The morning after the night before


The result, in the end, was clear, thankfully: 55.3% thought the UK was ‘better together’, 44.7% wanted Scotland to be an Independent country.
There will be much analysis of the campaign to come, but this morning the immediate question is: what next?
The Prime Minister has quickly set out the UK Government’s response. He’s promised “a balanced settlement – fair to people in Scotland and importantly to everyone in England, Wales and Northern Ireland as well”.
It’s a settlement, however, that will not be addressed on a UK-wide basis.  Carwyn Jones’ prescient calls for a UK-wide Constitutional Convention do not feature in David Cameron’s thinking.  Instead, a cross-party committee is being set-up (including the SNP) under Lord Robert Smith of Kelvin (Chair of energy giant SSE who led Glasgow’s Commonwealth Games organising committee) “to oversee the process to take forward the devolution commitments with powers over tax, spending and welfare all agreed by November and draft legislation published by January”.
Separately a Conservative / Liberal Democrat cabinet committee, led by William Hague, will draw-up plans to the same timetable to address the question of ‘English votes for English laws’ – including the recommendations of the McKay Commission and a announcement in the coming days of “how to empower our great cities”.
What about Wales?  David Cameron said “There are proposals to give the Welsh Government and Assembly more powers. And I want Wales to be at the heart of the debate on how to make our United Kingdom work for all our nations”.
Welsh Secretary Stephen Crabb ensured that Wales featured in the PMs statement, but its not yet clear where Wales fits in to the Government’s response. The Wales Bill, enacting some of the recommendations of the first part of the Silk Commission’s report, is currently before Parliament andcould yet be amended.
My first reaction is that is looks likely we will repeat the mistakes of the past in crafting an expedient response to pressure. Just as in the 1950s a Scottish Covenant movement and a mass petition for a Parliament for Wales was defused with conceding some change – a Cabinet Minister for Wales in our case – so the pressure for a Parliament for Scotland, and aversion to a ‘democratic deficit’ in Wales, produced a modest devolution settlement in the late 1990s. Both have subsequently developed in response to further pressure, but the absence of a stable settlement has brought the Union to the brink of collapse.
Whilst a 55% vote for Scotland remaining in the UK looks like a show of strength, the Union is far from secure. More than 1.6 million people in Scotland yesterday voted to dissolve the United Kingdom.  The promises that helped to keep them in are the source of growing resentment amongst a considerable number of English MPs, and growing public disquiet.
Respected Conservative commentator Tim Montgomery said on Radio Four’s Today Programme this morning that preventing MPs from outside England from voting on laws that only apply to England would have significant advantages for David Cameron, noting “the chances of English majority rule by the Conservatives are hugely increased”. And it’s a point not lost on Labour
“The Union is secure for now. But a commitment had to be made to give Scotland substantially more powers. That had not been part of the plan at the outset. Anyone who imagines that this referendum has settled the Scottish question for all time will be very disappointed” Prof James Mitchell from Edinburgh University wrote in his analysis this morning.
The greatest pressure on David Cameron is coming from England and Scotland, and it is a political inevitability that the Government will want to defuse the immediate threats. But surely the history of the devolution process since 1945 tells us by now that short-term tactics are not successful in stabilising the Union.  If the Union is to fair and balanced to everyone, as David Cameron said this morning, then a lasting settlement needs to be forged.
“The inclination of the Westminster establishment is to be minimalist and incremental.  The decision has to be maximalist and radical” former Welsh Secretary Peter Hain said this morning.
 The early signs are not encouraging.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Dysgu gwersi

Image
A note to members of the Llanelli constituency Labour Party There has been a big disagreement within Welsh Labour. There has not been a ‘witch-hunt’ against Vaughan Gething, but there has been a genuine conflict of values. Now there is an appetite to quickly move on, but I think there’s a real danger that in shutting down discussion we will neither understand nor learn the lessons of what has happened.  As uncomfortable as it will be I think we need proper debate about the future direction of Welsh Labour. Circling the wagons around a ‘unity candidate’ may bring some short-term relief, but it will do nothing to address the fundamental need to renew in office. I’ve not given any interview and don’t intent to, but as a way of making sense of it all I’ve written this assessment which looks at what should happen now and an analysis of how we got to this position.  These are offered in the spirit of honest debate and not point-scoring. Edrych ymlaen We’re in a pickle. After 25 year...
Read more

Transport for Wales 2.0

Image
Speech to Transport for Wales senior management at Llys Cadwyn, TfW HQ, in Pontypridd on 6th February 2024 Diolch am y croeso a y cyfle. James Price and I meet regularly, and sometimes it feels like we’re in charge. But it really is a privilege to be in the same room as the people who actually do run transport in Wales. And it’s so nice to see people together. I’m still adjusting to meeting people in the flesh who I’m used to seeing online; I still can’t believe how short everyone is when I meet them! Apart from the ones I already knew were short, obviously (you know who you are). The worst thing about those mass Teams calls is that I can’t see people’s reactions to what I’m saying – to confirm that they are drifting off.  So at least I’ll know for sure today that I am boring you – the people in the room at least. It won’t stop me, but it gets rid of the uncertainty. I know we’ve priced-in that politicians' speeches will be insincere, but I really do mean what I say. And I ...
Read more

Don't forget the wiring

Image
The Wales Transport Strategy published in 2021 put modal shift at the heart of our policies. For the first time, we’ve set a target on increasing the number of trips made by sustainable modes of transport from 32% to 45% by 2040. Grand declarations are important to signal system change. However, as we've seen in the past, transport strategies often say all the right things in the narrative but the delivery mechanisms are programmed to deliver business-as-usual. In spite of the new targets the bible for highway engineers, the Design Manual for Roads and Bridges , still prioritises traffic flow; the bible for economists and finance officials, the UK Treasury Green Book, still insists on monetising notional journey time savings when it comes to transport investments; rather than reduce speeds to save lives, orthodoxy suggests we upgrade highway design to increase capacity and allow faster speeds under the guise of road safety.  Unless the system wiring is reconfigured to delive...
Read more