Assembly wouldn’t be backed now – Tory boss

WELSH Conservative leader Andrew RT Davies has warned that he believes a referendum on abolishing the Welsh Assembly would succeed if it was held now.

While stressing in an article for the Sunday Times that he remains a supporter of devolution, he thinks that in a turbulent political era that delivered a Leave vote in June’s referendum on EU membership, it would be difficult to get backing for the Assembly as an institution.

Mr Davies, who supported Brexit, states: “The result of the EU referendum has thrown the Welsh political establishment into a tailspin. Not since 1997, when the National Assembly was established on a low turnout, by a margin of just 6,700 votes, has this place felt so vulnerable – and with reason.

“In June, voters across Wales gave the establishment a kicking. They were resentful of ‘Project Fear’ and dismissed the idea that they should be grateful to a distant and remote institution for which they felt no warmth, and from which tangible benefits were difficult to discern.

“Anti-EU feeling was at its most profound and concentrated in precisely the areas said to ‘benefit’ most from EU funding.”

Yet, argues Mr Davies, the political establishment – and, in particular, the Welsh Labour Government and Welsh nationalists – seem to be in a dangerous state of denial; neither appearing to accept the result, nor understand the impact it could have on the Welsh Assembly.

He writes: “Last week a fellow farmer asked me if I thought a referendum on devolution could be won in the new post-Brexit landscape if voters were asked to have their say again.

“If the question were put to the people tomorrow I believe that they would vote to abolish the National Assembly.

“I say that with no pleasure. Having initially opposed devolution, I have become a passionate but pragmatic advocate.”