Welsh devolution should wait for the Tories

The Assembly it seems is still clamouring for a bit of substance to devolution, but as yet the Welsh people are rather divided about it.

A very slim majority would like more power, but under the pressure of a hard fought campaign, fears about taxes or raving nationalism could easily scare off enough voters to stop anything happening.

There is a simple answer, I believe, which is to wait for the Tories to win an election.

The impetus for devolution in Wales came from a sense of identity, albeit a sense that is somewhat contested. But what many of the opponents of further power for the Assembly share with those who want it is, I suspect, a left-leaning, socially-inclined politics.

The strongest opponents, after all, were from the Welsh valleys, many of whom were traditional Labour voters whose communities had consciously reconstructed the Welsh identity as one that looked to class rather than nation. I’ll spare readers the history lesson, and cut to the quick:

These people won’t like it when they have a Tory government. Suddenly, faced with cuts to the NHS, social services, education, you name it, devolution will make a lot of sense.

That’s when the pressure for the Assembly to stand up to Westminster bullies will build up. Political institutions need to stand up for their communities in order to create democratic legitimacy. While the Assembly has tried to do this in a small way, I think the divergence of UK and Welsh politics is likely to create a dynamic to make this much more obvious to many more people.

If I was in Welsh politics right now – which I am not any longer – that would be my advice to pro-devolutionists in Labour and Plaid Cymru.

Hold fire, see if the Tories win an election and have a fight with them. Only then will the whole of Wales have a chance to see why devolved politics makes sense, and that’s the time to ask for powers to protect Wales from the ravages of the Tories.

Jim Killock's site