Here’s how an anti-Assembly campaign could win support
WHAT if the people who brought you the Brexit referendum now push for a public vote on abolishing the Assembly?
Gareth Bennett won the leadership of Ukip AMs last week on the back of a manifesto which included the words: “Abolish the Assembly!”
Mr Bennett argues nearly two decades on from the start of Welsh devolution it is time to give the people of this nation a say on whether they want it to continue.
Could Wales’ 60 AMs be turfed out of the Senedd? The Assembly has just been transferred major lawmaking and tax powers from Westminster; it seems much more likely that the Assembly will be renamed a Parliament in the near future and that the number of AMs will be increased.
But it once seemed improbable that the UK would have a referendum on EU membership – and even less likely that people would vote by a decisive majority for Brexit.
There is an interesting moment in Piers Morgan’s journalistic memoir, The Insider, in which Tony Blair describes a conversation with Rupert Murdoch.
Mr Blair reportedly told the media mogul: “[I] said no Tory would ever pull out of Europe, whatever they say. We’re in it now and always will be.”
Those last eight words sum up the confidence that Mr Blair and so many people felt that Britain’s enduring destiny was as a member of the EU. It was if the UK was anchored to Brussels with a chain that no earthquake or sabotage attempt could sever.
Who could have predicted that Tory eurosceptics and an electorally buoyant Ukip would put a Conservative Prime Minister under such pressure that he would pledge to hold an in-out referendum – or that a majority of those taking part, including in Wales and English Labour heartlands, would ignore dire warnings about the consequences of Brexit and vote to leave?
Nobody who cherishes self-government in Wales can afford to be complacent about the potential threat to devolution.
In a fascinating article, Professor Roger Awan-Scully of Cardiff University’s Wales Governance Centre wrote that while abolition of the Assembly was a minority view, “this minority is not a tiny one” and it is “quite possible that a determined campaign by a political party could increase support for abolition among the Welsh people”.
He points to one of the most striking aspects of the 2016 Assembly elections, the comparative success of the Abolish the Welsh Assembly Party.
This was set up by Jonathon Harrington, an agricultural specialist who had never stood for election, and David Bevan, Ukip Wales’ former treasurer.
Mr Bevan quit Ukip because the party no longer opposed the Assembly.
Ukip’s 2016 manifesto stated that it “accepts the decision of two Welsh referendums on devolution”.
The new party won minimal publicity during the campaign but 44,286 people – 4.4% of the total – voted for it; the Wales Green Party only won 30,211 votes on the regional lists.
People looked at the ballot paper and jumped at the chance to put an mark next to the anti-devolutionists.
Prof Awan-Scully notes: “Essentially, [the Abolish the Welsh Assembly Party] seem to have won a significant share of the vote on their name alone.
“This does suggest that if Ukip were to become clearly the antidevolution party in Wales then they might be tapping into at least some reservoir of potential support.”
Ukip’s most committed activists will never forget how they pushed a fringe issue to the heart of the political mainstream and then took on the forces of the establishment.
The new leader will have to first fight a battle within his own party to secure support for demolition of the Assembly but he may be able to convince them this is an electorally expedient move.
There are multiple issues an antiAssembly campaign can exploit in the months and years ahead.
Mr Bennett has already presented the proposed smacking ban as a threat to parents’ rights and evidence that Labour and Plaid Cymru are pushing Wales towards a “Stalinist police state”.
The Welsh Government’s own consultation found only 50.3% of respondents agreed that “the legislative proposal will achieve the aim of protecting children’s rights”.
Mr Bennett and his colleagues will try to turn such lukewarm support into outright hostility; those most worried about an end to smacking may well decide they would be better off without an Assembly.
New pushes for the devolution of policing and criminal justice will be presented as a threat to civil liberties. Campaigners may well try to pit north and south Wales against each other by portraying investment in projects such as the M4 relief road as proof that ministers are only interested in spending billions on schemes that benefit Cardiff.
If the Welsh Government attempts to raise taxes to a higher level in England, even if this is on the grounds that the NHS urgently needs extra cash, anti-devolution activists will stand in front of TV cameras and claim that AMs are taking your money and leaving you poorer.
In a part of the UK that has languished for years at the bottom of the earnings table, it would be foolish to underestimate the power of this argument.
The Assembly’s foes know full well that while the institution is a powerful force in national life that does not mean it is well-loved.
Just 45.3% of the electorate took part in the last election.
There has never been an Assembly election in which a majority of eligible citizens cast a vote, and in 2003 a mere 38.2% participated.
If people are not voting they will see AMs and ministers as people who were put into power by somebody else. If they stay away from the polls because they feel their vote stands no chance of influencing the result, they may be receptive to the argument that Wales – unlike the UK – is a one-party state and the best way to challenge those in power is to bring the curtain down on the Assembly.
It goes without saying that future education or NHS scandals will be grasped as proof that self-government in Wales has failed.
The question is whether an antiAssembly Ukip could repeat the Brexit trick and get powerful figures in other parties to also demand that an abolition option is included in a future referendum on, for example, increasing the number of AMs.
Today, thousands of tourists and school visitors each year visit the Senedd to learn about Welsh democracy. If devolution’s opponents have their way, a new use will one day have to be found for this Cardiff Bay landmark.
Rather than wait for the birth of a campaign against continued selfgovernment, defenders of the Assembly would do well to address devolution’s greatest weaknesses today.