One of the problems, and we have a few in these islands, relates to the difficulties that occur when it comes to defining just exactly where the state / government stops and the private sector / third sector and everything else begins. While this problem, predates Blair (and the Blairites), part of their legacy that relates to the deliberate blurring of the boundaries between the public and private sector - something successive governments (some devolved and some not) have been quite happy to live with (for a recent example we have Dido Harding).
At Westminster, between 2010 and 2015, both Cameron and Clegg were equally as guilty of doing much of the same as Blair, when it comes to blurring the edges of the state, although for admittedly ulterior motives. They were driven by the Neo liberal / Neo Con urge to reduce / destroy and replace aspects / elements of the state, and transferring elements of what former agencies of the state once did, to Third Sector or Private agencies (and ironically removing that element of democratic accountability).
In Cymru / Wales, during the Thatcher / Major years, we also saw the rise of a pseudo third sector with the growth of quango’s, when majority Conservative governments in Westminster had to administer Cymru / Wales (at arms length so to speak). By the mid 1990’s quangos (who sat on them, and what the did, and who they were accountable for their actions and decisions) had become a hot political issue.
Labour in Wales in 1997 (particularly during the run up to our first Welsh general election in 1999) made much of their promise to have a bonfire of the quangos. It somewhat strangely never happened, perhaps it was too difficult a task to undertake (let alone complete) or perhaps the quangos were simply to useful particularly when it came to stuffing them with Labour in Wales cronies.
In Cymru / Wales, while most people did not necessary see the blurring between the private sector and the state happen, we all lived with the consequences. A prime example was when New Labour in Wales, under Blair, added a whole raft of new ones in the shape of the housing associations. The transfer of the control of housing stock from local authorities to newly formed housing associations, which became well salaried (at least at the top) and acquired borrowing authority. Not quite overnight social housing became career enhancing commercial enterprises - at arms length from local government and accountability.
Predating the rise of the quango state, we in Cymru / Wales also saw a blurring of the difference between the Labour Party in Wales and local government and the Third Sector. With Labour in Wales often unable to tell the difference. Quango's were part of the problem, something that Labour in Wales, in power, just found too useful to dispose of when they were given an opportunity. Perhaps Dafydd Iwan, in his song, ‘The Big Shot’ summed up the problem:
“I’ve been on the education committee since 1933,
I know every headmaster in the country, or rather, they know me.”
Labour in Wales are (despite occasional twinges) instinctive centralisers - it's partially to do with control issues, but, mostly the legacy of the moment in the early 1920's when Labour in Westminster got a taste of power (and the trapping, trinkets and baubles that came / come with it).
Geoffrey Goodman, a diary keeping journalist, attributed the following quote to a deeply disillusioned Aneurin Bevan, who said, "I am heartily sickened by the Parliamentary Labour Party. It is rotten through and through, corrupt, full of patronage and seeking after patronage, unprincipled… it isn’t really a socialist party at all.”
Little has changed in the Labour Party at any level since as far as I have observed, when it comes it comes down to priorities. Above all it’s the retention of control / power at all levels, even if you do nothing with it, even if it's at the expense of the majority of Labour Party members - out in the cold Labour Party members have periodically suggested that this is particularly true in Newport, but, I suspect that my home town / city is not particularly unique in this respect.
Within these islands, Centralism and Unionism (not necessarily the Trades kind) actually walk hand in hand When the Conservatives Party in Wales talks about a war on 'devolution waste' what they are actually talking about is a war on devolution itself. Most, but not all, Conservatives in Wales, will happily work hand in glove with the Conservative government in Westminster to weaken and undermine our devolution settlement.
As weak as our devolution settlement is, it's miles better than what we had previously, which was exactly nothing. We now have a form of democratic accountability, it’s not complete, but, it’s a start, whereas before we effectively had a Westminster diktat. The tradition of the centralisation of power in these islands goes back hundreds of years, with local power sharing arrangements in England and in Wales being subsumed in the Westminster leviathan, on the grounds of efficiency and expediency between the 15th and 17th centuries. And this was before sublimation of Scotland and Ireland that led to the creation of the union between 1701 and 1801 and the centralisation of political power.
The core belief of centralisation, rather than necessarily strengthening the Union, centralised political power in Westminster, I suggest that centralisation remains a core value that infects both the parties of the right and the nominal left. It is perhaps worth remembering that as late as 2005 the Conservatives would have quite happily abolished the then National Assembly. The Senedd is not safe in their hands and neither is the future of our nation - the Conservatives are not alone, I suspect when it comes to holding this position.
Part of me, remains genuinely convinced that if it were possible to remove the Scottish parliament and our Senedd, that there are unionists and centralists in the Labour and Conservative Parties (even in Cymru / Wales) who would not hesitate for a moment. While historically Labour centralists would have happily lay down their rhetorical lives for Ireland, or Palestine or other worthy and deserving blue water causes whilst quietly pining for a centralised British state / republic.
With Labour moving back towards the right under its current leadership, and the Conservatives moving even to the right, I find that the two parties have more in common and shared values. Both the Conservative and Labour unionist centralists maintain an unhealthy patronising metropolitan scorn for any political aspirations aspired too by any of the other nations that inhabit this often rain swept island archipelago (worthy of comparison with the rhetoric used by some Russian nationalists with their patronising dismissal of Ukraine and other historic nations in and around Russia) and of any and all devolved matters outside of the M25.
Despite recent Labour spin, from our perspective, they are the same old, admittedly rebadged, centralist enemy - with the same old rebranded statist / centralising solutions - which outside of the short term have spectacularly failed to deliver for us. We, in Wales, have been here before. The centralists (blue and red) have promised much and delivered little that was lasting, save for a faint echos or faint ghosts of long departed industrial and regional development that can be found scattered across our land.
I would further argue that centralisation, as practised within these islands, whether driven by Labour in Westminster, or the Conservatives vision of a greater England is directly opposed to what Raymond Williams described as our cultural impulse towards democratic community, one spasm of which democratically debated, created and endorsed - that of devolution.
And that despite devolution, or perhaps because of it, this centralising tendency has never really gone away despite the roll out of differing levels of devolution to redress the democratic deficit in the late 1990’s. The civil service, at least in England and Wales, appears to continue to behave as if devolution has not happened. Until there is a Wales based Cymru / Wales focused civil service this state of affairs is likely to continue.
Some twenty one years down the line of all the devolved nations and provinces Scotland still has the best devolutionary deal, followed in second place by Northern Ireland. Cymru / Wales trails in a poor third - with a relatively weak devolutionary settlement - something that suits the majority of Labour in Wales representatives in Cardiff Bay and beyond - who lie awake at night dreaming of Labour in Westminster winning and riding to the rescue.
Dream on! It’s important to remember that the last time they were in power at Westminster between 1997 and 2010 just exactly what did not happen. Labour had a large sizeable majority and pretty much the power to do whatever they wanted to do. Labour in Westminster didn’t come riding to the rescue then, so don't expect them to do so next time. The reality was that New Labour's inaction over strengthening the devolutionary settlement in Cymru / Wales - particularly the work of Peter Hain in the House of Commons has left Cymru / Wales vulnerable to the machinations
Post Brexit both the Conservatives and the party formerly known as New Labour will eagerly grasp the opportunity to build their vision of a new centralist aggressively rebadged Brit Nationalist union. The Brit Nat / Imperial nostalgia drum will be thoroughly beaten to drum up sentimentality / nostalgic pap to drown out any criticism - constructive or otherwise. We should remember that the direct Westminster-rule which existed for most of my lifetime, failed to deliver for much of Wales (beyond the short-term).
Even before I was born the great hopes of the future proved to be unsustainable beyond the medium term - British Nylon Spinners (in Mamhilad, north of Pontypool (gone), BSC / RTB Llanwern (a remnant), East Moors, on the eastern fringe of Cardiff (gone), Hoover in Merthyr (gone), Ford in Bridgend (going), etc. Post BREXIT it appears that things are only going to get worse (rather than better) as Whitehall ‘Britocrats’ scramble to protect the City of London at all costs, while our manufacturers, exporters, SME’s and farmers are left to sink, swim or go under.
The post BREXIT domestic settlement offers from the centralist perspective of Westminster a real opportunity to actively work to roll back, weaken or undermine the devolutionary settlements within the UK. Certainly recent developments in relation to repatriated 'powers' being returned from Brussels to Westminster have shown how important it is that we actively resist Westminster’s attempts to roll back devolution through the Withdrawal Bill.
Plaid's attempts lead by the late (and greatly missed) Steffan Lewis in relation to the Continuity Bill - provided Cymru / Wales with a vital first step to ensure Westminster did not ride rough shod over our hard-won right to run our own affairs, endorsed initially by Labour in Wales, was then tamely surrendered by Labour in Wales, at Westminster’s first asking. Not for nothing should we underestimate the ideological commitment to the Union, within the Labour Party in Wales, even when giving in to those unionist urges does Cymru / Wales little good.
As I have said previously, and will keep saying, no nation can be half devolved, no more than a nation can be half free. We need the devolutionary full measure and the tools to do the job and to deliver economic change for our country, and we need them yesterday. We need the politics of hope and a real belief that things can change and get better.
We urgently need real change, it's time for a real new deal, it's time to be radical, because only radical solutions are going to deliver for our people and our nation. At the most basic level we need devolution to actually deliver for our nation - economically, socially and politically. The problem is, from where we in Cymru / Wales are sat, devolution, as is, simply cannot adequately deliver, we have reached that point in our nations journey, where only independence can deliver for Cymru / Wales.
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