‘I regret not voting No to the National Assembly for Wales’
THE woman who led the campaign to stop Wales getting full law-making powers says she regrets not voting against setting up the National Assembly in the first place.
Schoolteacher Rachel Banner, who was brought up in Pontypool and Abertillery, was the main face of the True Wales group, which argued in the run-up to a 2011 referendum that the Assembly should not be allowed to pass its own laws.
In a Martin Shipton Meets podcast, she describes herself as part of the “Old Labour” tradition, stating: “As a very young child we used to have political discussions at the dinner table.
“My grandfather was a baker and he’d also worked on the railway. It was quite a working-class background but it was very much interested in improving the lot of working people. So I suppose that’s why I joined the Labour Party at 16.”
Asked what her sense of Wales was, she said: “My grandmother came from a Welsh-speaking family. She understood Welsh and she used to listen to Welsh programmes sometimes. We used to watch Sion a Sian [the Welsh-language version of Mr and Mrs] on the television.
“But she was very anti-nationalist. She’d obviously lived through the war and she knew the damage that nationalism could do. She obviously wasn’t happy with what happened in Germany – Nazism – so she was very suspicious of nationalism.
“She was very proud of her Welshness. She was born on March 1 and was always proud of that. An enduring memory of childhood was seeing daffodils around me on March 1. But she was also suspicious of thinking you’re superior because of your nationality.”
It was put to Ms Banner that in Wales, when choosing which perspective to have on politics, there was a choice between Welsh nationalism and British nationalism, and that British nationalism, which had entailed oppressing people around the world, left many people feeling uncomfortable.
Asked whether she felt attracted to the British Empire, she said: “No, absolutely not. I’ve got no truck with oppressing any other country. A lot of what we did – all the countries in Britain – was atrocious.
“But I don’t think you have to choose between two nationalisms. You can choose to reject all nationalism... and put all your identity somewhere in the background and see the international community as more important than simply nationhood. It shouldn’t just be about nationhood.”
Asked whether she thought Wales should have a national political structure of its own – an Assembly – Ms Banner said: “I think over these 20 years there has been an abject failure to deliver the basic aspects that the political class promised would be delivered in 1997.”
Pressed on whether Wales should have its own democratically elected national institution, she said: “I would say ‘not necessarily’ to that.
“I think Wales is quite diverse as a country. I think it was a mistake to abolish the old county councils. I think we need more local control, more local accountability. We don’t want over-centralisation at Westminster.
“I’d like to see different areas of Wales being given more power to be different from other areas which have different needs.”
Ms Banner said she didn’t think Wales was “a homogenous place”, adding: “There are different needs in north-west Wales, north-east Wales ... That’s not to say we haven’t a national link but we do have different needs and different economies. Within our country we’ve got an agricultural space and we’ve got a city, urban space. I’d like there to be more industry. I think we have different traditions within Wales and those need to be recognised. And I think only local devolution can deliver that.”
She said she was proud of her Welshness – but didn’t see it necessary to tie that to a political body that was failing, and had been for 20 years.
Asked whether she had been around for the 1997 referendum which resulted in the setting up of the Assembly, Ms Banner said: “I was around, yes. It was the only time in my life that I haven’t voted. At the time I felt – because I was in the Labour Party, and a loyal party member – that I didn’t want to vote with the Conservatives. But I had that niggling doubt about nationalism. And I do come from the Bevanite wing of the Labour Party. All of those arguments that he made, with concern about what could happen, I had the same fears and those fears didn’t go away.
“And I felt on the day... I actually struggled to the end of voting. It was getting dark and I thought ‘What am I going to do?’ And I just decided I can’t vote. And I regret it because I wish I’d voted No.
“I feel that what it’s done is driven a wedge between us and the rest of the UK. Devolution has divided us in a really destructive way.
“English news is seen to be English news and Welsh news is seen to be Welsh news. It’s being compartmentalised.
“And I think our problems are so similar that we need to be working together to solve the problems of the NHS, for example. So much money, I think, is wasted on duplication.”