Mick Antoniw outlines his view on the future of the Welsh Labour Party and Welsh democracy
This is a difficult article for me to write, but in light of the recent disastrous election results for Welsh Labour, and Labour across the UK, it is time for the sort of honest and ruthlessly frank analysis and assessment of these results and what they mean for Wales and UK Labour. Despite all the longstanding omens and warning signs over the past decade, I am not yet confident that it is ready to contemplate and implement the sort of changes in politics and direction that I believe need to be taken if the results are not to lead to a permanent political realignment of Welsh centre-left politics.
It is important to understand how we have reached this political crossroad, if a new direction and philosophy is to emerge.
In many ways I am typical of Welsh Labour members and the views I am expressing are aligned with many other members of the post-war generation. I joined the Labour Party in Wales in late 1974 so my membership is nearing 52 years. A large part of my life has been devoted to supporting Labour, but more importantly promoting the values of democratic socialism through the electoral system.
What motivates any individual to join a political party is the belief that, by contributing to the democratic process, you can change society for the better – to make it prosperous, fairer, more just and more equal.
I came to Wales to study law in 1973, the son of a Ukrainian father and Danish mother, all impacted by the political and economic maelstrom of the Second World War. My mother was looking for work and my father was unable to return home to a country occupied by Russia – now part of the Soviet Union. Brought up in a vibrant Ukrainian community, it gave me a unique perspective when I arrived in Wales on the emerging issues of devolution, language, culture and self-determination, all of which were now being considered as part of the Royal Commission on the constitution, more commonly known now as the Kilbrandon Report.
Wales was then an overwhelmingly Labour country, but with emerging, yet still peripheral, nationalist and home rule movements. An effect of Kilbrandon was to bring to the fore the growing conflicts within the Labour movement thinking about the future of Wales and its relationship with the United Kingdom, political, economic and cultural. For many in Wales, particularly parts of the valleys and the Southeast of Wales, the language was polarising, a cause of political division. It isn’t now, thankfully, which shows how far we have progressed and how far Wales has changed, but it was then.
But the political divisions and contradictions in Labour thinking had not gone away.
The growing, albeit marginal, success of Plaid Cymru – issues of serious national discord around Tryweryn, Aberfan and the Welsh language – created a concern amongst the strongly unionist membership that saw itself as British rather than Welsh. This was perhaps a legacy of the internationalist socialist ideology that pervaded the party, but equally a legacy of the Second World War and the impact of the 1945 post-war Labour Government. UK-wide nationalised industries consolidated a model of Britishness. But as time progressed, amongst the membership and the Trade Unions was a growing desire for greater decentralisation and devolution. In Parliament over decades the influence of great figures such as Cledwyn Hughes, James Griffiths, Elystan Morgan and John Morris fuelled the calls for change. Later successors such as Rhodri Morgan, Hywel Francis, Julie Morgan, Paul Flynn and Peter Hain developed the basis of political and civic support for constitutional reform and the establishment of a Welsh Assembly. The same process was also taking place within the trade unions, led by the TGWU and the NUM, in particular George Wright and Dai Francis, to the establishment of the Wales TUC.
After the cataclysmic failure of the 1979 referendum, carried out during the dying days of the Callaghan Labour government, many of us thought we would never see devolution, but it was the Welsh voices at Westminster and the foresight of leaders such as Scottish MPs John Smith and Donald Dewar and Welsh MPs such as Peter Hain, Paul Flynn, Rhodri Morgan and John Morris, amongst others, who resurrected the policy enabling it to become a central part of the 1997 manifesto.
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The miners’ strike of 1984/5 in response to Thatcher’s ruthless savaging of the coal industry was, in my view, instrumental in turning part of the previously anti-devolution working class vote towards a desire for greater control. Thatcher became, and remains to this day, a hated figure whose legacy of privatisation and de-industrialisation still impacts Wales. On more than one occasion post-strike I heard Welsh miners say that they never again wanted to have Tories deciding their future in Wales. It was enough to just get devolution through in the 1979 referendum on a wave of New Labour support. Devolution was born.
As time progressed, and as predicted, it led eventually to the Assembly becoming the Senedd and a fully-fledged parliament and legislature.
But the political divisions and contradictions in Labour thinking had not gone away. There was no broader or comprehensive constitutional debate about the future of the United Kingdom and the decentralisation of power in England. Instead, there remained those who did not support devolution and thought it had gone too far but reluctantly tolerated it; for them, devolution was, at best, a means of dealing with the nationalism problem, hoping it would neutralise it. For the more progressive thinkers, devolution was a process of decentralisation and empowerment of people and communities, of giving them greater control over their lives. As Aneurin Bevan had once said, the purpose of power is to give it away.
The successful 1997 referendum sidelined the begrudging anti-devolutionists.
The election exposed the flaws in the first-past-the-post system. Wales was no longer a two-party country but a five or six-party country.
Suppressed also perhaps by the charisma of Rhodri Morgan, the leadership of Carwyn Jones and the progressive persona of Mark Drakeford, it was still there, dormant. There was little UK Labour could do about it. 14 years of Tory austerity made UK Labour powerless. But that was about to change.
Labour’s traditional base in Wales, as in most industrial communities, had been declining for decades in symbiotic alignment with the decline of heavy industry, particularly in mining and steel. Large majorities were becoming much smaller, with Labour success increasingly dependent on a first-past-the-post electoral system where the Labour base in the absence of any consolidated opposition was frequently the largest party. But the writing was on the wall.
The General Election of 2024 was heralded as a massive Labour success. But with one of the blandest and most minimalist manifestos in my living memory, and with one of the worst and most chaotic dysfunctional Tory governments in post-war history, Labour barely gained 35% of the vote and less overall votes than achieved under Jeremy Corbyn in 2019. Nevertheless, the first-past-the-post system delivered across the UK two thirds of the seats with only one third of the vote.
It was an electoral success but a democratic disaster. In many seats the majorities were reduced and turn out rarely reached 50%. Traditional Labour strongholds such as Blaenau Gwent and Rhondda were 44% and 48% respectively.
The election exposed the flaws in the first-past-the-post system. Wales was no longer a two-party country but a five or six-party country.
I recall telling the Labour Party National Executive Committee on more than one occasion that, despite electoral success in Wales, we were on the coat tails of Scottish Labour. The warnings from many sources remained unheeded and the leadership largely oblivious to the demographic electoral changes taking place across the UK, but particularly in Wales and Scotland, where there were devolved governments.
Failure to address this by the next General election will have severe democratic consequences.
What was a politically diverse broad church increasingly becoming a centralised structure, where discipline and loyalty was confused with obedience and sycophancy.
Expectations were high. Greater devolution and broader constitutional reform as promised by the Gordon Brown report, by the Wales Independent Commission and by earlier commissions were expected to begin a process of constitutional reform and further devolution. They were soon dashed.
This naïve reversal of policy began much earlier, with the election of Keir Starmer as Labour leader. In his election campaign he declared himself a supporter of devolution. I was asked to endorse him as leader and provide a supportive quote, which I did, and which appeared on one of his election leaflets saying he supported a reformed and federal UK. This along with other promises to continue a radical agenda and constitutional reform were soon reversed as the party shifted to the right, step-by-step as policy after policy was abandoned. What had started as a process of re-uniting the party behind a radical agenda became one of turning the party into a top-down authoritarian body. What was a politically diverse broad church increasingly becoming a centralised structure, where discipline and loyalty was confused with obedience and sycophancy.
It became clear that ‘UK Labour’ identity, with all the accompanying Union Jack flag waving, was to become the image of the party, a unifying image across the UK, albeit predominantly England and Wales. Those on the left of the party were increasingly isolated, selection processes were manipulated to ensure only those considered loyalist were selected, administrative suspension was abused to exclude many long-standing Labour loyalists and those not excluded organisationally were increasingly politically excluded – or just left the party. The identity of ‘Welsh Labour’ was increasingly supplanted by a buoyant Welsh Office unsupportive of devolution in any practical sense, where it was clearly regarded as just an appendage to UK Labour.
There are two fundamental spanners in the current constitutional arrangements for Wales. One is control and the other is trust.
Very little, if any, of the promised devolution agenda progressed. The previous Tory Government was overtly anti-devolution. For the new UK Labour Government, it was business as usual. Very little changed. The growth of concurrent powers of UK Government in legislation continues as under the Tory Governments. The Internal Market Act which the Tories brought in to undermine devolution in the post-Brexit environment was not repealed and now welcomed, the Barnett funding formula remains unamended, recommendations of the Gordon Brown report for devolution of youth justice are barely progressing. The previous criticism of the failure to allocate HS2 consequential funding to Wales after decades of underinvestment has been completely reversed albeit with a series of non-binding future funding promises, the abolition of the House of Lords and its replacement with an elected Council of the nations and regions has been abandoned, and failure to even discuss or contemplate the genuine merits of devolution of the Crown Estate. With the abolition of elected police and crime commissioners, a point-blank refusal to even consider devolution of policing, as has already taken place in parts of England, Scotland and Northern Ireland. In summary a complete disregard and even contempt for policies passed by the Welsh Labour conference and even a gross failure to provide any proper response or reasoned explanation for the opposition of the recommendations of the various expert commissions recommending reforms for the benefit of Wales. The list goes on.
The agreed framework for inter-governmental relations initiated by Theresa May exists mainly in process format but largely neutralised. The creation of an intergovernmental secretariat is largely defunct.
In its place in real political terms is the emboldened Welsh Office. The UK gatekeeper to Wales, the de-facto Governorship of Wales. What was set up in the pre-devolution era, that was intended to be Wales voice in Westminster, has become Westminster’s voice in Wales. For all intents and purposes, it has become the post-devolution equivalent of a colonial office.
It has become a core institution in an increasingly centralised muscular unionist UK Government.
Devolution has been brought to a standstill.
In politics, delivery is fundamentally important, but perception is everything and the growing perception is of Welsh Labour being an appendage to an increasingly unpopular UK Labour Government, no longer standing up for Wales and Labour values but one of subservience and deferential. We appear to have learned nothing from the Scottish Labour experience back in 2007. Then the Welsh Labour identity was at the forefront, electorally and politically successful.
The increasing association of UK Labour with ‘Britishness’ has also been a historic mistake which ignores all the evidence that, increasingly in Wales, those on the centre left who have traditionally supported Welsh Labour identify as Welsh rather than British. A change has been taking place particularly amongst the younger voters, those who have grown up with devolution. A changing population with a very strong sense of nationhood, different from earlier generations, regarding Wales as a country and expecting it to be respected and treated fairly in a United Kingdom, a voluntary union of four nations. As time goes by this demographic profile will continue to diverge and any party that is not and does not appear authentically Welsh will not recover these voters. They will continue to find other political homes as they did during the recent Senedd election.
There are two fundamental spanners in the current constitutional arrangements for Wales. One is control and the other is trust. The UK Labour Government does not trust devolved government. UK governments prefer control – or at best oversight – to decentralisation.
It is often argued, particularly in Westminster, that constitutional issues are not important. This is a major political flaw.
The world has changed, UK politics and perceptions have changed, the threats to democracy grow, yet in all these respects the UK Government remains essentially conservative unionist. This cannot go on if Labour is to survive in Wales and in the UK.
Wales’ future naturally lies as part of the UK, but a reformed UK. We do not need a Welsh version of Brexit as some would like to see, but we do need clear purpose and values. During the Scottish independence referendum the UK Government struggled to present a clear rationale for the existence and continuation of the UK as an entity. That identity and rationale have still not been elucidated. Instead, we have been presented with a sort of British flag waving national unionism under the guise of Britishness. It is, in its own way, a form of nationalism, but one which decreasingly resonates with the younger Welsh population.
For Wales this is an even deeper question because of the historic annexation of Wales over centuries with England. We do not have an England and Wales constitution; we have an English constitutional and political structure which has absorbed Wales. Devolution started the process of change and constitutional modernisation, but a reversal of the process has begun, to the detriment of Wales. This is now having consequences politically and is reflected in the election results.
It is often argued, particularly in Westminster, that constitutional issues are not important. This is a major political flaw. Of course, the delivery of services, economic growth, prosperity and wellbeing are the bread-and-butter issues, but it is the constitutional framework that binds policy and politics together and provides a mechanism for delivery and the exercise of decision making and power.
During the Article 50 case where the supreme court declared that parliamentary legislation was necessary to implement exit from the EU, the status of the Sewell Convention and its justiciability was considered. As Counsel General at the time I intervened on behalf of the Welsh Government. We did not argue it was as yet justiciable but emphasised its constitutional importance. This was recognised by the Court that the convention was important, non-justiciable, but that a breach of a parliamentary convention carried political consequences.
This is what we are experiencing now, the consequences of the breakdown of Sewell, the early reversals of devolution and governmental recentralisation. Add to this the increasing disengagement from the political process of increasing numbers of the population and you begin to see the fragmentation and dismemberment of democracy from within the electoral system. The growth of Reform in Wales and the policies they represent are, in my view, a clear and present danger to democracy and the rule of law.
Our outdated and fragmented political system and democracy facilitate populism.
In going forward it will be essential that Labour representation in the Senedd does all that is necessary to support and maintain a left-of-centre government.
Barnett, for all its flaws, is nevertheless a redistributive formula for wealth across the UK. It needs reform but not abolition. The UK is a very centralised economy with almost 50 percent of the wealth concentrated in the South of the country. We cannot escape the economic impact this has on Wales and the regions of England who are equally impacted. We cannot escape the interdependency of Wales and England, economic, social, historic and political, nor should we want to. We share much in common. Separatism is a threat to the UK as was and is Brexit. Plaid Cymru have consistently failed to delineate what they mean by independence. Most Plaid supporters I have spoken to over the years agree and are more in favour of greater devolution, home rule or a move to a more federalist structure. The consequences of separatism would be disastrous.
Ironically, this coincides with much of the centre-left coalition of political support that Welsh Labour garnered over the past 27 years, much of which has now defected to Plaid Cymru and, to a lesser extent, the Green Party.
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It may not last but whether it does will depend on how Welsh Labour responds. It can either become a generational existential event, or Welsh Labour can emerge refreshed and renewed with a new sense of vision.
To achieve change, Welsh Labour must become an autonomous political party; part of the Labour family but free to speak up on any issue affecting Wales and to outline Welsh perspectives and interest.
To achieve this, a starting point is the full devolution of the Labour Party rule book to Wales. A unanimous vote to start discussions for this with the National Executive Committee was passed unanimously two years ago yet nothing was done. It was not considered of importance. An indication of the disregard for Wales.
The impressive Gordon Brown report must be resurrected, accepted and adopted. The National Executive Committee, whilst welcoming the report, declined to support it in any meaningful way. The only commitment from the Labour manifesto was to explore the devolution of youth justice and even that has been kicked into the long grass.
Asymmetrical devolution is no longer acceptable or viable in the long term. Wales should have the same status and devolved powers as Scotland.
The role of the Welsh Office must be reviewed in the light of the functioning of the inter-governmental framework. Most of its Government of Wales functions should now be removed in favour of the framework which should now be put on a statutory basis.
The Sewell Convention should be put on a statutory basis. Even though it is incorporated into the Wales Act 2017 it has no clear statutory function or status.
We need a new Constitutional Reform Act to implement the above.
We need a review of the Barnett formula to ensure it is appropriate and suitable for the needs of Wales within the United Kingdom. There is a genuine sense of injustice that must be addressed, not just for Wales but for many of the regions of England. Inequality across the UK by the imbalance of wealth, concentrated so overwhelmingly in the South East of England drives instability and political division exploited ruthlessly by the far right.
The Crown Estate should be devolved. The arguments against devolving this are spurious. They are about control and the lack of trust in devolved government.
In going forward it will be essential that Labour representation in the Senedd does all that is necessary to support and maintain a left-of-centre government. It will require cross-party discussion and agreement on those areas that are common to centre and centre-left elected representatives and political parties. There will be a need for a level of political cooperation that has not been experienced before.
The UK Labour Government must also respect the democratic outcome of the election and not seek to constrain devolution for party political interests.
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The leader of the Senedd Labour group is the leader of Welsh Labour and must have the necessary political tools to rebuild trust and political leadership. Ken Skates has been elected as interim leader but there must be a formal election and debate within the party. There must be a ruthlessly transparent discussion of the future of Welsh Labour and what we stand for. This will need support from the Welsh Labour MP’s who also face electoral extinction if we cannot radically change and rediscover our political roots. At long last there needs to be a proper Welsh convergence of Senedd and Parliamentary representatives focused on a Welsh agenda. This may be the hardest political challenge of them all.
UK Labour will soon face a leadership challenge. Already we see some of the radical ideological conflicts emerging. Wes Streeting on the right of the party, promoting a British unity model of governance which seems to repeat all the mistakes of the past and fails to understand the political changes outside London in the regions of England, Wales and Scotland. On the other side, if he wins the Makerfield by election, Andy Burnham, centre-left committed to a greater decentralised and devolved model of governance and commitment to traditional labour values and proportional electoral reform.
The UK now has three nationalist governments. I would respectfully suggest that if the UK is to have a cohesive future it will not be based on countering this by proposing a British unionist response which after all is just another form of nationalism. We need a Labour alternative which recognises our common interests but respects and promotes our national and regional divergences. We need an alternative that rebuilds and re-energises our democracy.
Just as we need a Labour Government in Westminster, Wales needs its own democratic socialist Welsh Labour party with a clear message, identity and set of progressive values; achieving this will depend on decisions taken over the coming months. The question is can we – and will we – rise to the challenge? Failure to radically change direction may well confine us to the dustbin of history, yet I am to remain an optimist.
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