How does Wales fit in to shifting United Kingdom?

‘Carwyn Jones is in step with Welsh public opinion but he is out of step with the Labour Party mainstream”. This characterisation of the Welsh first minister’s dilemma was offered at a public meeting in Cardiff last week on where Wales fits in to a changing United Kingdom. A Welsh perspective gives an insight into their difficulties as they respond to Scotland’s referendum on independence.

Speakers insisted that Wales differs greatly from Scotland in interests and needs. Its relationship with England is much more interdependent socially and politically and more dependent economically compared to Scotland, reflecting relative poverty and greater transfers from the UK budget. Wales has not been included in the developing debate about the UK’s future, driven as it is by the “near death” of the union in the referendum and the need to appease Scottish expectations. The same neglect applies to Northern Ireland – and they should co-operate more.

Jones foresaw this neglect when he proposed a constitutional convention on the UK’s future. It would consider a federal-type structure to replace the existing state, which is still centralised in London notwithstanding the UK’s devolved regions. He wants the convention’s terms of reference and agenda agreed before the general election next May.

Set deadline

Those who share his view in Wales think it should be an event with a set deadline and carefully prescribed tasks, rather than an open-ended process that would better suit a Scottish nationalist agenda. Although Plaid Cymru, the Welsh nationalist party, is gaining support from the predominant Labour in Wales, it does not support independence but rather sovereignty, reflecting Welsh public opinion.

That opinion divides on what that sovereignty should consist of. One definition distinguishes between powers reserved to Westminster like defence and foreign affairs, with the rest allowed to the Welsh Assembly, whereas a conferred powers model defines what Wales is allowed to have sovereignty over.

The reserved model is becoming more influential in the Welsh Labour Party and among civil society groups involved in the Institute of Welsh Affairs, which organised this conference.

But it remains contentious within the wider UK Labour Party and in sections of the Welsh one, because it would potentially change the relationship between Westminster and Wales, as between Westminster and Scotland, in a fundamental way by bringing the UK closer to a federal model of government.

The Labour Party is now the only one with support throughout Britain, since the Conservatives have few seats in Scotland or Wales, while the Liberal Democrats are weakened. Those who support a centralised Labour Party and the existing centralised state see the priority as ensuring a fair distribution of UK resources to weaker regions rather than devolving powers, which could encourage a race to the bottom unless fairness is entrenched.

And of course the party relies on Scottish and Welsh MPs to give it a majority in the general election – a prospect now threatened by the decisive swing to the SNP in Scotland, raising the possibility of a minority Labour government with SNP support. That “knife to the throat”, as unionists see it, would give the SNP leverage to gain more powers, allowing it to argue the case for independence, as its new leader Nicola Sturgeon said last weekend. If it is a Conservative- led government, she says Scotland would stay in the EU if England decided to withdraw, creating a constitutional crisis.

So Carwyn Jones now speaks more for Wales than for Labour, but rapid political change may put him more in both mainstreams. His case for a constitutional convention might give a Labour government an opportunity to tackle the issues involved.

They include defining and entrenching shared sovereignty between the UK and its nations, catering for English regionalism through city-regions, making the House of Lords into a territorial upper house, and addressing the inequalities between London and the southeast versus the rest of the country.

It would be an asymmetrical quasi-federalism, giving different powers to different nations and regions. That would meet Welsh demands for more time to consider its own interests, rather than aping Scotland. The same applies to Northern Ireland, where greater powers would further divide the Executive. Both depend on transfers from a more self-aware and less-generous England in a realpolitik union relying more on instrumental than emotional affinities.

The Scottish question drives the debate. Whether the UK can survive that assault depends on its capacity for political renewal. Pessimists on that happening outnumbered optimists at this conference. pegillespie@gmail.com