Continuing the “Devil’s Advocate” series – looking closer at some of the arguments which will be, or are being, used against Welsh independence – I turn to perhaps the oldest one of the lot.
It’s a point of view that’s always been popular to a certain degree – though you can make the argument that it’s become less popular in the last few years – and it’s that devolution proves that independence would be a big mistake.
It may sound strange but – as suggested – one of the strongest arguments against independence may well be the performance of the Senedd and successive Welsh governments.
While there are plenty of things that have gone right since devolution, there’s a long list of failures too – and some of those failures are big: NHS waiting times, a mixed record on the economy, the continued “brain drain”, the failure to deal with the model of local government we were left with in 1996 etc.
You could rightly make the case that these are failures of government rather than of process or devolution itself. That said, for every failure of government, there’s probably been a failure of scrutiny or lack of accountability somewhere down the line.
We don’t have much of a culture of political challenge and serious scrutiny in Wales because we’ve only thought of ourselves “politically” as a nation relatively recently. The political establishment/civic society is also very small, meaning everyone seems to know or know of each other. This makes it far more difficult to speak truth to power because you don’t want to piss people off or lose patronage.
So what happens in that vacuum is unsophisticated socio-political scrutiny that rarely goes beyond angry press releases and passive-aggressive grievance politics. Where failures are picked up they’re often approached in a “whoopsie daisy” manner – some brief froth and hot air, slapped wrists and quiet shelving or passed off to a committee. We’re very good at complaining about something after the fact in Wales; not so good at preventing problems happening in the first place, working through issues and coming up with workable solutions.
It’s also very easy to use patriotism as a shield to deflect legitimate criticism in Wales creating a “rally to the flag” effect to defend one of the cultural or political monoliths in desperate need of reform or accountability. Criticism isn’t always framed as being aimed aimed at the policy, organisation or thing being criticised; it’s against “Wales” or seen as in some way trying to “keep Wales down”.
As a result, bad stuff is allowed to happen. There are things ministers and politicians in local government, the Senedd and Welsh Government have done that would get them crucified by the Fleet Street press at Westminster or slung out of office in shame. That’s an ironic thing to say given current events, but increasingly there’s no such thing as standards in public life anymore – at Wales or UK level.
Devolution also limits the damage politicians in Wales can do as there are clear boundaries on what they can and can’t do. Full independent powers could result in the damage running far deeper – picture the Welsh Government committing a serious foreign policy blunder, for example.
There’s a quote attributed to St. David: “Do the little things.” That’s the spirit of Welsh devolution right there.
There’s an impression – rightly or wrongly – that the Senedd has focused on making gestures to give them an air of moral superiority than concentrating on bread and butter matters, or following through on recommendations of various committees and commissions.
While the Senedd may discuss multiple topics at once (as all parliaments do), structural problems and legacy issues in managed public services (NHS, local government, social care) don’t get an airing or seem to take a long time to be fixed, if they get fixed at all.
If you’ve been waiting months – even years – for a hip replacement or a decent care package, you’re not going to care about outlawing pavement parking or banning single-use plastics (even if such things are, in their own way, important).
There’s the inevitable party political angle to this as well. Labour’s political dominance in Wales can be contained with devolution – or balanced out by alternative governments enacting policies at UK level in policy areas reserved for the UK Parliament. In an independent state, such dominance can be potentially dangerous.
Democracies where one party dominates may be perceived to be more open to corruption (pdf), complacency and the creation of a client state between political and civic establishments (because to get anything done, more often than not have to do it through the dominant party in some way).
None of this is Labour’s fault and it’s as much a failure on the part of the main opposition parties to gain ground. Labour win elections in Wales for a good reason and they’re not dominant in the entirity of the country. Nevertheless, there have to be proper checks and balances on political power and we just don’t have them in Wales.
There are other related arguments too such as:
- The seeming “one-way traffic”/slippery slope where the talk is always about granting more powers rather than taking them away, usually without a serious plan for management of those new powers (cases in point – constant discussion over devolution of broadcasting and criminal justice).
- The failure to devolve power away from Cardiff and what may be perceived to be a centralising tendency or attitude in the Senedd and Welsh Government: the “Cardiff gets everything” argument.
- The lack of interest in Welsh politics and current affairs more generally leads to perceptions that the Senedd is little more than a “talking shop” (though there are contradictory beliefs in how much power they have – either not enough to bother yourself with or too much; the latter belief becoming more popular during the Covid-19 pandemic).
- The overall quality and standing of politicians in Wales more generally/”pox on all your houses” argument.
- The sense that Wales is over-governed and already has too many politicians at local, national and UK levels – as well as the associated arguments around the costs and bureaucracy involved.
- Lack of capacity in the Welsh civil service and civic society to deal with a transition from a limited form of self-governance to independence. This could cause serious problems when replicating UK government departments or creating new ones.
- A flat rejection of Wales as a political entity – though this may not always extend to a rejection of a Welsh cultural or national identity.
