best interests of the country by offering
itself as an alternative government in the interim. It’s worked extremely well in Scotland. For years, I believed that such a strategy
was not only possible, but desirable. However,
it’s never really been tried here in Wales.
That’s partly down to electoral timidity, but also partly down to a lack
of self-conviction within Plaid about the possibility of realising the aim.
There is
another way of combining the two, however, and this is the option which Plaid
seems to have chosen – albeit by default, rather than through a rigorous
process. That approach is to say
different things to different audiences.
The internal audience is encouraged to continue working with the long
term goal in mind, whilst the external audience is encouraged to believe that
it’s such a long term aim that they needn’t worry their heads about it. But the audiences cannot be kept as separate
as that, and there is inevitable message leakage. The result is a party which at best sounds
uncertain about what it wants, and at worst sounds positively shifty and
dishonest about what it aims to achieve for Wales.
It also has the
effect of making it difficult for any new or different party to fill the space
and argue for Welsh independence because Plaid continues to try and occupy
that space without really doing very much to promote the aim, in an attempt to build further electoral support without losing what it already has. It’s not quite the worst of all worlds, but
it’s not far short of that for those who want to see faster progress towards an
independent Wales.
Dafydd’s
proposed ‘cure’ of giving more support to Labour, under this analysis, is
effectively equivalent to selecting the first option of those outlined
above. In fairness to Dafydd, whilst I
might disagree with him, I think that’s an entirely honourable position to take. It would almost certainly mean splitting
Plaid between the two approaches – but that might not be an entirely bad thing
for Wales in the long term. The party has
achieved a lot over the past few decades – more than many people give it credit
for. But perhaps it really has reached
the limits of what can be achieved by trying to ride both horses.
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