Clear support for a more independent Wales

The first Welsh opinion poll of the year demonstrates great news for people that support further devolution. But what struck me was the Labour response from their officially-sanctioned sites on social media. To put it shortly, they are literally obsessed with independence ("only" 10% of the Welsh people want it in this week's poll). They barely mentioned the Tories who are supposed to be the official opposition in Wales.

Some commentators like Gareth Hughes are also focussing on the idea that 42% of Plaid's own supporters don't want independence (a minority of 33% does). I don't know why Gareth thinks this is a "surprise"-polls consistently show that Plaid's voters don't want independence- only 20% of them wanted independence in the last ICM poll so the support has actually gone up. Believe it or not, looking back over polling history it is normal for Plaid's voters to not support independence.

The current focus on Welsh independence is because the Plaid Cymru leadership contest has dominated the Welsh political debate for the past few months and that has required all of the various candidates to discuss independence positively. And in politics generally, the issue of Scottish independence has been looming large and would end the UK as we know it.

The reality though is that in Wales the political landscape is different to Scotland. Scotland has already been independent and has many of the necessary institutions to function as a state, as well as a relatively well-developed economic base. In Wales there is no such viability at this stage. Independence is a revolutionary proposal. It doesn't make sense from a conservative perspective and there's no reason why most people would see it as desirable at this stage, compared to in Scotland where a referendum is programmed to happen. We need nation-building before independence as an actual event becomes either popular or possible. With that said, nation-building in itself makes little sense unless there is a clear destination or purpose and on that basis I have always supported independence. Not for the sake of being Welsh, but because nations should decide their own affairs as much as possible, especially in such a globalised world where power is moving away from people towards corporations and so on. Wales obviously has the potential to flourish but unlocking that potential requires all kinds of interim policies to be put in place.

Put simply, you can't have an independent Wales without a Welsh legal system, control over our resources, and more entrenched national institutions. Democracy means that the likelihood of attaining all of those things over night is impossible. This needs to be understood by rabid Unionists as much as it does by pro-independence hardliners. It doesn't really matter if people don't want independence right now because Wales isn't ready. It is a goal to be attained. But without that goal there would be no point in solving that or no incentive to fix many of Wales' problems.

The good news then is that support for greater powers is up to 32%. I must admit I was worried that the prospect of Scottish independence would see a backlash amongst Wales' quite conservative electorate whereby they would want no more powers, having seen that further powers could lead to what Kim Howells used to call "the gates of independence". I am glad to see that hasn't happened. Although it would be wrong to read too much into one poll, this echoes the kind of polls we were seeing before the 2011 referendum. The referendum itself might have been expected to dampen enthusiasm down or to have demonstrated the "settled will" of the Welsh electorate for a generation, but there is no sign of that.

Electorally, the news is good for Labour with the same result being shown for Welsh elections as the pre-Assembly election poll. But as we have seen from the behaviour of the Labour party since being elected last May, it is one thing to be in power and another thing to be in control. Politics isn't as simple as replacing one party in power with another, it's also about building hegemony across all parts of society and therefore what you do when you have power.

With Labour having been in power in Wales and the UK for so many years it is worth asking have their main core aims been met? Has Wales or the UK become more equal and does Wales or the UK have less poverty? With Plaid Cymru for example, they were only in power for a fraction of time and Wales concretely became more self-governing in a way that was proportionate to the power they had as a junior partner (this is without mentioning their other aims). I don't see the evidence that Labour's ongoing time in power in Wales or at the UK level has translated into ending poverty by 2020, or reducing inequality, or any other of their historic core aims. So aside from seeing who is winning at elections it's also worth exploring what political action that translates into.

It's worth remembering that while an independent Wales is possible, a more independent Wales is almost certain and there are going to be many political struggles in Wales before an independence referendum is on the table.