What's the end game?

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It’s sometimes too easy to dismiss the arguments of ‘True Wales’ out of hand, given the extent to which they are prepared to distort and mislead.  But some of their arguments deserve a better answer than they get.

Rachel Banner had a lengthy piece in Saturday’s Western Mail, in which a lot of the hoary canards were rehearsed yet again.  There was, though, one point which I thought was well-made, and which the non-nationalist supporters of a ‘yes’ vote have not so far chosen to answer satisfactorily.

She said, “Ron Davies, the pioneer of the devolution settlement for Wales, once memorably described devolution as a “process rather than an event” – the present Yes campaign is keen to portray the referendum as an event rather than a process.  So the Welsh people must not be allowed to have a debate about where the devolution process is leading Wales and the UK…”

It’s a rather more nuanced presentation of the ‘slippery slope’ argument – and a more honest one, as well (unlike the conclusions subsequently drawn from it).  Rather than simply asserting that devolution necessarily leads to independence, it suggests that we don’t actually know where devolution leads, because the devolutionists have never spelled out their end game.  It’s still utterly preposterous to distort that lack of clarity into a statement that it must be leading to independence; but there really is nothing wrong with asking for more clarity about where the process is leading.

For a nationalist, the position is quite clear.  Devolution does not lead to independence – devolved power is power retained, as I’ve said before.  But the creation of a Welsh legislature with responsibility for a range of matters does create a basis for adding more powers – and only a fool or a knave would try to argue that it doesn’t make it easier, at a purely technical level, to move towards ever greater autonomy in the future. 

What it does not do, though, is to remove the single greatest obstacle to Welsh Independence, and that is that the people of Wales simply don’t want it at present, and the prospect of that changing any time soon looks pretty unlikely.  Without the support of the people of Wales, Wales will not – ever – become independent.  (Conversely, of course, if such a goal ever does attain that support, then there can be no real argument against it, whatever the status of the Welsh institutions at the time.)

For a devolutionist, the position is a great deal less clear.  All credit to David Melding for spelling out his own commitment to a federal future for the UK – the only Tory devolutionist, as far as I’m aware, to spell out any sort of end point.  The Lib Dems officially hold a similar view, although it’s not often advocated with any real conviction.

The problem, though, is with the Labour Party, and given that they’re the largest party in Wales, that makes it a big problem.  Where does the Labour Party see devolution leading?  There is no settled view within that party, nor are individual members of that party expressing any particularly clear views as to where they want devolution to lead.  I'm quite clear that, whatever the answer is, it is certainly not 'Independence'.

I’m confident that the question posed by ‘True Wales’ about the destination of devolution will not pose too much of a problem on March 3^rd; I think people will understand that it isn’t relevant to a specific vote on a specific proposal.  But that doesn’t mean that it isn’t a good question, or that it won’t return in the future.  At some point, Labour really do need to develop and articulate a more coherent statement about the way that they see Wales being governed.  Without that, the probable continuous slow change will always invite the question.

Roosting chickens

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There’s been a lot of criticism of ‘True Wales’ for their decision not to seek lead campaign group status.  Certainly, their decision means that both sides of the argument will have to put their case without any subsidy from the public purse, but in criticising ‘True Wales’, people are aiming at the wrong target.  Why should any group feel under any obligation to apply for a particular status if it doesn’t want to?

The Electoral Commission’s hands are tied by the legislation which allows campaigners on one side of any referendum argument to be designated as the lead group only if there is a similar group on the other side which can also be so designated.  Does that mean that it’s the MPs who passed the legislation setting out the rules who got it wrong?

Possibly; but I’m not sure that that would be the right target either.  In setting up rules for holding referenda, the government of the day and the MPs who voted the legislation through probably assumed that any referendum was likely to be on a highly contentious proposal, and that there would be two strongly put sets of arguments.  It’s not an unreasonable assumption – but that doesn't make it correct.

The referendum on 3^rd March is one where the arguments are overwhelmingly one-sided, and most of the counter arguments seem to be against a wholly different proposition from that which is on the ballot paper.  We are obliged to go through a referendum process because that’s what GOWA 2006 says, but it’s not the issue on which any rational analysis would suggest that a referendum is really necessary.

I can see the argument for holding a referendum in 2006, before GOWA was enacted, on the principle of moving from an administrative body to a legislative one.  That was a real step change in the nature of devolved government.  But whether the powers devolved under GOWA are passed across piecemeal or wholesale doesn’t really strike me – or many others – as the sort of major change which really requires a referendum.  And the difficulty which both sides are having in adequately explaining why people should vote one way or the other tends to support that view.

We are where we are in terms of the two campaigns over the next few weeks, but it really isn’t ‘True Wales’ who put us there – it’s the architect of GOWA 2006, and the people who forced him to include a clause mandating a referendum as the price for their support for the Act, in the belief that they could thereby delay a move to Part 4 almost indefinitely.

I wonder whether the difficulty some people are having in deciding what to say now is because they are distracted by the sound of roosting chickens.

Vote 'no' - or the Passport Office gets it

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It’s just as well that we have those stalwart defenders of Wales, True Wales, to protect us from the nasty nationalists of Plaid Cymru and, apparently, the Labour Party. 

In March 2009, they told us that a yes vote would undoubtedly lead to Independence and that Independence would equally surely lead to the loss of a large number of jobs in UK institutions based in Wales, including, interestingly enough, those at the Passport Office.

As opposed to a no vote which would ensure …  what, exactly?

Campaign funding

Tweet 'True' Wales seem to be getting a little bit worked up about the conditions which might apply to any campaign funding from the Electoral Commission for the forthcoming referendum. It's interesting, but somehow not all that surprising, that an organisation which has argued that holding a referendum at all is a costly waste of money should now be trying to maximise the amount of money which it might receive from the state as part of the process.

They're staking their claim from the outset to be the officially funded anti campaign, but on my reading of the rules, there doesn't actually need to be one at all. The relevant legislation allows, but does not oblige, the Electoral Commission to designate an official campaign on either side, and allows, but does not oblige, it to fund both campaigns up to a set limit. The only obligation is that if official campaigns are to be designated and/or funded, then there must be equity of treatment between the two sides.

It is perfectly possible for the Electoral Commission to decide not to designate or fund an official campaign on either side, and it seems to me that there is a very good case to be made for taking precisely that decision.

In the first place, any referendum is going to be held against a background where politicians and politics, and the funding thereof, are held pretty low in public esteem. That, in itself, is sufficient ground to argue that the pro and anti campaigns should fund themselves rather than depend on the taxpayers.

It's also the case that the Commission is likely to find it very difficult to identify and designate any group which is able to campaign honestly against the proposal. We don't, of course, know what the question will be yet, but however it is worded, the choice before us will be whether we stay with the current arrangement, or whether we implement Part 4 of GOWA 2006.

To date, I have seen no evidence of any group or campaign which is prepared to campaign openly and honestly for the retention of the current system. Most opposition to the proposition on the table is based on an entirely different set of arguments. I can't really see any good argument for the taxpayer to fund any group which wants to run a campaign against a completely different proposition.

The Commission may argue that in distinguishing between the funding of organisation and staffing on the one hand, and literature on the other, then they would not be funding material which is irrelevant to the referendum. It's a specious argument to me, since more money means an ability to fund more propoaganda by diverting money which would otherwise have been spent on organisation and staffing. The distinction does seem to be part, though, of what has upset 'True' Wales. Better by far to avoid the problem completely, and give no taxpayers' money to either side.

Honesty in debate

Tweet 'True Wales' (all of them, I suspect) came to Carmarthen on Saturday to distribute some of their leaflets. As they told anyone who would listen, what they really want is to abolish the National Assembly entirely, but that won't be on the ballot paper in the forthcoming referendum.

Their leaflet (English-only, of course) is the usual mixture of lies, distortions, and non-sequiturs in which they seem to specialise. Of the six points which they make in their leaflet, four are arguments against Independence, one is a complaint about the Convention having been a tax-payer funded 'yes' campaign, and the sixth assumes that everyone who didn't vote 'yes' in 1997 was against the Assembly. It's more of a rant against the idea of Independence and the Welsh political elite (the UK political elite are fine, apparently) than a reasoned argument for retaining the current system.

So what?

It isn't honest politics of course, but if they're funding their own leaflets, I don't see why they shouldn't be free to say whatever they like, however distorted and dishonest it is, and however much it angers those who read and react to the obvious lies.

But at some point, there will be two 'official' campaign groups, and the campaigning of those two groups needs to be directed to the issue in hand. On the 'yes' side, those of us who favour moving to Part 4 of GOWA face a difficult task in explaining the difference and the advantages of moving to legislative powers in one step instead of salami style. And those in the 'no' camp face what I think is the even more difficult task of trying to defend the status quo. It's easy to see how the 'no' side in particular will find their task easier if they try to campaign on an entirely different question.

However, there is provision under the legislation for public funding to be made available to both official groups. At that point, the question of honesty and relevance in the campaign material becomes very significant. Any publicly funded campaign organisation should surely be expected not to publish outright lies at public expense, and to keep to the brief - in this case, explaining why they believe that the current structure is right for Wales.

There seems to be a widespread assumption that 'True Wales' will become the nucleus of the 'no' campaign. I think they've already disqualified themselves. I have to admit that I'm not sure what happens to the provisions for 'official' yes and no campaigns if no credible option exists on one side.

Labour's Nationalists

Tweet I was more than a little surprised to read yesterday that one of the leaders of 'True Wales', Rachel Banner, apparently believes that there are 'nationalist sympathisers' in her party, who want Wales to become an independent state. I'm not convinced about that; I think that she, like many others, is confusing identity and politics, an issue on which I contributed an article to WalesHome last week. Mind you, if the Labour Party want to spend some time looking under their own beds for dreaded nationalists, I'm hardly going to complain.

Perhaps she's just read too much into the story a while back suggesting that Plaid's strategy revolved around splitting the Labour Party between its nationalist wing and its unionist wing. In reality, I've never been happy with that idea, for two reasons (apart from the obvious one of why we would ever want to broadcast our strategy to the world in the first place!).

The main reason is that I think it doesn't represent the reality of the Labour Party, any more than does the 'True Wales' view of a party containing 'nationalist sympathisers'. There are those in the Labour Party, certainly, who are suspicious of anyone who has a strong sense of Welsh identity – or even anyone who speaks Welsh – and on occasions such people get treated as some sort of crypto-nationalists. That has tended to strengthen the view of a Labour Party which is somehow divided over the issue of Wales' constitutional future.

But I think that misses the point. Certainly, they have disagreements about the pace and extent – or even the principle – of devolution, but that is not the defining issue of politics for any of them. And there is a great deal more which unites them than divides them. It's easy for people who see the constitutional status of Wales as the defining political issue to project that view onto others; but it just ain't reality.

The second reservation that I've always had about the alleged strategy is that it predicates Plaid's progress on what happens inside another political party. A strategy which makes us the prisoners of a misreading of the internal dynamics of another party hardly sounds to me like a basis for progress.