Ron Davies, the former Secretary of State for Wales, says devolution in Britain "is a process. It is not an event and neither is it a journey with a fixed end-point". He goes on to say, in a paper published this month by the Institute of Welsh Affairs in Cardiff, that "devolution is not an end in itself but a means to an end".
It is somewhat surprising to hear events, the stuff of politics, being so sidelined, especially since it was the revelation of an incident on Clapham Common last October that led to Mr Davies' resignation as secretary of state for Wales. He was replaced by Mr Alun Michael, a Blair loyalist and a capable if uncharismatic Welsh MP and cabinet minister.
Today the results will be announced of the election contest for leadership of the Welsh Labour Party, in which Mr Michael has been challenged by Rhodri Morgan, aptly described by the Guardian as "a rangy freethinker who has cast himself as the authentic voice of Welsh dissent, unwilling to take orders from Downing Street".
Whoever wins will become first minister in the new Welsh national assembly to be elected on May 6th - unless Labour suffers a completely unexpected disaster at the polls. The Michael-Morgan contest has been fast and furious, enlivening Welsh politics and bringing it home to Labour members and prospective voters alike how much there is at stake in this period of rapid political change.
After the extremely close referendum result on September 18th, 1997, in which the Yes side carried by a mere 6,700 votes in a turnout of 50.3 per cent, it was important that the issue should be so energised.
That accomplished, Mr Davies' point about this being a process, not a once-off event, comes into clearer focus. He examines the intense debate in the Welsh Labour Party, going back several decades, between centralisers who valued the links with London and relied on them to deliver welfare, economic growth and employment and those who argue that in the contemporary world national and regional identities have assumed greater importance and that decentralised decision-making is necessary to make government more accountable.
Devolution had little appeal originally for Mr Blair's New Labour project, but the new leader honoured a commitment made by his predecessor, John Smith. In any case the centralising and control instinct so characteristic of Mr Blair's style of leadership and management is challenged increasingly by a number of the dynamics at work.
This is very clear from the Michael-Morgan contest. The electoral college system used gives disproportionate power to an Old Labour-type trade union bloc vote steered by London in Mr Michael's favour, compared to Mr Morgan's much greater popularity among Labour's grass-roots and Welsh voters.
It is not the only instance of Mr Blair's use of Old Labour techniques. Traditionally they sneered at nationalism as a reactionary force. Mr Morgan has been attacked in whispering campaigns as a maverick, a wild man, a country hick, a closet nationalist, someone not to be trusted to run the first devolved administration and who would continually thwart London's wishes. It is off-the-wall, patronising stuff, which will be familiar to Irish politicians North and South.
Behind the clash of personalities there can be discerned a clash of policies about devolution, centring on the extent to which Whitehall and Westminster will continue to control Welsh affairs, and on whether the principle of devolution applies also within the Labour party itself.
Other neuralgic points include the appointment of senior civil servants; fiscal policy and block grants; the inevitable urge to equalise powers available to the Welsh, Scottish and Northern Ireland devolved governments; education policy, including the idea of changing the A-level examinations; potential competition between Welsh assembly and Westminster MPs; the possibility of different parties controlling Westminster and Cardiff parliaments similar to tensions in Spain. Each of these will ensure that devolution will be a dynamic process, not a singular event.
The Scottish writer Tom Nairn makes the point that devolution was conceived originally by Mr Blair in terms of a theory of gratitude, to satisfy demands for decentralisation once and for all; instead it has become a matter of giving democracy to two resurgent nations. Thus these events have set in motion an unanticipated process outside centralising control. Many believe Mr Blair's handling of it will determine the fate of his government, as the possible knock-on effects on England emerge into full view.
Two further potentially neuralgic dimensions were emphasised during a recent visit to Cardiff: Welsh relations with the EU and with Ireland. There is a striking overlap between support for the Yes side in the referendum and the boundaries of the Objective 1 region in western Wales for which Welsh politicians are currently agitating. The assembly will have a strong input on EU policy, both through a redefined relationship with Whitehall and the UK representation in Brussels and through direct Welsh representation along the lines of other regional authorities in Europe.
Much is made, as in Scotland, of the lessons to be learned from Ireland's experience and success within the EU. This is bolstered by a growing realisation that the Council of the Isles could be a forum to pursue joint interests, including EU ones, with Ireland, Scotland and Northern Ireland, which could cut across the general UK interest. Mr Morgan, for example, supports joint initiatives on tourism, transport, culture and media between Wales and Ireland and extensive use of the EU Interreg programmes.
A Minister for England has now been appointed to sit on the Council and there is an active discussion on how best to co-ordinate foreign policy matters between the devolved administrations and the Foreign Office. All this activity makes constitutional change in the UK, and its impact on Ireland, one of the most interesting political stories around.
