Another St. David's Day poll is with us, and just like last year's poll, it shows increased support for further powers for the National Assembly. The difference to last year is that between then and now we have had a referendum. One year on, and the people of Wales already want a range of fiscal powers. In the current poll the majority in favour of tax devolution is larger than many of the polling margins that backed legislative powers.
Plaid Cymru's opponents are hiding behind the fact that today's poll shows no significant support for Welsh independence. They are doing this because they are actually divided on what they want to do next and can't provide a coherent answer. Carwyn Jones has conceded today that "a debate needs to be had on tax devolution", but the Welsh Labour party wasn't allowed to make a submission to the Silk Commission. The debate is already happening but their contributions have been confused and limited at best.
What more can be expected when Peter Hain's entries into the debate have been alarmingly out of touch, claiming just three months ago that financial powers would "destroy Wales" and also that he is on record in the Westminster parliament as saying that borrowing powers "doesn't fit with reducing the deficit" and that fiscal devolution would "play into the hands of the separatists". Any transfer of these powers would surely involve Hain because rather than being a fringe figure, he is still Labour's Shadow Secretary of Wales. He also said in 2005 that his Government of Wales Act "would settle the devolution question for a generation". There's no sign of it settling any time soon. With public opinion behind tax powers there will clearly now be an impetus within Labour to rewrite recent history so that they were always in favour of such things.
This hasn't stopped the Western Mail leading its coverage of this poll with the idea that there is "no appetite in Wales for independence". Surely the emphasis should have been on tax powers, which could actually happen in the next few years?
You can forgive the media and unionist parties for being obsessed with independence, because Plaid Cymru is currently discussing it in the context of an internal election. The unionist parties are having no comparable debates about saving the union or developing federalism, because they are mostly paralysed by their internal divisions. So Labour for example can't really come out with a coherent position on fiscal federalism beyond things like "devolving land-fill tax" and borrowing loads of money, because any serious steps would put their Westminster privileges at risk. Even in today's Westminster St. David's Day debate, Labour MPs such as Paul Murphy and Alun Michael are lamenting the reduction in Welsh MPs. The impression I get is that they are yesterday's men, having very much fallen behind public opinion in Wales and still believing that Westminster represents a higher authority than the National Assembly.
There is also the appearance of inevitability about strengthening the Assembly because actually trying to deliver things in Welsh politics is very difficult without also calling for changes to the settlement, because so little has been devolved beyond managing various budgets. This means rightly or wrongly, there is always a focus on Plaid Cymru, and also that the impression is (in the words of Cheryl Gillan) of a "constant conveyor-belt of more powers". The reason the drip-feed of further powers seems unending is because the unionist parties have utterly failed to develop devolution to any meaningful extent. By running scared of the findings of the Richard Commission they missed a golden opportunity to get some sustainability and clarity into their devolution settlement. In talking about independence they can avoid having to take any responsibility for Wales' affairs.
In fact the leader of the official opposition, the Welsh Tories, only refers to independence in his response to the poll. Nothing about the Silk Commission which his party set up. This suggests a worrying lack of capacity in the Welsh unionist parties for independent thought. Because in fact they aren't even Welsh unionist parties, but are merely the Welsh branches of England and Wales parties. Regardless of what those Welsh branches are saying about independence, the people of Wales in calling for Welsh taxes want something that wasn't in the Labour or Tory manifestos. That to me suggests that the tired old imperial parties are not in control of the direction of travel.
The current Labour government was supposed to be all about delivery- focussing on outcomes from public policy. That has not gone to plan. Instead we have ended up with an agenda of visits to Europe, constitutional conventions, talks on borrowing and funding, the prospect of tax devolution, an ongoing bid for energy powers, a cut in Welsh MPs and many other developments. With falling budgets, it is very hard for the Welsh Government to deliver anything without asking for new powers- although securing them is another story.
There is now a confident story to be told that the people of Wales want more independence. And they always want more than is on offer from the unionist parties who are now in uncharted waters.
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11 comments:
This hasn't stopped the Western Mail leading its coverage of this poll with the idea that there is "no appetite in Wales for independence".
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Isn't the Western Mail an English paper?
I'm a tory and I'm all for more devolution for Wales, leading to a more federal UK. That puts me absolutely in tune with Welsh public opinion (as per the BBC's opinion poll). However for all your railing against "unionist" parties, it shows that you , i.e Plaid Cymru , are calling for something (independence) which 93% of Welsh people don't want. Who's out of tune?
You are out of tune. I support other things as well as independence. I support a package of fiscal powers being achieved by Wales ahead of indepedence. I also support the development of Welsh democracy at a pace dictated by the people of Wales, not by Westminster politicians. That is where public opinion is. It's a bit rich for you as a Tory to ask about public opinion when 77% of Welsh people are against your call for Wales to destroy the NHS through privatisation and vandalism.
Anon 6:35
There was a time when the last thing I wanted was a mobile phone. I thought 'Why on earth would anyone want one of those?'
Many people had the same opinion.
Now I'm on my ninth or tenth mobile phone.
I was persuaded that having one was in my best interests.
The 7% figure is curiously low, and yet everyone is focusing on it as if this is the most important finding, or even the purpose of the survey.
The one consistent finding in all recent polls is that we seem to have a nascent Loyalist minority wanting to turn the clock back.
as a supporter of self government for wales i found the poll findings very heartening. We are only a year after there was a ringing endorsemnt of further devolution for wales....and now it appears that the people of wales actually want even more devolution.
And this poll is no 'rogue'.There have been a number of other polls in recent months showing support for further powers for the senedd.
I dont know what the true figure for support for independence among the welsh people is. At present it is a frankly abstract question.
How can people be asked if they favour independence for wales when there's never been any serious or concerted discussion about the prospect...and what it might mean for wales. Perhasp a yes vote in scotland's independence referendum will change this...perhaps it wont....only time will tell.
but what can be said with some certainty is that where a detailed, serious and concerted discusion has taken place around a constitutinal issue ie devolution for wales...support for such a development in the way wales is governed is growing.
Leigh Richards
In 2003 The SNP had a kick in. If Plaid can get themselves sorted then who knows what the next decade could bring for Wales.
Welsh Labour are on the ropes, the people of Wales want more powers but Welsh Labours bosses don't want them to have them. It's time we woke up and realised that these powers are ours to take.
No nationalist in Scotland would have thought they would be on the verge of freedom in just 10 years back in 2003.
Joson Mohammed led his Radio Wales show with the 7%. The fact that they used 0.033% of Wales to speak for 100% of Wales is lost on them.
Plus even if that 7% is right we don't have to change the opinion of 93% of Wales. We only need another 43.1%
Or rather 38.1% after Scotland leads the way.
Jason's phone in constantly talks about independence and Plaid Cymru...things that are clearly so irrelevant they have to be discussed all the time!
The thing about independence is that if there was a referendum scheduled for next year on tax powers, would independentists be involved or would they say "no thanks we want independence so will abstain"? Obviously they'd be on the "yes" side- probably doing alot of the work! To be honest I'm convinced about the principle of independence but not yet about the detail and mechanics. If I havent yet been convinced it's no surprise only 7% of people have.
He also had the leader of the Welsh Tories and Rachel Banner on his panel. So for fairness sake he had someone who wants a little bit more power to the Senedd and someone who wants no more powers.
If you ask people "do you want Wales to be independent tomorrow yes/no? Then it's not surprising the result was so low.
You are right about the independentists (is that even a word?). If you look at this link which shows various polls on Scottish independence from the last decade or so.
There's a big difference between those polls and any recent polls down here. Our independence is lower but more of us want more powers.
Obviously you cant vote twice, so could it be then that rather than blindly saying yes to independence tomorrow. People chose the more sensible and safest option which is more powers.
Even 15 years ago, who would have thought would be in the position we are in now! Plaid's poor showing in the last election is actually a tribute to how it has influenced the whole of Welsh politics, with many ideas that only Plaid held 30 years ago now being embraced enthusiastically by all the other mainstream parties.
Having achieved so much - probably 80% of what we set out to achieve, we now have a chance to renew ourselves, and concentrate fully on achieving the last 20% - full independence.
The case for Welsh independence has not been made yet, and many unionist lies remain unchallenged - but as we are seeing in Scotland, once the unionists are required to put a case for retaining the union, they appear to be completely incapable of doing so, relying instead on more lies and innuendo.
The other thing that has not been done in Wales is disseminating a detailed understanding of what life in Wales as part of the rump of the UK would be like, with NI quite likely to become an autonomous part of Eire (due to demographic changes in the electorate). By then the Tory Junta in Westminster will have gone so far towards total dismantlement of the welfare state, and wrecked the UK economy in the process, that the advantages of remaining wedded to England will be even more illusory than they are now.
Whatevewr happens in scotland over the next 5 years, the UK - the Status Quo that so many unionists cling to - will be no more.
Stuart- independentists is indeed a word, often used in the Catalan debate to distinguish between the different nationalist/republican camps. Think it's appropriate here to say that unlike in Scotland where the SNP used to have divisions between so-called "fundies" and gradualists, in Wales we don't get that choice. Self-government and gradualism is the only viable route because of Wales' different history to Scotland. So independentists here support devolution, because growing self-confidence is the only way to build the nation and also pragmatically, we don't yet have many of the building blocks needed to be in a position where independence becomes attractive to voters. As Marx said, to change the world you first have to see it as it really is. There hasn't even been a real debate in society about tax powers but people still want them because they think it is natural that the Assembly should have that level of influence.
The other thing I would mention is that this whole debate isn't really a constitutional one. The SNP only got an independence mandate by having the correct positions on tuition fees, the NHS, small businesses, renewable energy and so on. People are not interested in just the constitution but if linked to a political agenda it becomes potentially attractive- that is how Carwyn Jones capitalised on the referendum in 2011, because he linked it to the values Labour claimed to defending.
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