‘Mmm …..What’s up Doc?’

So after all it wasn’t the EU or Westminster that was at fault for Brexit but the Welsh Assembly!

As everyone knows I have not always been a fan of how successive Welsh Assembly governments’ have conducted themselves and operated. Nor have I ever been an admirer of the Assembly’s quality of debates and deliberations both in standard and substance... 

BUT...

I can recognise when there is mischief afoot with some people having malicious intentions towards the Senedd and apparently even the name offends.

UKIP AM Gareth Bennett has said that the term should be ‘kicked into the long grass’ and that Welsh-only terms such as the Urdd are not known outside the Welsh speaking ‘colony’.

Such insults need stamping out! But then they cohere with similar disparaging attitudes towards devolution, the Welsh language and the European Union.

In Wales, just over half of the electorate who voted supported the Leave EU campaign. Of course, it was a very disappointing outcome for many of us—and there were many reasons for that result which I will come back to no doubt over coming months. Criticisms are justified.

However, that vote has prompted David Taylor to say:

‘ The Leave vote shows a Wales gripped by a rebellious, anti-establishment zeitgeist—more so than during any time since the National Assembly came into being.’

and then Andrew R T Davies to assert:

‘The political establishment—and, in particular, the Welsh Labour Government and Welsh nationalists—seem to be in a dangerous state of denial.’

Okay, let’s accept that for now, but then comes the rub and the real purpose of their musings!

Taylor goes on to comment:

‘The truth is that Wales is neither particularly pro-devolution nor anti-devolution. There is chronic disinterest in the entire project.’

and that:

‘Since the advent of devolution politicians have felt a pressing need to develop a soft nationalist building narrative.’

As if that is a bad thing to do!

Andrew R T Davies also proclaims—although having carefully entered the following caveat to disarm people—‘I say that with no pleasure. Having initially opposed devolution, I have become a passionate but pragmatic advocate.’

Nevertheless he is of the view that:

‘A referendum on abolishing the Welsh Assembly would succeed if it was held now ….it would be difficult to get backing for the Assembly as an institution…The fact of the matter is that I don’t think that such a campaign could be won today. The result was tight in 1997, but if the question were put to the people tomorrow I believe that they would vote to abolish the National Assembly.’

As the cartoon character Bugs Bunny used to say in the 70s

:

I have a fair idea and its time those of us who believe in a stronger, more confident and self-governing Wales woke up and spoke up much more vociferously.

The Welsh Assembly has been hamstrung from the beginning and has been devoid of the freedom to act with the effective powers granted the Scottish Parliament.

By the way, in the current climate I do not blame Nicola Sturgeon for re-opening the conversation on support for independence in Scotland nor Gordon Brown suggesting a federal solution for Scotland in the UK.

However as with Brexit, where is Labour’s official voice? Sadly it is dogged by serious internal conflict.

Of course, I understand the current frustration with politics. Many of the issues have roots further in the past. However, the answer is not to abolish a relatively new voice in the process (the Assembly)—but to empower it to be truly representative of all people in Wales.

So the Assembly does not need less BUT greater powers. Of course we in Wales could do a better job of governing ourselves than Westminster does.

With the Brexit result I believe that the future lies, at the very least, in a self-governing Wales within a Federal UK.

An argument can be made for going further, even on economic grounds.

Out of 235 countries in the world some 130 of them have populations of around 7 million and under. Of these 100 have populations under 4 million and the vast majority have numbers smaller than Wales.