Matt Smith has stood as a Conservative and Unionist candidate for Parliament and the Senedd. He was a Policy Analyst at Vote Leave.
In his book Fractured Union, Michael Kenny refers to growing unionist concerns that the structures of the devolved Union create “political incentives for different devolved administrations to move away from the lead taken by the British Government, particularly when different political parties were in power”. Despite Labour manifesto promises to reset inter-governmental relations, rising Welsh Labour nationalism and the 2026 Senedd election cycle will drive the Welsh and UK governments apart even with the same party in power at both ends of the M4.
Orthodox devolutionists watching the recent Council of Nations and Regions meeting in Edinburgh might hark back to the decade between 1999 and 2010 when the “Labour family” last held office in Westminster and Cardiff. This was the implicit assumption of Labour’s devolution model. Back then Welsh party leaders and First Ministers were simultaneously MPs and Assemblymen. N.I.C.E. (non-inflationary, consistently expanding) economics enabled rising public spending and the avoidance of zero-sum conflicts.
Yet even in their imaginary prelapsarian decade, the devolutionary ratchet was turned towards an ever looser Union. Alun Michael was parachuted in by Downing Street as the First Secretary of Wales in 1999. In the words of one Welsh peer, Michael’s ‘regime really harked back to being subordinate to London’ and lasted less than a year.
‘Blair’s Poodle’ was succeeded by Rhodri Morgan. Even Labour’s ‘father of devolution’ was criticised by former Labour Welsh Secretary Ron Davies for failing to put ‘Wales’s interests before its party loyalty to New Labour’s government in London’, despite Morgan’s ‘clear red water’ speech that framed devolved politics in terms of radical Welsh solutions to Welsh problems and differentiation from New Labour.
Red Rhodri’s agenda was prompted by what former Welsh Secretary Lord Hain called a “cathartic series of defeats” by Plaid Cymru in Islwyn and the Rhondda in the first Assembly election that delivered “a pretty big shock to the system.” The ‘Welsh Labour brand’ was devised by Communications Director Huw Evans (“a very capable Welshman who had been working in London for New Labour”) to renew the party’s appeal. The 2007 devolved elections saw Salmond’s SNP triumph over Scottish Labour in Holyrood and resurgent nationalist challenges to Welsh Labour underscoring the need for ‘clear green water’.
The arrival of the Conservative-led coalition in 2010 saw the Welsh Government opposing fiscal consolidation and public service reform to consolidate the devolutionary boundaries. Months before the Scottish Independence Referendum, Welsh Labour’s education secretary Huw Lewis accused the UK Government of ‘indestructible colonial attitudes buried in the dark heart of the Conservative Party in England’ and Michael Gove of a ‘continuing Tory War on Wales’ over schools testing.
Brexit Derangement Syndrome unzipped Welsh Labour nationalism with cries of ‘devolution in danger’. First Minister Carwyn Jones (who once addressed the pro-Independence ‘Yes Cymru’ at the Eisteddfod) claimed Brexit meant Wales would choose “which union – the UK or EU- we should be a member of”. His successor Mark Drakeford told the New Statesman he did not consider himself to be a Unionist and did not have ‘a strong sense of British identity’. He called Welsh Conservatives ‘musical doormats’ who sing ‘rule Britannia’ whenever ‘Boris Johnson wipes his feet on Wales’.
Flag-waving rhetoric from Drakeford and Nicola Sturgeon undermined the UK Government’s one-nation pandemic response. Drakeford claimed Johnson could not be trusted to act for all of the UK. The First Minister’s slate curtain lockdown turned Welsh devolution into a beacon of despair. The “Welsh Wall” travel ban on English visitors became the Union’s first hard Covid border.
In Devolution: The End of Britain?, Labour’s Tam Dalyell lamented his party’s willingness to “win back erstwhile supporters by stealing some of the nationalists’ clothes” rather than opposing nationalism. Loud nationalist signaling and Welsh Labour’s othering of political opponents along national lines drive rising separatism. The grassroots indycuriosity of Labour for and Independent Wales increasingly resonates with Welsh Labour’s electoral base. As much as 40 per cent of the party’s supporters have flirted with separation.
The now memory-holed Vaughan Gething was seen as Kier Starmer’s man in Wales. As First Minister, Gething attended Shadow Cabinet meetings – a privilege not extended to Drakeford, an unreconstructed Corbynista. UK Labour backed him late into his scandal-wracked tenure and their whips office reportedly leaned on Senedd counterparts to shore him up.
Starmtroopers parachuted into Welsh seats have been met with a frosty reception from the Welsh Labour establishment. In the battle of the stationary holders, Drakeford refused to share a constituency office with or endorse Starmer’s candidate for Cardiff West. What must Starmer’s people think about devolving youth justice and the probation service now they have got to know Cardiff Bay’s uppity devocrats?
It is unclear what direction Baroness Eluned Morgan will take her party in. She is the first Welsh leader since 2009 to combine being a Westminster Parliamentarian with a Senedd seat and appointed former MPs as her chief special advisor and Deputy. Yet she is also the devocracy’s beaux idéal of a First Minister – a Yes for Wales board member and a Remainer – who they hope will lean into the Devo Max agenda.
Morgan has already said she will “undoubtedly fall out” with Westminster. Drakeford her Finance Secretary said a Welsh income tax rise is under consideration despite Labour’s UK manifesto. Her Health Secretary Jeremy Miles will disallow NHS patients to opt for care in England.
In this sixtieth anniversary year of the Welsh Office’s founding, there are signs of UK Labour pushing back against their devolved wing. Jo Stevens, the Secretary of State for Wales, told S4C “Devolution is an agreement, not a demand” and described devolution of youth justice and probation as “fiddling around with structures and systems”. Yvette Cooper, the Home Secretary, will “keep the links” around policing and crime at the UK level despite the Welsh Labour Government’s preparations for devolution of policing.
Ironically, Labour in Westminster is now the single biggest factor working against the dismal prospect of a seventh Welsh Labour government. Starmer’s personal ratings have plummeted from a post-election ‘blandslide’ high, to a net approval of -26. Unlike earlier predecessors, Morgan cannot cry up devolution against a politically asymmetric UK government.
During Starmer’s recent visit to Carmarthenshire, Labour’s First Minister reportedly told him she does not want to be the first Welsh party leader not to emerge with the largest number of votes in Welsh election. Really ‘clear green water’ may be necessary if Labour is to be rescued from its crisis of dominance, even if this leaves Starmer red-faced.
Responding to Harold Wilson’s Our Changing Democracy White Paper introduced in 1976, Labour’s anti-devolutionist Swansea MP Donald Anderson warned the Commons of precisely this ‘built-in conflict’ when devolved elections coincided with unpopular Westminster governments. Welsh local authorities already demonstrated that even “when the same party is in office” this did “not necessarily mean a congruence of views”.
This warning is being borne out as the divergence machine of devolution continues in the direction of ever-looser Union even with the same party in power.
During the first Welsh devolution referendum, Labour’s No Assembly Campaign said that devolution to Cardiff would ‘shatter British unity’, create ‘semi-states within one State’, leading to ‘disunity not diversity’ and ‘fracture, not flexibility’. How right they were.
