Who cares for Cymru?

As the Summer unfolds the title of dropped Reform Will Haywards new book ‘ Who Cares for Wales’ forms a perfect axiom for the next four years for the politics and culture of Cymru. The answer to this axiom depends largely if you sit either on the Unionist or Independence side of the debate. The phrase from RS Thomas that Wales is ‘ brittle with relics’ is perhaps most apt here.

At the recent Hay Festival, a question was asked about the devolution of the Crown Estates. The panel included James Evans one of the Reform Senedd members for Brycheiniog Tawe Nedd who stated that he did not support this. He stated that Wales was not good at things like this, that it would set up a ministry and would be inefficient. This illustrates perfectly the attitudes both explicit and implicit to the devolution settlement in Cymru. He was heckled and booed by the audience, but the message remains clear.

Reforms interest in Wales is about building the road to the general election of 2029. With thirty-four representatives in the Senedd and with members having a staff of three it gives Reform an income well more than one million pounds. Like both the Brexit party and Ukip before, staff members of elected representatives were used to campaign and build a political presence for future cycles of the electoral process. Wales is becoming the cash cow for the dreams of Reform for 2029. Its cynical, its manipulative and most inauthentic.

Wales does not receive any income from the Crown Estates. The entire income from Wales goes directly to Westminster. As it stands the Barnet formula is more advantageous to Scotland than Wales. A party that sort parity to the devolution status of Scotland would be the only true indicator of a genuine commitment to devolution for Cymru. There is no chance that it will be provided by Reform.

The Senedd had been meeting now for nearly four weeks and Reform’s only method of opposition is using an ‘astroturfing’ strategy of fake opposition using social media. The monitoring of legislation has so far seemed an impossibility to the inexperienced, uncomprehending and confused Welsh Reform Senedd members. 

Where does that leave the Tories? I expect their numbers to increase over the next few months, not from by election victories but from Reform defections as the narcissism of small difference allied with fragile egos and thin skins lead to defections directly from Reform to Tory. 

For Welsh Labour as a Unionist force, devoid of any real Left-wing agenda or representatives the election of a new leader shows a complete unawareness of the catastrophe they have been through. They simply believe that it is merely mid-term blues. Just recently a veteran Senedd member was talking loudly about bringing down the minority Plaid government without any appreciation of what that would mean. It’s not six months ago that the same individual was telling me that there was no sign of Plaid Cymru support across Swansea and Gower. Plaid hold three Senedd seats there to Labour’s one. Labour is blind to reality and here the brittleness of relics is most apparent and brutal. Labour faces extinction unseen by its desperate survivors on the edge of the dustbin of Cymru’s history.  They don’t seem aware of the similarities to the destruction of the old Welsh Liberal Party in 1922 making real the truth that those who know no history are doomed to repeat it.

Perhaps a Burham victory in Makerfield will allow an appreciation of devolution to grow here in Wales but sadly I fear that members of the Welsh PLP will strangle such a hope at birth.

Across Wales over the next few weeks a spate of by elections will happen as those elected to the Senedd are replaced. This will tell us much of the strength of both Plaid and the Greens in a struggle with Labour. By elections so far provide clear hints the Reform has plateaued, but full details will only become clear after next May’s elections for Welsh Councils where Labour’s last line of defence stretches vulnerably across the lengths of the Valleys from Llanelli to Newport. Locally in my Council I will be seeking to take over the council with an alliance of independent socialists and Greens and of course defend my own seat.

Plaid and the Greens are preparing for the same elections of next year and the founders of Your Party will establish a new party of the Left across Wales in a conference this Summer. The Left is very much alive in Wales, yet it is almost entirely outside of Labour.

The fascist far right is establishing itself within Wales. I have noticed that Restore is making an impact within Wales and anecdotally a couple of its devotees have appeared within the Facebook groups of South Wales. Links between the far-right Voice of Wales have shown links with senior Reform figures and have been thanked for their role in the campaign. One dropped Reform candidate has been appointed to the staff of Dan Thomas Reform Leader in Wales. He was dropped when pictures surfaced of him doing impressions of Hitler though he claimed it was a reenactment of a Fawlty towers scene.

Plaid shows promise as it seeks to develop its first one hundred days. The shape of things to come though vague appears to become clearer with a certain cautious optimism. Five years ago, no one could have envisaged that Plaid would have come so far and so fast. It’s clear that their approach will be to maximise the possibilities of all that devolution has to offer on the road to achieve independence. Let history unfold and reveal its Hegelian purpose.