tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-90262060809545184072023-11-15T10:53:23.335-08:00Pedryn DrycinWelsh Political CommentaryPedryn Drycinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14529524938002180510noreply@blogger.comBlogger20125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9026206080954518407.post-34196649687251605242020-06-28T06:44:00.003-07:002020-06-28T06:50:19.689-07:00Cadw’n ffit a bocsio’n glyfar
<p style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px; text-align: justify;"><span lang="CY" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;">Mae’r awydd
am annibyniaeth ar fin berwi yn rhengoedd y mudiad cenedlaethol ar hyn o
bryd os yw’r cyfryngau cymdeithasol i’w credu. Mae Trydar ar dân gyda
datganiadau beunyddiol am ‘Indy Wales now!’ ac mae aelodaeth Yes Cymru’n tyfu
yn esbonyddol bob wythnos. Mae rhai yn meddwl, mae’n debyg, mai ‘un rhuthr
arall’ yn unig sydd ei angen cyn i Gymru fach daflu ei rhwymau ymaith, troi’n
genedl-wladwriaeth annibynnol, a chymryd ei lle ymysg cenhedloedd rhyddion eraill
y byd. </span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px; text-align: justify;"><span lang="CY" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;">Rhaid i
fi gyfaddef fy mod yn teimlo’r awydd hwnnw o bryd i’w gilydd hefyd. Rwyf am
weld Cymru’n rhydd cyn gynted â phosibl. Rwyf yn credu mai cenedl-wladwriaeth
ar wahân yw statws cyfansoddiadol gorau a mwyaf naturiol i’m gwlad. Rwyf yn
credu bydd ffyniant economaidd, diwylliannol a chymdeithasol yn dilyn annibyniaeth
wleidyddol. Ie, rwyf yn genedlaetholwr Cymreig i’r carn ac yn falch ohoni. Ond
mae’n rhaid i fi gyfaddef hefyd, ysywaeth, nad wyf yn credu bod annibyniaeth mor
agos ag y mae rhai o’m hannwyl gymrodyr yn ei feddwl. </span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px; text-align: justify;"><span lang="CY" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;">Fel yr
ysgrifennais mewn post arall yn ddiweddar, mae gelynion annibyniaeth yn lluosog
ac yn bwerus. Mae ganddynt adnoddau helaeth a holl aparatws y wladwriaeth Brydeinig
wrth eu cefn. Maent yn barod i ymladd yn frwnt ac yn ddidostur, ac maent yn
barod i frwydro am ddegawdau os bydd angen. Peidied neb â thanamcangyfrif y
gorchwyl sy’n ein hwynebu. Peidied neb â thanamcangyfrif yr amser y bydd ei
angen i wireddu’r weledigaeth. Peidied neb â thanamcangyfrif yr aberth y bydd rhaid
inni ei wneud o hyd.</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px; text-align: justify;"><span lang="CY" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;">Nid wyf
yn dweud y pethau hyn i beri digalondid i’m cyd-ymgyrchwyr, na llai byth i’w
hannog i roi’r ffidil yn y to. Yn bendant ni ddymunaf ddibrisio na diystyru
llwyddiannau diweddar Yes Cymru, ac ni hoffwn awgrymu am eiliad fod eu
strategaeth a’u blaenoriaethau yn annoeth neu’n anghywir. Na, dim byd o’r fath;
mae Siôn a’r tîm wedi dangos arweinyddiaeth gall, graff ac effeithiol iawn dros
y ddwy neu dair blynedd ddiwethaf. Rwyf yn eu cefnogi gant y cant.</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px; text-align: justify;"><span lang="CY" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;">Yr hyn yr
wyf am ei ddweud ar hyn o bryd wrth fy mrodyr a chwiorydd yn y mudiad cenedlaethol
yw cadwch y sefyllfa bresennol mewn persbectif, peidiwch â digalonni gormod pan
ddaw’r siom anochel gyntaf, peidiwch â chael eich gwyro’n rhy aml gan ddireidi
a drygioni’r gwrthwynebwyr, a pheidiwch â blino gormod yn y cyfnod mor
gynhyrfus a chyffrous hwn. Fel yn achos Napoleon ym mrwydr Waterloo, mae ’na
demtasiwn, wrth weld gwendid cynyddol Wellington ac wrth synhwyro buddugoliaeth
ysgubol, i ruthro’n wyllt dros fryn dall gyda dafn olaf eich egni, ond i weld Blücher
yn cyrraedd ar y gorwel â’i filoedd o filwyr ffres.</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px; text-align: justify;"><span lang="CY" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;">Cadwch
yn ffit a bocsio’n glyfar, gyfeillion. Mae ’na sawl pennod o’r hen chwedl hon i’w
hadrodd o hyd.</span></p>
Pedryn Drycinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14529524938002180510noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9026206080954518407.post-22015056709567789812020-06-27T05:58:00.003-07:002020-06-27T06:02:16.892-07:00The Gathering Storm
<p style="margin: 16px 0px 13.33px; text-align: justify;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><font face="Calibri">“Mewn gwirionedd,
dwy blaid wleidyddol a ddylai fod yng Nghymru hyd oni chaffo hi ei hawliau
cenhedlig, sef Plaid Gymreig a Phlaid Wrth-Gymreig, a gwneuthur y blaid olaf yn
wannach wannach a ddylai fod ein hymgais pennaf.” </font></span></i></p>
<p style="margin: 16px 0px 13.33px; text-align: justify;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><font face="Calibri">[“In truth, there should be two political parties in Wales until such
time as she achieves her national freedom, namely a Welsh Party and an
Anti-Welsh Party, and our principal objective should be to make the latter ever
weaker.”]</font></span></p>
<p align="right" style="margin: 16px 0px 13.33px; text-align: right;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><font face="Calibri">Emrys ap Iwan, ‘Paham y Gorfu’r Undebwyr’, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Y Geninen</i>, Hydref 1895</font></span></p>
<p style="margin: 16px 0px 13.33px; text-align: justify;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><font face="Calibri">The coalescence and consolidation of anti-Welsh devolution thought,
sentiment and action around a single political party was always inevitable, or at
least it has been since the Brexit referendum of 2016 and the exponential
growth in support for Yes Cymru more recently. There are British nationalist
forces at work in the UK that will never allow Wales to become independent or genuinely
autonomous without a very long and bitter fight. The mobilisation of Yes Cymru,
the flirtation with ‘soft’ nationalism on the part of some key figures in Welsh
Labour, and a subtle but real change in the mood music of ‘Indy’ politics more
generally, has only served to concentrate minds and hasten action in the Britnat
lodges of Wales-shire.</font></span></p>
<p style="margin: 16px 0px 13.33px; text-align: justify;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><font face="Calibri">Of course, these forces have been consumed by the matter of Europe for
over 40 years, and once that battle was won, they were always going to turn
their guns on the devolved nations. For the committed British nationalist, the
drift of sovereignty to Brussels and Strasbourg was always part of the same New
World Order ‘conspiracy’ as the drift of sovereignty to Cardiff and Edinburgh.
Many believed that an invisible global elite was at once carving dear old Blighty
up into pieces and serving it on a plate to the nasty Germans and French. They craved
an antediluvian, single, sovereign, unitary nation state, and that nation state
was the United Kingdom of [English] Great Britain and [English] Northern
Ireland. Their work, of course, is only half-done. </font></span></p>
<p style="margin: 16px 0px 13.33px; text-align: justify;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><font face="Calibri">No, my Welshnat confrères, anti-devolution politics and rhetoric is alive
and kicking and it’s going to get louder and more vicious. They spent 40 years working
to ‘free’ the UK from the European Union, and they’ll spend 40 years working to
weld its constituent parts back together again if that’s what it takes.</font></span></p>
<p style="margin: 16px 0px 13.33px; text-align: justify;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><font face="Calibri">If that is disturbing or disheartening news for some Welsh
nationalists and devolutionists, then I’m sorry. But forewarned is forearmed, and
if we have any genuine intention of driving our national programme through to
completion or even just defending the devolved settlement as it is, it’s a reality
that we will need to come to terms with very quickly. We must all have known that
there would be a fight at some point, mustn’t we? We have been paying attention
to the history of our Celtic cousins over the sea and anti-imperial comrades
further afield, haven’t we? We didn’t think we were going to march down from
the Sierra Maestra and occupy Old Havana Town without a bit of a scrap, did we?
</font></span></p>
<p style="margin: 16px 0px 13.33px; text-align: justify;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><font face="Calibri">Well that scrap is coming <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">gyfeillion</i>,
and it may last a very long time indeed. The good news is that some of us have
been preparing for this discursive ding-dong since at least 1895 and are
actually looking forward to it! I hope to write more on these matters in the
near future, but in the meantime, your spirits may be lifted somewhat by reading
a passage or two by the original Storm Petrel himself, Emrys ap Iwan. The short
monograph by D. Myrddin Lloyd in the UWP ‘Writers of Wales’ series is still the
best summary of his life and work in English.</font></span></p>
Pedryn Drycinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14529524938002180510noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9026206080954518407.post-34460408054186509132018-09-07T08:32:00.001-07:002018-09-07T08:32:59.240-07:00Why I will be voting for Adam Price
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13.33px;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As I have said elsewhere, I’m not sure that objectivity is
either possible or necessarily desirable in political commentary of this type.
The reason for this is largely derived from my interpretation of epistemology
and is of little importance here. However, I do believe that disclosure and
honesty are crucial if one seeks to have a lasting impression on the ideas of
others. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13.33px;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So, firstly, some disclosure...</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13.33px;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I am a Welsh republican, I gravitate towards a Marxist
interpretation of economic and social history, but I do believe that individual
liberty and the freedom to accumulate a capital surplus is both deterministically
inevitable and can be desirable when exercised ethically and proportionately. I
seek to eliminate and prohibit the misdemeanours and imperfections of markets
and capital, not replace exploitation by the few with tyranny by the many. However,
I believe that there is an empirical as well as moral justification for state
intervention in service provision, infrastructure development, job creation and
industry (and that there always has been), but equally believe that this justification
is not absolute or necessarily permanent in every instance.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13.33px;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I voted for Leanne Wood in 2012 and I have subsequently campaigned
on the ground for her at all major elections since then. I have supported her
publicly and will do so again if she is re-elected. I admire her honesty,
integrity and bravery. I share her ambition to eliminate poverty, bigotry and
injustice from the world, starting with Wales. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13.33px;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I lived in Ynys Môn for 5 years and had the pleasure of
meeting and campaigning with Rhun ap Iorwerth on several occasions. He is a
genuinely lovely person and an extremely effective campaigner. I share his
vision of a party that engages more widely with the people of Wales; a confident,
happy and positive party that seeks to bring everyone along on our journey. He
has not been a politician very long, but he has made enormous progress in a
short period of time and continues to develop and improve as a potential
national leader. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13.33px;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I have admired Adam Price since he was first elected to
Parliament in 2001. He takes the physiology of politics seriously, and has made
the time-sacrifice we all know we should make, but rarely do, to command the
economic and fiscal discourse, not be commanded by it. I thought the 2016
Assembly election manifesto was one of the most inspiring political documents I
have ever read. If I go to conference, and I do from time to time, his is the
first speech that goes on my ‘must-attend’ list.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13.33px;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Some further disclosure…</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13.33px;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I supported this leadership election because I believed that
it was the right time to re-assess our priorities as a party and the kind of leadership
we want to see. No leader or person in a position of authority is exempt from
periodic challenge and appraisal, and as it happens, I believed that if
Leanne won again she and the party would be stronger and not weaker as a result.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13.33px;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I think it is healthy to recognise that as individuals we
normally approach decision-making with what is known in management theory as ‘ingoing
prejudices’. This isn’t necessarily a critical term, it just suggests that for
any number of reasons we probably lean towards one option over another before
the process begins. Our prejudice may change during the process, but
consciously or subconsciously we undergo a process of validation, rejection or
change before we make a final decision.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13.33px;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My ingoing prejudice before this campaign was that Adam
Price would be the best next leader of Plaid Cymru, although I had never been
dissatisfied with Leanne’s leadership, and I knew that Rhun had got so much to
offer as well. I therefore determined to give myself plenty of time to observe
the campaign, read any campaign literature that was produced and attend a
hustings in person. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13.33px;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I also determined that once I had made my decision, I would
make it public and campaign openly for that candidate. I have no illusions
whatsoever of the importance of my opinions, nor do I care much what anyone
else thinks about them, but if we do have an opinion, and we at least believe
in the integrity of its formulation (if not the infallibility of the substance itself),
then I think that we have a moral obligation to share it with those interested
or affected by it.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13.33px;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And so after a month or so of consideration, and having
attended the hustings in Pontypridd earlier this week, I am happy to confirm
that I will be voting for Adam Price as leader of Plaid Cymru. I believe that
he has the intellectual capability to strengthen and sharpen our policy
positions and discursive lines of attack. I believe that he is an extremely
credible first minister and that he will attract new support from voters and
opinion-formers who want competent government and an ambitious vision of
step-change for the Welsh economy. I believe that he can identify and communicate
effectively with all sectors of society. I believe that he has a sense of
controlled urgency that characterises all good leaders. I believe that he will
dedicate every ounce of his being over the next few years to furthering the
cause of Plaid Cymru, Welsh independence, decentralist socialism and social
justice in general, or will die in the process (not literally, I hope…).</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13.33px;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And so, I will now be campaigning full-throttle in favour of
Adam’s candidacy. However, I will, if I may, politely put him on notice now
that if he does win, and thereby has the privilege of leading our party and our
movement for a number of years, I will be the first to support a periodic leadership
review and election when right and proper to do so.</span></div>
<span style="line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If Adam doesn’t win, I will give my full support to the winning
candidate and I will go out in all weathers delivering leaflets and canvassing
the electorate on her/his behalf as I have done in the past. I will promote and defend her/him and the party on social media as resolutely as I would do for Adam. The
cause of a Welsh republic is far greater than one man or one woman, and I will
continue fighting for it under Adam’s, Leanne’s or Rhun’s leadership, all three
of whom I am very proud to be associated with as fellow members of Plaid Cymru.</span></span><b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike>Pedryn Drycinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14529524938002180510noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9026206080954518407.post-6083505213814465482016-10-29T06:04:00.000-07:002016-10-29T06:04:20.563-07:00The Wales Bill: will Wales find its teeth?
<br />
It was refreshing to see Prof Richard Wyn Jones publish a direct, unequivocal and
“excoriating” criticism of the Wales Bill in the <a href="http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/politics/richard-wyn-jones-wales-bill-12091891" target="_blank">Western Mail</a> yesterday. To date, too many Welsh politicians, lawyers, academics, journalists, commentators
and representatives of civil society have couched their criticism of the Bill
in measured, polite and even deferential terms, not wanting, it seems, to fall
out of favour with the all-powerful Brexit <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">junta</i>
which now masquerades as a UK Government. It’s as if they have almost fallen
over themselves to apologise for having the temerity to disagree with such a brazen
attempt to steel Welsh democracy; fallen over themselves to apologise for the feelings
of disgust and offence that they have experienced as a result the Government’s contemptuous
insult of Welsh intelligence. And it’s as if they so desperately wanted to believe
that Crabb, Cairns and Bebb had innocent, albeit utterly misguided, intentions,
that they convinced themselves that all that was needed was a well-penned submission
of politely delivered analysis, fact and reason, and all would be well in this
harmonious Union of equals.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
This blog called it as it saw it <a href="http://pedryndrycin.blogspot.co.uk/2015/06/reserved-powers-constitutional-crisis.html" target="_blank">nearly 18 months ago</a>. This was a
pre-mediated, calculated and intentional attempt to roll-back Welsh devolution
in the guise of constitutional re-framing. It had no democratic mandate or
legitimacy whatsoever, and has been presented to the people of Wales in a
cynical, deceitful and dishonourable way. It was rotten from the beginning and it is
rotten now.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
If Prof Jones’s article does nothing more than to encourage a few others in
positions of authority or influence to find their voice (and their teeth) it
will be no bad thing. If, on the other hand, those very same people stand aside
and allow what Lord Elystan Morgan described as Whitehall’s “colonial” attitude
to prevail, it certainly will be our fate “to be governed on the basis of this
nonsense”, as Prof Jones fears, for many years to come; and so might we deserve
it.<br />
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike>Pedryn Drycinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14529524938002180510noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9026206080954518407.post-37812910851937431752016-10-09T07:56:00.000-07:002016-10-09T07:56:32.194-07:00Question Time, the Wales Bill and Messrs Cairns and Bebb
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
It will come as no great surprise to report that I am not a
Conservative supporter, but it may surprise some that I certainly respect the
integrity of many individual Conservative politicians and commentators,
particularly here in Wales. It gives me no pleasure to say, therefore, that there
is a sort of swaggering arrogance to much of the Conservative Party’s public
discourse at the moment, both at a UK level and here in Wales too. It’s as if
the General Election result of 2015, the referendum result, the ascent of Saint
Theresa, the failure of the centrist Labour coup, the imminent disappearance of
UKIP as a serious threat, the guaranteed propaganda support of 90% of Fleet
Street and the equally guaranteed lack of proper scrutiny by a woefully compliant
BBC, ITV and Sky (with the honourable exception of Channel 4 News), have all coalesced
over the last year to embolden Tory MPs and lead them into thinking
that they are now invincible, that they can do or say anything without recourse
to democratic principle or criticism, that they are unimpeachable. </div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
What is worse, however, is that they genuinely seem to
believe their own propaganda. A MAJORITY of the UK population ALL want stricter
immigration controls at the expense of free access to the Single Market it
seems. EVERYONE who voted to leave the EU did so with a ‘hard’ Brexit alternative
in mind. The devaluation of the Pound can have only POSITIVE effects. 36.9% of
the vote at a general election is an OVERWHELMING MANDATE for neo-liberal reforms
of English public services. A twelve seat majority in Parliament is a LANDSLIDE.
And the fact that we have a completely new government that nobody at all has
voted for taking the country in a radically different direction is apparently of
TRIVIAL IMPORTANCE. It’s been said before, but we really are entering into the
era of post-factual politics. If you repeat a lie enough times, people really
do start to believe you.</div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
Regrettably, this Westminster arrogance is spilling over
into Wales and contaminating Welsh Conservative politics in my opinion. We saw
it with Alun Cairns on <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-politics-37595564" target="_blank">Question Time</a> on Thursday, making scandalous claims
about Plaid Cymru members that even Labour and Liberal Democrat opponents have
called “baseless”. But Mr Cairns obviously felt at complete liberty to do this,
feels no need to substantiate or explain his accusations after the fact, and feels
no need to retract them or apologise. In fact he doesn’t even feel the need to
comment at all and just ignores the media’s requests for a statement. He
obviously feels ‘untouchable’ at the moment.</div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
Were this just a matter of mischievous behaviour on a television
debate programme, I’d be more inclined to just let it pass. But it won’t have
escaped the attention of Pedryn Drycin’s readership that Mr Cairns is also
responsible for the Wales Bill going through Parliament at the moment, and I’m
rather concerned that his new-found ‘confidence’ (if I can put it like that) could
end up causing irreparable damage to the constitution of this nation. </div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
As the <a href="http://www.assembly.wales/en/newhome/pages/newsitem.aspx?itemid=1620" target="_blank">Constitutional and Legislative Affairs Committee of the National Assembly</a> reported AGAIN this week, following several months of expert
evidence gathering and detailed analysis, the Bill as currently drafted REDUCES
the legislative competence of the National Assembly and makes the devolution
settlement MORE complex. Let us state that again for clarity in a slightly
different way: the Bill WEAKENS Welsh devolution not strengthens it; it makes
the National Assembly LESS powerful, not more powerful; and it makes it HARDER
for the National Assembly to effectively manage the domestic affairs of Wales,
not easier. Those are the facts, and there isn’t a single lawyer, academic, or
other expert who would (or has) come to a different conclusion. Furthermore,
nobody (as in literally nobody) within Welsh civic society has declared any
support whatsoever for a constitutional change of this type. Quite the opposite,
they have expressed deep concern and disquiet about the Bill. Mr Cairns, his
deputy Guto Bebb, and presumably the Whitehall mandarins who drafted the Bill,
are the lone voices of support for this retrograde and reactionary piece of legislation.</div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
Ah, but what does that matter if the Conservative Government
in Westminster wants to reduce the powers of the National Assembly, has stated
clearly in a manifesto that it will do so, and has an electoral mandate from
the people of Wales to put that policy into practice? Well, that’s just the
problem isn’t it; they don’t have any of those things. They have never stated
openly that it is their policy to reduce the powers of the National Assembly
(their 2015 manifesto pledge was to ‘strengthen’ Welsh devolution) and even if
they had (which they didn’t), they haven’t won an election in Wales since the
mid-nineteenth century, let alone the 2015 General Election, the 2016 National
Assembly Election, or a specific referendum on the question. They haven’t
sought the people of Wales’s opinion, and it hasn’t been given.</div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
Rather like the Westminster Government’s response to
scrutiny on Brexit policy, when challenged on the factual inadequacies of the
Wales Bill, Mr Cairns and his deputy simply lie, answer a different question or
resort to sophistry. They never engage with the substantive issues and they are
never honest about their true motivations. So apparently the Wales Bill
STRENGTHENS Welsh devolution, is CLEARER, is the result of CROSS-PARTY
AGREEMENT, and was MANDATED by the 2015 Conservative Party manifesto. These
things are true only in the imagination of Mr Cairns and Mr Bebb. Nobody else
believes them. Nobody.</div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
Now, if in the face of such universal criticism, opposition,
and contradiction of your factual argument, you simply press on, force the Bill
through Parliament unamended by means of your English Conservative majority, and impose a
new, inferior, and insulting constitutional settlement on Wales, ...well, there’s
no other word for it really, you’d have to be pretty ‘arrogant’ I’d have
thought, and pretty dishonourable as well.</div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
If Cairns and Bebb continue along their current path,
history will judge them very cruelly indeed I believe, not only for imposing an
insulting constitutional settlement on Wales but also for having the hubris and
arrogance to do so by deceit and sleight of hand. It will also reflect very
badly on those Welsh Conservative politicians who actively supported them or those
who sat on their hands and said nothing at such an important juncture. That
would be a great pity, and a disappointment for me personally, as the
reputations of many people I had previously respected would be tarnished for
ever.</div>
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike>Pedryn Drycinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14529524938002180510noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9026206080954518407.post-58512855826191552332016-09-20T06:28:00.000-07:002016-09-20T06:28:40.035-07:00The Moral Imperative of a Second EU Referendum
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
There is no such place or political space as ‘being outside’,
or ‘being without’ defined, agreed international relations with other countries,
particularly one’s neighbours. You either have them or you are not a
functioning state in the world trade, financial, movement of people, energy,
security, etc., systems. To that extent, ‘exiting’ or ‘leaving’ the EU is a
terribly misleading term. It’s a bit like saying ‘leaving society’. You simply
can’t exist as a functioning human being without a substantial amount of
co-ordination with the other human beings around you. You can’t ‘leave’ society
therefore, you can only renegotiate and perhaps change the way you interact
with others within it. Some people might have thought they were voting to ‘leave’
the EU on June 23<sup><span style="font-size: x-small;">rd</span></sup>, but what they were actually voting for was an undetermined
‘change’ to the UK's formal relationships with the EU and the rest of the
world. </div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
Now, it might have been possible to define in some detail
what the UK’s vision for that change was in advance of the referendum. The
Scottish Government did it before the Scottish independence referendum for
example. The Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish devolution settlements were all
defined in legislation before their respective referenda. The European Economic
Community was a living, breathing entity when the UK voted to continue its
membership in 1975.</div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
The official ‘leave’ campaign could have done the same in June
2016. It could have defined the UK’s future membership of this organisation
here, and its non-membership of that one there; this change to immigration
policy here, that change to trading terms there; this co-operation to continue here,
that one to end there. It might have been comprehensive, or it might have been
illustrative. It would have been ‘draft’ only of course, as all new relationships
need to be agreed by all parties, as unilateral, self-interested actions rarely
result in long-term stability or success (even the most powerful of super-states
understands that). But it might have been a start, and it would have given its
supporters a degree of authority to say on June 24<sup><span style="font-size: x-small;">th</span></sup>, ‘Brexit means
[…], and the British people support it’. But that didn’t happen. Nothing was
defined, not even informally. The referendum mandate was therefore for ‘change’,
but what on earth too?</div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
Were our relationships, arrangements and rules of engagement
with the rest of the world of little consequence, it might be reasonable to
just allow the UK Government to crack on now, define this brave new world,
renegotiate something with all parties, set up new systems, and move on. But
they are not inconsequential; no, quite the opposite I’d argue. They are existential,
even constitutive perhaps. Our formal international agreements define what it
means ‘to be the UK in the world’ just as much as societal rules define what it
means to be an individual in society. They will affect everything from how we
do business in the world, where we trade and on what terms, the shape and size of
our economy, how we educate ourselves at university, conduct research, go on
holiday, receive emergency treatment abroad, pick grapes in Italy before going
to college, get married to someone from Poland, etc., etc., literally <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">et</i> bloody <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">cetera</i>, ad infinitum. We know how we do all those things now.
Brexit means that we don’t know how we will do them in the future.</div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
It could be that the scope of change is quite limited in the
end of course (angering hard brexiteers) and our lives remain pretty much as
they are now. It could be enormous (angering remainers and soft brexiteers) and
our lives change in incalculable ways. It could be that a fair majority of UK
citizens believe the change to be acceptable and desirable in the final
analysis. It could be that a fair majority think it is not. We just don’t know
yet, and can’t know until a proposal is put forward and a negotiated, agreed
package arrived at with our international partners. It <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">is</i> fair, I believe, to say that we did agree to reject the current definition
of ‘us’, but we have no idea what the new ‘us’ is going to be, and who can put
their hand on their heart and say that we’ve agreed ‘to be it’ yet?</div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
When people say there is a mandate for Brexit, what they
mean is there is a mandate for change. And as a remainer I’d agree with that.
The UK Government is entitled (and even obliged) to set out a new vision for
the UK’s place in the world and negotiate its particulars with the
international community.* It does not have a mandate to press the start button
and put that vision into practice however. In what parallel moral universe, for
example, would it be right that a government could claim, ‘you said we could do
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">something</i>, so we’re changing <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">everything</i>’?</div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
It should surely be inconceivable to any democrat,
therefore, that unknown changes of such potential enormity could be imposed on
the citizens of the UK without a second referendum. Brexiteers within and
outside the Government will no doubt dismiss and scoff at the idea, but it will
not go away. In the absence of a pre-referendum blueprint for ‘Brexit’, it is morally
imperative to seek the British people’s endorsement of the final proposal. If
David Davis is so confident of building his new British Shangri-La somewhere in
the mid-Atlantic, I would have thought he’d relish the opportunity of celebrating
its establishment with the roaring approval of the people, wouldn’t he?</div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
*I respect the different mandate given by the people of
Scotland and Northern Ireland and they and their political representatives are
entitled to determine their own positions vis-à-vis the EU either within the UK
or outside it. The Welsh Government has a permanent and continuous obligation
to protect the Welsh national interest within its areas of competence and to
lobby and negotiate on its behalf outside of them. I would expect them to do
this vigorously in respect of the post-Brexit landscape. The people of Wales
have a permanent and continuous right to change the nature of their relationship
with the UK (and other countries) should they choose democratically to do so.
The EU referendum result in Wales in June does not change that in any way. </div>
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike>Pedryn Drycinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14529524938002180510noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9026206080954518407.post-47441719458480352922016-08-28T06:40:00.000-07:002016-08-28T06:40:59.068-07:00UKIP and the Conservatives open up new front in the pro-Britain/anti-Wales constitutional debate.
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
So UKIP have finally shown their cards on Welsh devolution
with Mark Reckless claiming that the Brexit vote will result in a <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-politics-37184111" target="_blank">decrease of support for the National Assembly</a> in the future,
followed quickly by the Conservative leader in Wales, Andrew R. T. Davies, who has
claimed that the people of Wales would <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-politics-37196526" target="_blank">reject devolution</a> if there was a new referendum
“tomorrow”.</div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
The argument is a logical absurdity of course; a popular
protest against a ‘big’, ‘distant’, ‘unresponsive’, and ‘unaccountable’ polity (if
you believe the anti-EU mantra) would more likely lead to a consequential disillusionment
with the next ‘distant/unresponsive’ polity, namely ‘London’, rather than the ‘nearer’
and ‘more responsive’ Cardiff; at least initially. But of course in the minds
of the British national right, the Brexit vote was a vote in favour of
Westminster over and above all other forms and layers of sovereignty in the UK.
It was the ‘silent majority’ reaffirming their oath of allegiance to the Queen (of
England) and Country (Anglo-Britain) over pernicious Eurocrats and the traitorous
nationalist <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">crachach</i> (of the soft and
hard variety). </div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
I’ve not seen any empirical evidence to back up that sort of
behavioural profiling, and anecdotally I can confirm that (regrettably, in my opinion) many
Plaid and Labour, pro-Welsh, supporters voted ‘leave’ in Ynys Môn, apparently as
sceptical of the European political project as their pro-British bedfellows. No
doubt ‘anti-devolutionism’ was a factor for the UKIP hard-core in Wales
(perhaps 10% of the electorate?), but it is quite a leap of faith to suggest
that it was a factor for the other 43% of ‘leave’ voters. Indeed, as Ifan Morgan Jones has pointed out
in his <a href="http://ifanmj.blogspot.co.uk/2016/08/the-tories-brexit-and-abolishing-welsh.html" target="_blank">blog</a>,
the latest <a href="http://blogs.cardiff.ac.uk/electionsinwales/wp-content/uploads/sites/100/2013/07/BBCICM-ST-Davids-Day2016.pdf" target="_blank">empirical evidence</a> suggests, as it has done for many years, that committed
anti-devolution sentiment in Wales is extremely rare nowadays.</div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
But UKIP and the Tories haven’t kicked-off this line of
argument, or, to look at it in a slightly different way, ‘deposited’ this
combination of rhetorical statements in the pool of Welsh public discourse,
because they genuinely believe in its accuracy. No, not in the slightest. What
they are actually doing is launching a new discursive ‘front’ in the longer-term
pro-Britain/anti-Wales constitutional debate. </div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
You see, discourse works like that. In order to effect political
change it matters not a jot what people ‘think’ (people largely think what they
are told to think by the state apparatus and its agencies), it matters which
lines of discursive argument are in the ascendancy at a moment of political ‘crystalisation’
(an election, a referendum, a vote in Parliament, etc.), or which ‘positions’ are
hegemonic at any given time. In order for there to be a successful
campaign (and perhaps a vote) to reduce, curtail or even end the Welsh
political dimension in the future, there needs to be a preceding (and
eventually dominant) discourse of dysfunction, irrelevance and discontentment.
That discourse of a devolutionary ‘problem’ is mostly marginal at the moment in
Wales, but UKIP and the Conservatives have clearly decided to promote it, and as
it gains apparent ‘authority’ in the public domain, so too will their ‘solutions’
such ‘reform’, retrenchment or abolition. Be in no doubt, discourse proceeds ‘opinion’,
and discourse can be designed and manufactured.</div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
One thing I certainly agree with Mark Reckless and Andrew R.
T. Davies about is that there is huge potential for this discourse to grow
and to prevail. I don’t say this because I believe in the inherent ineptitude of
Welsh Labour ministers or some inherent Welsh scepticism of Welsh
institutions as some would argue, but because the range of agencies available
to the British nationalist right to initiate and sustain such a discursive shift is
enormous, the range of agencies available to the progressive pro-Welsh coalition to counter
such an assault so small, and the ‘neutral’ gate-keepers of discursive
confrontations so pitifully incompetent and disinterested.</div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
Freed from their thirty-year war of attrition against the
European Union, it can’t be long now before the British nationalist faction in Whitehall,
Fleet Street and Sky Towers unleash their fighting dogs on the Scottish and
Welsh institutions. They are clever, determined and patient, and they are many
in number. Reckless and Davies have much to be optimistic about therefore.
Whether there is fight in the old Welsh dog remains to be seen. Forewarned is
forearmed however...</div>
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike>Pedryn Drycinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14529524938002180510noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9026206080954518407.post-46995390234944369692016-08-23T13:58:00.000-07:002016-08-23T13:58:26.531-07:00A world-beating Ruritania obsessed with its own survival
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
I don’t know who has changed most, me or British sport. I
used to love watching the Olympics, particularly track and field, although I
can remember enjoying the rowing and hockey too. Now I can barely watch 10 or
15 minutes of saccharine BBC coverage before switching over or switching off. OK,
so I’ve moved an awful long way from supporting ‘Britishness’ as a default
political choice, but that hasn’t prevented me supporting British sportspeople
in the past. But I’ve found it almost impossible in the context of these
Olympic Games, even more so than in 2012.</div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
Perhaps it’s the cynicism of the new Olympics, that ruthless
product management ethos which demands that sport after sport is swallowed up
in an imperial ‘brand march’ that Napoleon himself would have been proud of.
Golf, tennis, rugby, football; they’re all part of the empire now. But when
some of the planet’s richest sportspeople (some of whom just knock a small
white ball around a few hectares of American prize real estate for a living)
get even more air time and plaudits than usual, I’m afraid it’s too much for me.
It just dilutes the tradition of amateurism which I value, and takes well-deserved
attention from those who would never get a look-in otherwise.</div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
But there are more sinister forces at play as well. For the
IOC, more participating sports means more televised events, means more
advertising revenue, means more power and influence at the
geo-political-sporting top table of course. But for the British State, which
includes its co-opted communication outlets such as the BBC, ITV, Sky, and print
media, the Olympics has simply turned into an irresistible free-for-all of
gooey pro-British propaganda, rammed down the throats of an otherwise
indifferent, increasingly ‘abritish’, people. The more sports you can throw
into that pot, the bigger the demographic.</div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
To my eye at least, it has simply become an orgy of Union
Jacks (athletes were forbidden from carrying other national flags apparently),
God Save the Queen, happy, smiley, contented fans, and epic stories of brave young
Brits fighting for Blighty and bringing home the hardware (and so they might
with £350m of lottery money going into their elite performance programmes).
It’s as if it was all scripted in advance, which – as anyone who understands
how the broadcast media works will know – it was. Only the nuances were left to
chance (the final colour of the medals, the odd surprise), the story-board
itself was written in advance from beginning to end. Starved of the Great
British Bake-off, the Great British this and the Great British that over the
summer, the public lapped it up of course. It was technicoloured entertainment;
and excellent subliminal political propaganda to boot.</div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
State-sponsored exercises like this in the reinforcement of British
nationalism used to be self-assured, understated and discerning in the UK. In
recent years they have become superficial, awkward and undignified, as if a
woefully under-qualified junior PR manager has been left in charge whilst the
bosses stuff their pockets and Whitehall burns. And when a bulwark of the
English imperial project like Simon Jenkins bemoans a new (Soviet-style) British
‘cultural cringe’, you know something’s awry. </div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
The mandarins and privy councillors at the heart of ‘Project
Britain’ know full well that a second Scottish independence referendum is just
around the corner, and to that extent you can forgive them their propagandistic
exuberance of recent months. But their obsession with red white and blue
bunting, Churchillian rhetoric and free cucumber sandwiches is a high-risk
strategy. It left me utterly cold, like there really isn’t any hope for a non-Anglocentric
union of nations on these islands in the future. And if they lost me, a rather
wet, moderate Welsh nationalist, I shudder to think how it left the people of
Scotland, who in the next 18-24 months will pass judgement once again on the
kind of state they want to be part of : an averagely achieving sporting nation which
focuses on the well-being of its people or a world-beating Ruritania obsessed
with its own survival?</div>
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike>Pedryn Drycinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14529524938002180510noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9026206080954518407.post-45302676374523560202016-06-18T07:15:00.000-07:002016-06-18T07:15:30.072-07:00Remain
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
I will be voting to remain in the European Union for the
following reasons:</div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
I have no problem whatsoever with immigration, whether from
the EU or elsewhere. It is a sign of our prosperity not our impoverishment. What
is more, I actually prefer the multi-cultural UK I live in now to the knotted-hanky
and knobbly-knees UK I lived in 30 years ago.</div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
Where UK public services are under strain, it is because of tax
and spend choices the UK Government has made, not because of a growing
population. Change the Government if you want more hospitals, or let them stay
in if you want a small state and low taxes. Either way, it’s still your choice.</div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
I am content with the basic vision of a confederal Europe
based on sovereign nation states working together and I do not believe in ‘New World
Order’ conspiracy theories.</div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
Single markets need common trading rules and I have
absolutely no problem with EU Law. Most of it simply regulates what we buy, eat
and consume. Get used to it, it’s just called modernity.</div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
The EU has enriched my life and that of my generation immeasurably.</div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
I have not had to go through the horrors of a world war like
my grandparents did.</div>
<br />
<div align="center" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: center;">
___</div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
My support for the EU is not unconditional however, and I
will continue to fight vigorously to ensure that following are protected:</div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
Subsidiarity – that sovereignty is always assumed to rest at the
lowest level possible unless a convincing case can be made for pooling it
higher up. I hold that to be true for Wales, the UK and the EU. But wanting
greater freedom for the individual or one’s nation does not HAVE to mean abandoning
cooperation. That is a false dichotomy. As a Welsh nationalist I do not
discount mutually beneficial cooperation at a UK level, and I don’t discount it
at a European or global level either.</div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
Pluralism – that one size doesn’t fit all; that exceptions
and differences are tolerated and celebrated; that uniformity and homogeneity
are not pursued for their own sake; that diversity is recognized as one of
nature’s greatest riches.</div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
Redistribution – that the main purpose of any government
should be to reduce economic inequality not increase it.</div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
Progressivity – that government should be an agent of
liberation and justice for disadvantaged and minority groups; that it should promote
fairness and equality for all not just the ‘conforming’ majority.</div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
Sustainability – that perpetual growth and untrammelled
consumption are intellectually and morally bankrupt ideas; that government must
take the lead in changing direction, of finding ways of combining prosperity,
happiness and long-term sustainability.</div>
<br />
<div align="center" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: center;">
___</div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
It is my judgement that the benefits of being a member of the
EU outweigh any dis-benefits at the moment. It is also my view that on balance
the EU contributes positively to my 5 key principles above rather than work
against them.</div>
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">I will continue to observe and scrutinise the EU’s activities and
development and campaign for those things which I think are important. I WILL let
you know if my opinion changes in the future, but at the moment staying in the
EU seems the only rational, ethical and intelligent thing to do.</span><b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike>Pedryn Drycinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14529524938002180510noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9026206080954518407.post-47346957435999000002015-12-14T03:50:00.000-08:002015-12-15T08:42:48.592-08:00Constitutional and Legislative Affairs Committee report on the draft Wales Bill<br />
I would normally consider writing a summary and appraisal of a new publication such as the Constitutional and Legislative Affairs Committee's <a href="http://www.assembly.wales/laid%20documents/cr-ld10468/cr-ld10468-e.pdf" target="_blank">report on the draft Wales Bill</a> for <i>Pedryn Drycin</i>, but on this occasion I will decline. The report is relatively short and is written in accessible language, its clarifications on matters of fact and interpretation are precise and accurate, and its arguments are made succinctly and cogently. It suffices, on this occasion, to strongly recommend that <i>Pedryn</i><i> </i><i>Drycin</i>'s small but hard-core readership read the original report and come to their own conclusions. <br />
<br />
My opinion, for what it's worth, is that its analysis is broadly consistent with everything that I have written here over the last few months and its recommendations to the Secretary of State for Wales can be quickly endorsed by all reasonably-minded Welsh democrats: that is, 'start over again, or remove all the mischievous, undemocratic bits'. Further, and taking due account of its measured and diplomatic language, it is still a damning indictment of the process, the draft legislation and the UK Government's underlying motivations. <br />
<br />
[The Committee's chairman, David Melding, has also written a short article on <i>Click on Wales</i> today, '<a href="http://www.clickonwales.org/2015/12/back-to-the-drawing-board-for-the-draft-wales-bill/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link: Back to the drawing board for the draft Wales Bill?">Back to the drawing board for the draft Wales Bill?</a>', explaining the broad findings and recommendations of the report]<br />
<br />
I will, however, make particular reference to one section of the report: <br />
<br />
"164. It has been suggested that the purpose of the draft Bill is to overturn the decisions of the Supreme Court in relation to the existing settlement and conferred powers model. While that may be the approach from a Whitehall perspective and within Parliament’s prerogative, if that is the intention it should be expressly stated in the interests of openness and transparency."<br />
<br />
Whilst it would do my ego no end of good to think that the report's authors avidly read, and are referring specifically to <i>Pedryn</i><i> </i><i>Drycin</i>, when they say, "<b>It has been suggested</b>", I rather suspect they are reflecting more widespread grumblings and malcontent in Cardiff Bay. But I am gratified, nonetheless, to see a central pillar of my argument over the last few months find its way into the report: that is, if it <b>is</b> the UK Government's intent to overturn the Supreme Court's decisions and roll-back the legislative competence of the National Assembly for Wales, "it should be expressly stated in the interests of openness and transparency". That is the very least we can expect from a supposedly democratic government, one would have thought.<br />
<br />
It is a matter of regret to me, however, that the committee did not go on to 'note' that the Conservative Party made no General Election manifesto commitment whatsoever to take such action, that the Conservative Party has no majority electoral mandate at any level in Wales, that such action would run contrary to the will of the people of Wales as expressed in the 2011 referendum, and that whilst being within Parliament's prerogative, would represent one of the grossest abuses of Whitehall power in the history of 'democratic' UK politics...<br />
<br />
Then again, perhaps 'undiplomatic' language of this sort will become more commonplace in the corridors of Welsh power if Stephen Crabb declines the committee's recommendations and persists on his lone charge into historical infamy over the next few months?<br />
<br />
<br />Pedryn Drycinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14529524938002180510noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9026206080954518407.post-36703703245114631362015-11-26T09:44:00.000-08:002015-12-15T08:42:11.517-08:00And you expect us to trust the Welsh Constitution to these people?<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
I have argued for a long time now that the principal
motivation of the UK Government in introducing a ‘reserved powers’ model for
Wales has always been to roll-back the legislative competence of the National
Assembly vis-à-vis the current Government of Wales Act 2006 (GOWA), and that constitutional
symmetry, ‘clarity’ and the opportunity to devolve some new areas of competence
are convenient, but secondary, considerations for both UK Conservative
ministers and mandarins alike. The Supreme Court’s ruling on Local Government Byelaws
and <span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK17;">Agricultural Wages </span>Bills (and the broad and deep legislative
competence that they confirmed) sent shockwaves through Whitehall in 2012 and
2014 and its response was to quickly endorse a move to the reserved powers model
so that those rulings could be undone with tighter provisions during the
drafting process.</div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
It is very difficult for them to admit that in public of
course, as it is a difficult argument to make and win (and keep your
credibility and integrity at the same time). You have to explain and justify why
Wales should have a significantly less powerful legislature than Scotland,
Northern Ireland, Jersey or the Isle of Mann, why Wales should accept a less
powerful legislature in the future than the one it has at present, why
you believe that Parliament didn’t ‘really’ mean to transfer those powers in
2006, and why you believe that the people of Wales didn’t ‘really’ vote for
them in 2011, why perfectly reasonable Acts of the Assembly which already sit
on the Statute Book, shouldn’t be there, or shouldn’t have arrived there without
UK Government consent, why having a conceptual single ‘England and Wales’ legal
jurisdiction is more important than having an effective legislature and
government in practice, and why, exactly, you think it is acceptable to take
powers away from a country without a Parliamentary or Assembly majority there,
a referendum of its people or even an honest commitment in your General
Election manifesto. You just look mean, petty, reactionary, undemocratic and
obsessed with maintaining London control over Wales at all costs. You might
think these things in private of course, but you can’t possibly admit to them
in public.</div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
Hence why there has been no mention of your true motivations
in your speeches or papers, why you have clouded the debate in spurious
arguments and half-truths, erected false totems and predicted woe for sacred
cows, and run for rhetorical cover the minute someone raises a genuine concern.
It is a truth that can’t be uttered, a truth that must be avoided at all costs,
that Wales is more independent than you think it should be and must be reined back in.</div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
It is interesting therefore to note that this truth almost
leaked out several times on Tuesday when Stephen Crabb gave oral evidence to the
Constitutional and Legal Affairs Committee. He almost said it openly a couple
of times, but pulled back at the last minute leaving us with mere suggestions.
I quote from the (draft) transcript of the meeting. You be the judge for
yourselves…</div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
“[15] William Powell: I welcome very much the tone
underlying that answer, Secretary of State. Could I ask you, in terms of the
provenance of this Bill, to what extent have the Supreme Court rulings, during
the course of the fourth Assembly, actually affected the drafting of this Bill?</div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
[16] Stephen Crabb: That’s a very good question. When I
became Secretary of State a year and a half ago, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">one of the early decisions I took was to move to a reserved-powers
model precisely because of some of the Supreme Court judgments</b>. In terms of
the specifics of the draft Bill, clearly, when you look at what it says around
the fact that we recognise agricultural wages is now a devolved issue, taking
account of the Supreme Court decision in that respect, but also taking account
of the more recent asbestos decision as well, the boundary, if you like, that
the draft Bill sets out, the devolution boundary, I think is fair and
realistic, to use the Lord Chief Justice’s phrase—a fair and realistic
interpretation of that boundary.”</div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">[The first statement is
the important one. The rest is waffle]</b></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
“[17] William Powell: What effect did the ruling in the
local government byelaws case have on your thinking?</div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
[18] Stephen Crabb: <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">That
was all part of the</b>—. I wasn’t Secretary of State at the time, so I wasn’t
involved in the decisions around referral to the Supreme Court. I think if I’d
been Secretary of State that Bill wouldn’t have gone to the Supreme Court, but
that’s history.”</div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">[“That was all part
of the” what, Stephen? Thinking? Reasoning? Urgency? Again, the rest of the
answer is waffle having realised that he has almost dropped a clanger]</b></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
“[125] Lord Elis-Thomas: With respect, Secretary of State,
devolution in Wales is not in limbo. It is defined by the Supreme Court and by
two of the greatest legal brains known to me, certainly.</div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
[126] Stephen Crabb: <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">We
have a devolution settlement that is unstable. Regardless of the Supreme Court
decisions</b>, we have a devolution settlement that—</div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
[127] Lord Elis-Thomas: Are you seriously saying the Supreme
Court is unstable constitutionally?</div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
[128] Stephen Crabb: Not at all—nor any of the members on
it, absolutely not—<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">but we have
legislation that doesn’t spell out which body is responsible for which area of
policy</b>. We’d also, if we withdrew the Bill, be denying the opportunity for
this place, this Assembly, to get greater powers to become the place, when I
made my speech down here a few months ago, the kind of place I think it’s
destined to be. I want this to be a strong primary lawmaking body for the
benefit of the people of Wales. That’s a vision that I share with you."</div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">[The current
settlement does spell out what the Assembly is responsible for, but as the
Supreme Court confirmed, it also gives the Assembly broad scope to legislate in
these areas, and it is this broad scope that Whitehall wants to rein in. It is
not ‘unstable’; it is just more autonomous than they wanted]</b></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
Throughout the session the underlying motivation for the UK
Government was clear. The unified ‘England and Wales’ legal jurisdiction, a
common England and Wales approach wherever possible, and continued UK executive
control over many devolved areas is sacred. Wales’s current constitutional
settlement (the GOWA) transgresses that sacred line and, over a period of time,
empowers the National Assembly to substantially erase it. At all costs, these UK controls over
Wales must be protected and reinstated. A move to a reserved powers model, and
the draft Wales Bill in particular, is the vehicle to do that. </div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
The debate would be a lot simpler if they just admitted that
openly.</div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
But to finish off, a revealing insight into the flippant dismissal
by Whitehall civil servants of genuine concerns about the bill by a myriad of
Welsh academics, politicians, lawyers, and civil society in general. We
imagined these sorts of conversations took place but had no evidence to prove
it. We do now:</div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
"[116] Stephen Crabb: When I first suggested to officials we
could reduce the number of pages of reservations, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">I think the first suggestion was to reduce the font size by a half</b>."</div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
And you expect us to trust the Welsh constitution to these people?</div>
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike>Pedryn Drycinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14529524938002180510noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9026206080954518407.post-35027064305637317262015-11-23T05:28:00.001-08:002015-12-15T08:44:15.034-08:00Stephen Crabb’s written evidence to the CLA Committee: a quick guide to sophistry and rhetorical sleight of hand<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-fareast-language: EN-GB; mso-no-proof: yes;"><br /></span></b></div>
<span style="mso-fareast-language: EN-GB; mso-no-proof: yes;">Regrettably,
the pantomime that is the Wales Office’s defence of the draft Wales Bill
continues. Here are some brief reflections on Mr. Crabb’s most recent
contribution today.</span><br />
<span style="mso-fareast-language: EN-GB; mso-no-proof: yes;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“The draft Bill also
strengthens Welsh devolution by devolving important new powers over energy,
transport and local government and Assembly elections that can make a real
difference to the lives of people in Wales. For the first time, it will
enshrine the National Assembly and Welsh Government as permanent parts of the
United Kingdom’s constitutional arrangements. It will enable the National
Assembly to call itself a Parliament and to decide how its Members are elected
- and whether 16 and 17 year olds should be able to vote in Assembly elections.”</i></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
Mr. Crabb starts by asserting that the Bill “strengthens”
Welsh devolution because it transfers some new competences to the Welsh
Government and to the National Assembly. He does not go on to say that the
draft Bill <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">removes</b> significant areas
of legislative competence. Whilst giving with one hand, he takes away with the
other. On balance, the Bill ‘weakens’ Welsh devolution not strengthens it. That
is the truth.</div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“So there has been a
long, well established process which has led to the draft Wales Bill. Some
commentators have called for fundamental changes to the draft legislation; for
the reserved powers model to include a significant expansion of devolution,
based on the principle of subsidiarity. But this draft Bill is not a vehicle
for expanding devolution by the back door. It reflects the broad consensus
reached in the St David’s Day process. [...] Our General Election manifesto
committed to implement the St David’s Day Agreement in full. The Wales Bill,
when introduced, will reflect the outcomes of St David’s Day.”</i></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
He goes on to claim that the Bill reflects the outcomes of
the St. David’s Day process (SDDP) in order to give it cross-party legitimacy,
as if it were just a natural follow-on from the talks. This is sophistry. The
SDDP agreed a move to the reserved powers model, and some modest additions to
devolution. In the subsequent drafting of the reserved powers model, the UK
Government has actually <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">reduced</b> the
capability of the National Assembly to legislate freely in devolved areas.
Nobody agreed to this. It is a deception to suggest that they did. Further, by
suggesting that implementing the SDDP in full was a manifesto commitment, he
seeks to attribute a fictional General Election mandate to his actions. This is
sophistry. Nowhere in his manifesto did he say he would <b>reduce</b> the competency
of the National Assembly. Nobody voted for this policy. Quite the opposite,
they voted to ‘strengthen’ devolution.</div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“The new reserved
powers model provides the clarity the current model lacks. It lists the
subjects which are reserved to the UK level. The Assembly can legislate in all
other areas and in relation to subjects that are excepted from those
reservations. It provides a clear boundary between reserved and devolved
subjects. The Assembly will continue to legislate in devolved areas as it does
now. The consent of UK Government Ministers would be needed if the Assembly
wished to place functions on reserved bodies.”</i></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
Mr. Crabb claims that because there are now 'rules', there is
now clarity. This is a purposefully disingenuous argument. There is a clear
rule, for example, that Welsh legislation which seeks to change the civil and
criminal law needs to be “necessary”, but it is utterly impossible to make a
judgement about what is ‘necessary’ in advance, as it is a wholly relative and
subjective term. Potentially every piece of Welsh legislation which seeks to
change the civil and criminal law will go through the courts, either at the
behest of the UK Government or the behest of individuals unhappy with one
outcome or another. In effect, the Bill is the antithesis of clarity.</div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“The Assembly will
need the consent of UK Ministers to legislate about reserved bodies. It is
surely right that UK Ministers consent when an Assembly Bill imposes functions
on reserved bodies, just as Assembly consent is obtained when Parliament
legislates in devolved areas.”</i></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
Mr. Crabb claims that it is reasonable that the National
Assembly should seek the consent of the UK Government to “impose functions on
reserved bodies” because the UK Government obtains the consent of the National
Assembly to legislate in “devolved areas”. The language is really important
here and the deceit is clever and intended. But the two constitutional
scenarios he highlights are not the same thing; they are not the same argument.
One is about devolved Welsh policy and legislation being properly implemented
by bodies (which as a consequence of incomplete devolution in 1999) still technically ‘report
into’ UK ministers, and the other is when Westminster seeks to legislate in
policy areas that have been duly and properly devolved to Wales. He is
conflating ‘executive action’ with ‘policy and legislative ownership’ and is suggesting
that there is some established principle here that is currently being
transgressed, and needs to be rectified. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is sophistry.</div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“Some have argued that
the new model rolls back on the result of the 2011 referendum. That referendum
gave voice to the vast majority of people in Wales who wanted the Assembly to
gain its full law-making powers - legislative competence in all twenty areas
devolved to the Assembly under the Government of Wales Act 2006. The Assembly
will continue to exercise legislative competence in devolved areas under the
new model. I utterly refute the suggestion that the draft Bill somehow cuts
across the result of the 2011 referendum.”</i></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
He claims that because the Assembly will still be able to
legislate in the same 20 areas that the Government of Wales Act provided for,
his Bill is not “cutting across” the 2011 referendum. This is a partial
argument, in that by withholding other important information you are able, at
least on the surface, to make a logical case. However, he fails to mention that
the Bill significantly restricts <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">the way</b>
in which the Assembly can legislate in those 20 areas, the circumstances,
degree and extent that it can take action freely and unhindered. Nobody
campaigned in the 2011 referendum for the Assembly to be able to legislate in
those 20 areas... **subject to a whole series of invisible conditions that
would be imposed on it 5 years later. Of course the Bill cuts across the
referendum result of 2011. It slices it into tiny pieces and throws it in the dustbin.</div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“The Assembly will
continue to be able to enforce its legislation by modifying the private law and
criminal law, in the same way as it does now. The model recognises that the
Assembly has a legitimate need to modify the law in respect of devolved matters
in order to give full and proper effect to its legislation. It will continue,
for example, to be able to create offences and impose penalties to enforce the
laws that it makes. // The Assembly will continue to have the flexibility to be
able to make “ancillary” provision in relation to England and to modify the law
on reserved matters. The model acknowledges that the Assembly needs the
flexibility to legislate outside devolved areas of competence to make laws
within devolved competence work effectively. The Bill allows the Assembly to do
so by making “ancillary” provision. A provision is ancillary to another
provision if it provides for the enforcement of the other provision; is
otherwise appropriate for making it effective; or is otherwise incidental to,
or consequential on, that provision. // The no greater effect than necessary
test is designed to address occasions where the Assembly seeks to enforce its
laws by legislating in relation to England, the law on reserved matters and the
general principles of private law and criminal law. The model enables the
Assembly to modify the general principles of the private law and criminal law
if that is needed to give effect to its laws. But we do not want to see those
modifications lead to significant divergence in the fundamental legal landscape
of England and Wales. Any modification of private law and criminal law should
be proportionate to the devolved provision the Assembly is seeking to enforce.
It is subject therefore to the no greater effect than necessary test: any
modification must have no greater effect on the general application of the
private law and criminal law must than is necessary to give effect to the
devolved provision.”</i></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
These are the most honest statements in the evidence. All of
the restrictions are there to ultimately prevent the law in Wales differing ‘too
much’ from the law in England, presumably because 1) that makes a single England
and Wales legal jurisdiction less tenable in the long-term and 2) (though not
openly stated) ‘difference’ in itself is considered a negative thing to be
avoided. The lack of honesty in these statements comes from the fact that these
political arguments have never been made, no mandate for these policies was
ever sought or gained at an Assembly or General Election, and the GOWA 2006 and
the referendum campaign was fought and won on entirely the opposite basis (‘laws
affecting Wales should be made in Wales’). Conservatives might want to undo
this principle and this result, but they have no mandate whatsoever to do it,
and they are not even principled enough to admit that that is exactly what they
are doing – rolling back the constitutional settlement of Wales to its pre-2006
position and re-writing it in their image.</div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“The test also applies
when the Assembly enforces its laws by legislating in relation to England and
where it modifies the law on reserved matters. We believe it is reasonable to
set a limit on the extent to which the Assembly can legislate beyond Wales or
change the law on reserved matters. The test has operated with no difficulty as
part of the reserved powers model in Scotland since the start of devolution.”</i></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
Mr. Crabb claims that these tests have worked perfectly well
in Scotland, and that by extension, they are legitimate for Wales. This is sophistry
of the worst kind. It is actually disgraceful. The test works in Scotland
because practically <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">everything</b> is
devolved in Scotland and the Scottish Government would rarely need or want to
legislate on ‘reserved’ matters. It is a test that has such narrow application
in Scotland that it is almost irrelevant. On the basis of Mr. Crabb’s draft
Bill, the opposite would be true in Wales. Vast areas of policy and executive
action would remain reserved (including the law itself), and so the tests would
have extensive application. They would be called upon on almost every occasion.
The comparison with Scotland is utterly inappropriate. In fact it is shameful
that the Wales Office have even insulted us with its inclusion.</div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“I want a devolution
settlement for Wales that is built to last. The draft Bill provides the
foundation for a strong, robust settlement with a clear boundary between the
powers that are devolved and those that are reserved. It will make devolution
work better and give the Assembly and the Welsh Government <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">a sharper focus on the job they have to do</b>.”</i></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
In fairness to Mr. Crabb, there is a tiny glint of honesty
in the closing paragraph of his evidence, though I suspect he did not mean to
reveal his inner motivations in such a way. He claims that his Bill will bring
a “sharper focus” to the job the National Assembly for Wales and the Welsh
Government should be doing. Well, yes it will, as currently drafted. Whenever
you remove competencies from somebody, you reduce the total amount of things
they will be doing. By definition, if they continue to invest the same energy,
they will give a sharper focus to the remaining tasks. And therein lies Mr.
Crabb’s motivation, policy and legislative proposal: a radical decrease in the powers
and responsibilities of Welsh National institutions, displacing power and
authority back to London, probably (and this is obviously speculation) because
he’d like us all to be much more focused on the little things like attracting
tourists to Snowdonia and counting sheep in Carmarthen.</div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
Personally, I have no problem in principle with someone
arguing this position, but I do have a major problem with a Minister of the
Crown and his civil servants actually <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">implementing</b>
this policy against all democratic principle whilst using rhetorical sleight of
hand, sophistry and obfuscation to give the impression that they are doing the
opposite. </div>
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike>Pedryn Drycinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14529524938002180510noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9026206080954518407.post-40437682696675494822015-10-29T15:08:00.000-07:002015-12-15T08:45:47.831-08:00Mr Crabb, his Wales Bill and dodging the real questions<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
It is fascinating, and rather telling, that since launching
his draft Wales Bill last week (‘a final constitutional settlement for Wales’),
Stephen Crabb has not once taken the opportunity, whether in press releases or
in speeches, to passionately outline its virtues in detail, highlight where it transfers
the all-important new powers to the Welsh Assembly which will conclusively reverse
economic decline or improve public services, spell out how its structure and
provisions bring much needed clarity and simplicity to the legislative system,
systematically demonstrate (counter to all contrary accusations) that it does
not reduce the competence of the Assembly but actually increases it, and conclude
(in a flourish) with a clarion call to the faithful that this is indeed the
Wales Bill to end “constitutional obsession” for a generation.</div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
No, he has done none of these things. The bill, its specific
provisions, its envisioned processes and systems, its long-term implications,
its vision for a well-functioning Welsh democracy, have hardly been mentioned
at all. It has neither been aggressively promoted nor aggressively defended. It
has simply been shoved into the darker recesses of the Wales Office press team’s
‘U-drive’ (they’re always U-drives aren’t they?). That is, of course, because
the more attention the actual provisions of the bill get, the more obvious it
becomes that it is an exercise in deceitful regression, a bill designed (pre-meditatively)
to reverse Welsh devolution at the same time as being presented as deepening,
clarifying and finalising it. That’s too much for even the brass-richest of un-reformed
Conservative centralist necks to defend in the (admittedly tame) cockpit of Welsh
political debate.</div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
Credit where it’s due though, Mr Crabb and his advisors are
smart enough to know that you can’t have your cake and eat it. You can’t launch
a completely new constitution for Wales and simply not talk about it; whistle,
as it were, and hope that the public and media will buy a pig in a poke on face
value. So what do you do? You don’t want to talk about the bill itself and you
don’t want to answer specific, authoritative criticisms and questions directly.
You know you will lose. You also know you will look sly or stupid. </div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
So you turn to that age-old rhetorical strategy of pre-emptive,
aggressive diversion. You will aggressively ‘occupy’ the public forum on your own
terms for as long as is needed, at least until the opposition tires or neutrals
and the uninformed credit you by default with ‘authority to conclude’. Hence, you
accuse your critics of displaying unreasonable, irrational and emotional
reactions whether they do or they don’t (it’s impossible to prove or disprove).
You falsely, but subtly, conflate non-related arguments with the one you want
to put forward (it takes a long time to untangle conflated arguments). You exaggerate
unproven or minor consequences of ‘not agreeing with me’ and present them as important
or even existential (material/financial ‘risks’ always command disproportionate
attention until they are proven or disproven). You make claims of reasoned
truth whilst knowingly omitting key facts that would actually undermine your own
argument (calculus provides answers based on the factors used not on the
factors available). </div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
If you are bright, have a lot of stamina, and the media and your
opposition is either weak or disinterested, you can sustain this diversion for as
long as you want. You may never have to openly or honestly answer the questions
you were originally presented with, questions, in this case (and I take the
liberty of paraphrasing a myriad of critical sources), such as: ‘If the Silk
Commission presented a potentially enduring ‘devolved’ constitutional
settlement for Wales, in what way does this bill realise that vision?’ ‘If it
doesn’t realise that vision, why, and what is the alternative vision?’ ‘Legal
and academic authorities claim that this Wales Bill reverses devolution in
Wales vis-à-vis the GoWA 2006. Does it, and if so why?’ ‘What referendum, manifesto
or electoral mandate entitles you to reverse the constitutional settlement
established by the referendum of 2011?’ ‘If you believe it doesn’t reverse that
settlement, what legal advice has been provided to defend that claim?’ </div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
These are just some of the very basic but crucial questions
Mr Crabb has been successfully avoiding for a week with elementary rhetorical diversion
and obfuscation techniques about “nationalist lawyers and academics”, “emotional
reactions” and “economic impacts”. But as I said, if the media or your
opposition is either weak or disinterested…</div>
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike>Pedryn Drycinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14529524938002180510noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9026206080954518407.post-18153281162186218872015-09-25T08:12:00.000-07:002015-12-15T08:47:01.718-08:00Sleight of Hand and Welsh Resistance: the WGC/ICCU Report and the draft Wales BillThe publication of the Wales Governance Centre (WGC) and the
Constitution Unit at University College London (ICCU)'s <a href="http://sites.cardiff.ac.uk/wgc/2015/09/24/news-leading-experts-warn-that-proposals-for-reserved-powers-for-wales-will-leave-major-constitutional-problems-unresolved/" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue;">report</span></a> into the UK Government's initial proposals for
a reserved powers model for Wales was an important event <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-politics-34335248" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue;">yesterday</span></a>.
Whilst casual observers, bloggers and political actors have voiced concerns
over the last few months, the report's specialist authors explained line
by line, and legal concept by legal concept, just how regressive and
complicated the Command Paper proposals are. The panel of experts were clear:
the current proposals take Welsh devolution backwards, and they make it
more confusing not less. <br />
<br />
<br />
John Dixon has written intelligently on the issue this morning in <a href="http://borthlas.blogspot.co.uk/2015/09/all-power-to-crabbs.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue;">Borthlas</span></a>, and I generally endorse his overall reading of the
situation. It is clear to me that the proposed Wales Bill has nothing to
do with 'clarifying', 'improving' or 'deepening' Welsh devolution at all,
and it never did. Whitehall and centralists in the Conservative Party had
a Damascene conversion to a 'reserved powers' model the minute the Supreme
Court ruled on the Agricultural Sector (Wales) Bill and the full extent of
the National Assembly's conferred legislative competence under the Government
of Wales Act 2006 (GWA) was confirmed (particularly in relation to Civil
and Criminal Law). Going forward, the only way to limit that quite
extensive competence would be to amend the GWA regressively (a very
public and contentious process) or introduce an entirely new legislative vehicle
which was more restrictive from the outset but expressed in a different way.
Since this could be done under the rhetorical umbrella of reform and
improvement spearheaded by Silk, and since it would take
specialist lawyers (and not lay people or even politicians) to understand
the nuances of the differences between the old and the new systems, the
latter was seen as the most politically expedient option. <br />
<br />
<br />
There is no way to gild the lily about this I'm afraid: the legislative
competence of the National Assembly for Wales was to be delimited by
sleight of hand. The Command Paper simply revealed the miscreants’ plans, and the
Wales Office's refusal to even engage with the arguments of the WGC/ICCU's
paper yesterday, saw them bolt for the hills in fear of arrest.<br />
<br />
<br />
The one thing I disagree with John Dixon about, however,
is his belief that there will be little resistance to this attempted ruse
in the Welsh political game. Firstly, I find it inconceivable that the Welsh
Government and the new Welsh polity (in the widest sense of the word) will
be content to cede the competence, power and influence that it has accrued over
the last 16 years. Polities can certainly be nervous and reluctant to take
on new responsibilities, but they are rarely keen on losing existing ones. This
extends beyond elected politicians and civil servants to the web of interests
that have access to decision-makers through civil society, business representation,
local government, and others. A network of several thousand movers and shakers
in Wales have seen their power and influence increase substantially over the
last 4 years as a result of extensive legislative competence, and a diminution
in the power of the Assembly will simply result in a diminution of power for
these individuals. Turkeys don't vote for Christmas in politics and economics.<br />
<br />
<br />
Secondly, it is hard to conceive that Stephen Crabb could carry (say) two
thirds of his Conservative Assembly Members in support of such a regressive
move, never mind a majority in the Assembly as a whole. Even in their wildest
dreams, the Tories do not expect to win a majority in the Assembly
elections next May (even with UKIP support) and the rest of the Assembly will
simply not consent to the Wales Bill if it degrades its competence rather than
increases it or legitimately recasts the status quo in a different form.<br />
<br />
<br />
In those circumstances, and bearing in mind that the GWA
2006 settlement was instituted following a convincing referendum victory
only 4 years ago, and that the Conservative Party had no manifesto commitment
whatsoever to REDUCE the competency of the Welsh Assembly at this year’s
general election, it is inconceivable that the House of Lords would pass the Bill at
Second Reading (even accepting that the Tories could carry a Common's
majority). The UK Government would then be faced with a constitutional crisis
that, frankly, was unnecessary and rather capricious in the context of
Scotland, the European Union referendum, potential military action in Syria,
and any number of domestic mid-term distractions involving initiation
ceremonies and not-so private 'cocktail' parties. Some mandarins and Conservative
unitarians may be in denial about the realities of GWA 2006, and they may wish
to undo history and turn the devolution clock back, but do they want to
add to their already substantial 'to fire-fight' list in the process?<br />
<br />
<br />
For all of these reasons I find it hard to believe that Mr Crabb will bring
forward a draft Wales Bill on the lines of the Command Paper. It was a sloppy
attempt at under-hand political gamesmanship and it has been outed and
thoroughly discredited by partisan and objective commentator alike. He may
still attempt to reduce the power of the Assembly in a less brazen way, and I
have no doubt that large areas of competence which are perhaps more
'contended' within the GWA 2006 settlement (in the abstract), will
be reserved by default. Likewise, no substantive move will be conceded on
legal jurisdiction, the Criminal Justice System in general or other elements of
Silk that the Conservatives have simply rejected on policy terms. <br />
<br />
<br />
This will be a proposed reserved powers model full to the brim of reservations
and restrictions, and it will only be the beginning of the debate not the end
of it. If Whitehall can temper its hubris, and heed some of the WGC/ICCU’s
guidance, it is conceivable that the proposed new model will be 'clearer' than
the current one, but it is highly unlikely to be effective or 'full and final'
as defined by moderate consensus in Wales, and it may even be regressive at the
margins if the UK Government simply refuses to apply the principle of
subsidiarity, implicit in the Scottish and Northern Irish settlements, in
Wales.<br />
<br />
<br />
What is clear is that the further along the competency continuum from the
Command Paper (reduction) to the Silk Report (increase) that Mr Crabb is
prepared to travel, the greater the likelihood of support from
devolutionists in his own party will be, the more likely he will be to secure the
formal consent of the Welsh Government and National Assembly via an LCO motion,
the wider the support in civil society and the legal community in particular
will be, the greater the prospect of a trouble-free passage through
the House of Lords will be, and the more plausible his hopes of a legacy
of bringing 'clarity' and 'finality' to the devolution process in Wales
will be. If he is intransigent or mischievous, any one of these interest groups,
or all of them in concert, could de-rail the process, resulting in a damp squib
(at best) or a constitutional crisis the likes of which Wales has not seen
before.<br />
<br />
<br />
The tone of the Wales Office’s rhetoric yesterday did not bode well, and perhaps
they simply disagree with my forecast of widespread Welsh resistance or dismiss
the influence of academics and lawyers such as the WGC/ICCU panel. Only time
will tell who is right.<br />
<br />Pedryn Drycinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14529524938002180510noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9026206080954518407.post-14904841770071146142015-08-23T04:10:00.000-07:002015-08-23T04:10:15.987-07:00The ‘Racist Nationalist’ in Wales as Bogeyman, Simon Brooks (2006)<div class="title">
[Originally published on 'Ffawtliniau Disgyrsiol']</div>
<div class="title">
<br /></div>
<div class="title">
This morning I have been re-reading Simon Brooks 2006 article, ‘The Idioms of Race: The ‘Racist Nationalist’ in Wales as Bogeyman’ in <em>The Idiom of Dissent: protest and propaganda in Wales</em> (R. Chapman, ed.). In this extremely interesting article Brooks describes how the idiom ‘racist nationalist/language activist’ was created and sustained within Welsh political discourse in the period 1999-2003. There isn’t an awful lot of evidence that such a person ever existed in the language and national movements, according to Brooks, and the idiom was, ultimately, a political strategem of the Labour Party and a rhetorical ruse by the tabloid press. Furthermore, the roots of this phenomenon can be traced to the 1940s and Labour accusations that Plaid Cymru had Nazi sympathies and the anti-devolution campaigns by some Unionist Labour Party members in the 1970s. What we see here is a discursive invention, according to Brooks, an invention which can survive and flourish because of an anti-Welsh (language) and anti-nationalist press, together with an academy (particularly within the political sciences and sociology) which does not sufficiently consult original Welsh-language sources. The whole article is worth a read, but here’s the finale to be going with:</div>
<div class="entry">
<div class="postbody entry clearfix">
<br /><br />
“It is more sensible to view the ‘racist-nationalist’ bogeyman as a preconceived idiom, constructed in response to a perceived political crisis in Unionist ranks – that of the nationalist breakthrough in the South Wales valleys in the 1999 first Assembly elections. In January 2001, Seimon Glyn strayed into the Labour Party’s field of vision, and became the dubious example on whom that party would build its case. Electorally, the Labour Party’s strategy was successful. The second Assembly elections of 2003 saw a significant fall off in support for Plaid Cymru. There was rancour within the national movement between those who wished to respond to the Seimon Glyn affair by passing by, and those, like Cymuned, who wished to challenge the ‘racist-nationalist’ narrative and expose it as myth.<br />
<br /><br />
To be branded as racist is to have one’s discourse delegitimized. It is to be silenced, indeed to be denied the right to speak. For any community such a situation is intolerable; for a minority community, it is particularly so. To leave the ‘racist-nationalist’ idiom intact and unchallenged is to handicap, perhaps fatally, language activism as a serious lobby in Welsh politics. If the advocates of a minority-language community are judged to be racist, their opinions will be removed from public discourse and their cause dismissed from the political agenda.<br />
<br /><br />
A preliminary task for those who wish to reverse the situation is to understand better how the ‘racist-nationalist’ bogeyman myth was constructed. This idiom has been with us since the 1930s, poisoning Welsh political and cultural life. It is hard to see how the future of the Welsh language can be constructively and openly debated until its bluff is called.”<br />
<br /><br />
Brooks, Simon, ‘The Idioms of Race: the ‘Racist Nationalist’ in Wales as Bogeyman’, yn Chapman, R. (gol.), <em>The Idiom of Dissent: protest and propaganda in Wales</em> (Llandysul: Gomer, 2006), 139-165</div>
</div>
Pedryn Drycinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14529524938002180510noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9026206080954518407.post-70246230809708036982015-07-08T05:44:00.001-07:002015-07-08T05:44:51.270-07:00Protecting Welsh Place-Names: Discursive, Ethical and Regulatory Norms
<br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">National Assembly committees rarely get to consider
questions of philosophical or theoretical interest while scrutinizing
legislation, but the Communities, Equality and Local Government Committee had
such an opportunity on Thursday last week. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">They were taking evidence on the Historic Environment
(Wales) Bill currently going through the National Assembly under the
sponsorship of Deputy Minister, Ken Skates. I am not particularly well
acquainted with the finer details of the bill, but as far as I am aware it seeks
to strengthen and reform the protection regime for historic buildings and
monuments in Wales, and by all accounts it has broad support from the heritage
sector and other interested parties: ‘fine insofar as it goes’ was the
conclusion of the first witness, Dr Charles Mynors, a barrister specialising in
the field.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">But it was the second session which was of much greater
interest to this saloon-bar philosopher as Dr Rhian Parry of Cymdeithas Enwau
Lleoedd Cymru (the Welsh Place-Name Society) pressed the case for Welsh
place-names (of farms, cottages, fields, landmarks, etc.) to be included within
the provisions of the Bill and thereby gain the same protection as standing
stones, medieval field systems or Victorian pitheads. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">She carefully articulated the argument that place-names
provide unique insights into our human and natural history, insights that are
often not available in the archaeology or in manuscripts. She drew the
committee’s attention to their intrinsic beauty, their ‘naturally’ derived communal
and collective meaning, and their linguistic variety, citing examples of ancient
Welsh, English, Scandinavian and Norman-French names. She also reminded the
committee that place-names currently enjoy no protection in law and are under
continued attack as an increasing number of new owners choose to give their
properties new names. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Questioned by Alun Davies on the scale of the problem, she reeled
off a litany of recent changes to farms and cottages in Ceredigion and
Carmarthenshire:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>‘Happy Donkey Hill’ for
‘Faerdre’, ‘Stallion Valley’ for ‘Cwm March’ and ‘Emerald Valley’ for ‘Cefn
Bryn Sarth’. She had hundreds of examples if the committee wanted them.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Committee members were largely sympathetic towards Dr
Parry’s argument, perhaps unsurprisingly, as it would take a particularly insensitive
kind of philistine not to be moved by the loss of a thousand year-old name
referring to the demesne holding of the local lord’s ‘maer biswail’, or ‘dung
bailiff’ (Faerdre < Maerdref) and its replacement by a name referring to a bunch
of Shrek-like, grinning, asses. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">But what to do about it in law they questioned? To what
extent can the state intervene to protect not only the ‘physical’ artefacts of
our history but also the ‘intangible’, cultural artefacts too? To what extent
can the state intervene over the names of ‘public’ spaces such as housing
developments, streets and shopping centres, but also over the name of an
individual’s home or business? </span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">“What right do we have?”, “How should we legislate?”
beseeched member after member, rather forlornly, as they struggled with the
age-old dilemma of whether to retreat into a deterministic view of society
where the material world inevitably changes over time and the state has no
place intervening, or taking an idealised notion of society where social, religious,
linguistic or cultural constructs are ‘real’, can have intrinsic value, and the
state can have a legitimate duty to preserve or protect them. But even if members
had rejected a wholly deterministic view of the world (as most politicians do),
should they privilege one cultural construct (the value of a living language
for example) over another (the idea of ‘liberty’)? </span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I sympathised with our legislators as they tried to tackle these
perennial questions as it is inevitable that as one ventures beyond the bounds
of an empirically determined world-view and crosses into an idealised one, it
becomes increasingly difficult <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>to
‘calculate’ an objectively ‘true’ answer every time. ‘In for an idealized
penny, in for an idealized pound’, so to speak. Once you accept that the antiquity
of an earthen mound is in itself sufficient grounds for the state to curtail
the liberty of a farmer to bulldoze it, you have to at least recognize the
intellectual argument that the antiquity of a name is equally deserving of
protection. All is relative, all is cultural, in the difficult world of ideas. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">But I would offer them one crumb of comfort if they cannot
reconcile the apparent ‘weight’ of such entrenched ideas as ‘liberty’ with the
apparent ‘lightness’ of others such as the protection of a Welsh place-name. The
discursive framework within which they think and speak, and which regulates the
importance of one category over another and which gives the ‘heavy/light’
differentiation above its apparent ‘authority’, is in itself a cultural
construct. It happens to be the Brito-Welsh, English-language, liberal-utilitarian,
largely secular political discourse of the Westminster tradition, but it is
very definitely cultural (that is specific to a time and place) and a construct
(achieving coherence only in the minds of the men and women who share it and is
not prior to, or external to, the individual). <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Our instinctive nervousness about curtailing the liberty of
a small group of people in the interests of an ‘intangible’ language is not, therefore,
a nervousness about contravening some sacred universal right (‘everyone should
be able to call their house anything they like, at any time, in any place’ – a right
which can be disproved very quickly), it is a nervousness about contravening a
long-established Brito-Welsh discursive norm (‘the Welsh language is not normally
important enough to curtail the liberty of an individual in Wales – you better
have a bloody good reason’). </span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">In a different cultural context and under different
discursive rules, it may be perfectly acceptable to say that a language <u>is</u>
important enough to curtail the liberty of an individual of course. In Catalonia
perhaps? In the Basque Country? In a school classroom in Bradford? In the
Palace of Westminster maybe, where even now members are prohibited from
speaking any other language except English and Norman French? The ‘you better
have a bloody good reason’ Brito-Welsh norm is not intrinsically ‘right’
therefore, it is just the currently ‘authorised’ norm.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">But of course, our Brito-Welsh discourse authorises the
state to intervene in the affairs of an individual across a whole range of other
matters from what we build on our properties and how we build it, how we look
after our animals, how we manage our money, whether we choose to keep firearms
or explosives or chemicals in our homes, what we can say on blogs about other
people, what we can ‘think’ in relation to certain emerging theocracies in the Middle
East, even when we can take our own lives or not. It is not a question of <u>whether</u>
the state curtails liberty or not, it is a question of in whose or in what’s
interest it is done. It is currently acceptable to curtail an individual’s liberty
to protect a rare Welsh flower, for example, but not a rare Welsh place-name.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">If our Assembly Members are at least tempted to explore some
sort of protection regime they can take some comfort from the fact that the
state usually curtails liberty in a proportionate and moderate way, with checks
and balances to ensure that the ‘good’ which is being achieved is not at the
expense of patent (or widespread) injustice or cruelty. And in any case, we
normally internalise and normalize a curtailment of our freedoms very quickly and
become largely complicit in our own ‘enslavement’ as Gramsci would argue. Indeed,
a shift in the discursive norm is not actually that unusual (remember the
golden years before seatbelt laws?), and what was yesterday’s freedom can very
quickly become today’s social <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">faux pas</i>.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">To that extent, if the members of the Communities, Equality
and Local Government Committee are currently troubled by the prospect of introducing
legislation that prohibits an individual changing the ancient Welsh name of
their farm, cottage or field without consent, they might profit from considering
the following simple questions:</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt 36pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Why preserve anything at all? Why
not let the material world follow its deterministic path subject only to the natural
law?</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt 36pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">If we are to preserve things, why
is a 1960s bus terminal in Merthyr worthy of more protection than an ancient
Welsh place-name in Ceredigion?</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt 36pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">If we are to protect place-names,
why would a protection regime be any less proportionate, transparent and fair than
a protection regime for buildings, wild flowers or endangered animals?</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt 36pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">If we were to have a protection
regime, why would Welsh citizens be less accepting of its rationale and
provisions after the usual period of normalization?</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">If members still struggle after considering these questions,
but are still keen to understand why they can’t take the final step, then I’m
afraid they’ll have to look deeper into their own discursive make-up and think
about which locus of authority constituted their political values and in whose
interest. Most importantly of all, they need to ask if that authority is still
relevant in a 21<sup><span style="font-size: x-small;">st</span></sup>-century Wales capable of authorising its own
discursive, ethical and regulatory norms.</span></div>
Pedryn Drycinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14529524938002180510noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9026206080954518407.post-62643316438454698582015-06-30T07:39:00.000-07:002015-12-15T08:48:32.377-08:00Reserved Powers: Wait and See or Full-Frontal Attack? <br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">I don’t know if Welsh TV and newspaper editors read <span style="color: red;"><a href="http://pedryndrycin.blogspot.co.uk/2015/06/reserved-powers-constitutional-crisis.html" target="_blank">Pedryn Drycin</a> </span>last week, but press attention on the debate
over the Wales Bill, ‘reserved powers’ and the possibility of conflict between
Whitehall and Cardiff Bay increased significantly yesterday in anticipation of
the Constitutional and Legal Affairs Committee’s second evidence-taking session
on the question, a session which saw the First Minister and the Presiding
Officer questioned by Assembly Members David Melding, Alun Davies, Suzy Davies
and Dafydd Elis-Thomas.</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">The Presiding Officer’s three ‘success criteria’ for the
Wales Bill of ‘clarity, practicality and no roll-back’ got some press
attention, but it is the session with the First Minister that is of most
interest to keen observers of Cardiff Bay/Whitehall manoeuvring. Regarding additional
powers for the Assembly, the First Minister said nothing that he has not said already
over the last few months. He reiterated that the ‘St. David’s Day Agreement’
was not an agreement at all, and that its modest, lowest-common-denominator, proposals
did not represent a “lasting settlement” for Wales. He restated that full
implementation of Silk II, along with additional powers that have recently been
conceded to Scotland such as Air Passenger Duty, represented the “minimum” that
the Wales Bill should be delivering, and that whilst devolution of the Welsh justice
system was not necessarily an immediate priority, it was inevitable in the
medium term. ‘Steady as she goes’ in that respect really.</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">What Carwyn Jones did articulate quite explicitly for the
first time yesterday was his ‘rejection’ of the specific list of reservations
which had been appended to the UK Government’s Command Paper, explaining (as I argued
last week) that some of them would render the Assembly less powerful than it had
been when it was instituted in 1999. He called it a “wish list” that had
probably been put together in a round-robin of Whitehall departments, suggesting
(rather generously in my opinion) that the UK Government (and by that I suppose
he means David Cameron and senior Cabinet colleagues) did not necessarily agree
with their officials. Notwithstanding, proposing to reserve the ‘civil’ and ‘criminal’
law in their entirety to Westminster (which is what the Command Paper does) would
be a theoretical, technical and practical absurdity, and the First Minister was
rightly dismissive of giving it even passing consideration.</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">Whilst the First Minister was not as generous as the
Presiding Officer in saying that the Command Paper appendix was a “good start”,
they both concluded that there was nothing to do but "wait and see" how the
Wales Bill is drafted over the summer, and then respond on an
inter-governmental basis in the case of the Welsh Government, and in the form
of a committee-led report and plenary-backed motion in the case of the
Assembly. ‘You show your hand first Mr Crabb’, as it were, ‘and then we’ll show
ours’, whilst raising an eyebrow and cocking one’s head to indicate that the Wales
Office is probably a long way off the mark at the moment…</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">But perhaps the most interesting exchange of the session was
that of the First Minister with Alun Davies, a Labour member whose personal
misfortune at having lost his seat in the Cabinet has, for objective observers,
greatly enhanced the quality of debate on the back benches and on Assembly committees.
Mr Davies seemed, as he seemed in the previous session, frustrated that ‘we’ (and
by ‘we’ I mean that group of cross-party pro-devolution unionists to which Mr
Davies belongs) all seem clear on the objective (an enduring system of domestic
‘home rule’ for Wales within some form of UK federation), but cannot simply
spell it out, say once and for all what functions, powers and responsibilities
should be exclusive to Wales and which should be reserved to the UK. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">I can’t be certain, but I suspect that Mr Davies’s
frustration is due to the fact that he believes that the intellectual argument
for an expansive vision of self-government is very strong and can be won quite easily
at the moment, that the UK Government simply needs to be told what the ‘end
point’ for unionist Welsh home-rulers is and that they will concede it, given
what’s at stake in Scotland and Europe, and how badly they will need allies in
the coming years. He gently pressed the First Minister to share that vision
with the committee on several occasions. “What are the powers […] that will
lead to a lasting settlement?” etc., etc. “Not those on offer” was the First
Minister’s reply, as he repeatedly declined to spell out the constitutional specifics
of a ‘home-ruled’ Wales.</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">In fairness to Carwyn Jones, it might just be political <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">hara-kiri </i>to spell out your ultimate
objective when you don’t have the power to deliver it (I’m no strategist), and
he and his supporters may have already concluded that they are not going to achieve
their goal at the first attempt. If ‘full and final’ settlement is at play, and
you are not that sure of victory, you don’t attack the enemy with everything that
you have got on the first charge. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">So it is to be ‘wait and see’ rather than a full frontal
attack then, an ambush in the hills rather than a set-piece battle on the
plains. All very Welsh of course, but perhaps like Mr Davies, I’d rather hoped
we’d moved on from the fear and caution of medieval Wales, that as a modern-day collective
we could quietly and calmly agree our objectives, form a powerful coalition of the willing, and go out and achieve victory. Not
for the moment it seems.</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">The full meeting can be viewed <a href="http://www.senedd.tv/Meeting/Archive/57e94416-5317-4efe-94ae-5560154b5446?autostart=True" target="_blank">here</a>.</span></div>
Pedryn Drycinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14529524938002180510noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9026206080954518407.post-42917232274629760652015-06-23T07:50:00.000-07:002015-12-15T08:49:03.291-08:00Reserved Powers, Constitutional Crisis and the C&LA Committee<br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">When the UK Government published its Command Paper, ‘Powers
for a Purpose: Towards a Lasting Devolution Settlement for Wales’, in February
this year, I immediately took to social media to voice my suspicions that Whitehall’s
new commitment to a ‘reserved powers model’ for Wales was nothing more than a
ruse to claw back legislative competence from the Welsh Assembly. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">Having studied the UK Government’s original submission to
the Silk Commission back in March 2013 where they argued that <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">no</i> fundamental changes were required to
the Welsh devolution settlement, it seemed extraordinary to me that they should
now be proposing a wholesale change to the entire legal basis of the settlement,
essentially along the much more ‘generous’ lines of the Scottish model, and
ostensibly in the name of ‘clarity’.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">What could have happened in the interim to bring about this Damascene
conversion? Had Whitehall suddenly become obsessed with constitutional exactitude?
Was Stephen Crabb, the ever-smiling new Secretary of State for Wales, able to charm
the socks off gruff old Whitehall mandarins and persuade them that Wales was on
the cusp of bloody insurrection if it could not have exactly what Scotland has?</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">Nothing of the sort. The <a href="https://www.blogger.com/(http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/agriculture-wages-bill-uk-government-7394743)" target="_blank">July 9th 2014 Supreme Court ruling on the Welsh Government’s Agricultural Wages (Wales) Bill</a> is what
happened in the interim. This ruling, on a rather dull and peripheral piece of agriculture/employment legislation,
essentially interpreted Wales’s current ‘conferred powers’ model at its widest application,
ruling vast areas of law to be <u>potentially</u> within competence of the
National Assembly for Wales, areas that the UK Government had previously
considered to be safely reserved to Westminster, and areas that in some cases
are not even devolved to the Scottish Parliament. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">Rather than adopting the politically difficult (and highly
visible) policy of stripping Wales of competences that it <u>already</u> has by
amending the 2006 Government of Wales Act, far easier, is it not, to rip it up,
start again and redraft a narrower settlement from the beginning? Since the
oiks in Cardiff Bay are already calling for a reserved powers model, and they’re
not that bright on the whole, why not just give them what they want whilst dropping
in a whole bunch of fail-safe reservations? Nobody will notice, everything will
go back to normal, and Wales won’t even have realised that it actually had a proper
parliament between 2011 and 2016. Sorted…</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">I smelt a rat straight away, and so did a few others, though
not of course the ‘Welsh’ media who were probably distracted by more important
matters at the time such as Kate Middleton’s new dress, Sam Warburton’s view on
the latest iPhone or the 25 bumpiest roads in Wales. In fairness to a few AMs, the
matter has been raised at FMQs on a number of occasions, and I’ve no doubt that
the Welsh Government is privately preparing for a major confrontation (one
glance at Annexes B and C of the Command Paper – suggested areas for
reservation – shows the extent of the UK Government’s ambition to circumscribe the
competence of the National Assembly right back to the real basics). If
Whitehall tries it on, and the Assembly refuses to give consent for the Bill, there
is the potential for a real constitutional crisis in Wales, and as yet not many
people are talking about it. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">It is to be welcomed, therefore, that the Assembly’s Constitutional
and Legislative Affairs Committee under the chairmanship of David Melding has started
gathering evidence on the UK Government’s proposals. Yesterday they took
evidence from Professor Thomas Glyn Watkin, Emyr Lewis of Blake Morgan LLP and Professor
Adam Tomkins of Glasgow University, all of whom expressed concerns that the process
could be hijacked by Whitehall to limit or obfuscate the power of the Assembly
rather than enhance it or make it clearer, and that a ‘reserved powers model’
of and in itself was no guarantee of legislative ‘elbow room’ or clarity. “Everything
depends on the reservations” was the very strong message emerging from the
meeting, and in a fascinating and wide-ranging discussion which also took in
considerations of sovereignty, ‘permanence’ and the Sewel Convention, all were
of the opinion that the current process represents both an opportunity and a
risk to Wales.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">The draft Wales Bill that will be published by the UK
Government in the autumn has the potential to be a genuinely transformative piece of
legislation for Wales, even before considering whether currently ‘out-of-favour’
Silk II proposals such as police and aspects of justice are reintroduced or
not. But it also has the potential to trigger a major constitutional crisis of a
sort not seen before in Wales if the UK Government tries to manipulate the
settlement by sleight of hand. The resolve of the new Welsh polity and its attendant
civil society to protect its hard-won ‘freedoms’ has never been tested in anger
before, but with Whitehall having bigger European and Scottish fish to fry, I’m
not sure that Cardiff has got anything to lose by standing its ground and
taking it all the way if necessary.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">It is telling, but perhaps not unsurprising, that Professor
Tomkins (a scholar on <u>Scottish</u> constitutional matters) made the most
insightful comment of yesterday’s session in my opinion. As David Cameron desperately
seeks to put an end to the 20-year ‘constitutional question’ and establish his
legacy as ‘the Prime Minister who saved the Union and reinvented the UK’, Wales
finds itself in a position of tremendous “leverage”. Welsh politicians who choose
to help Mr Cameron realise this legacy will get pretty much anything they ask
for at the moment in Professor Tomkins’ opinion. Rather than fighting a rear-guard
action to cling on to powers that we already have, shouldn’t our leaders be ‘in
the faces’ of Messrs Cameron and Osborne demanding much, much more? Silk II in
its entirety for example? Home Rule perhaps?</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">The entire meeting can be watched <a href="http://www.senedd.tv/Meeting/Archive/e4b7eeb9-a92d-49af-94f3-3690c029c471?autostart=True" target="_blank">here </a></span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">The UK Government’s Command Paper can be read <a href="http://www.senedd.assembly.wales/documents/s41385/CLA4-17-15%20Paper%201.pdf" target="_blank">here</a></span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";"><br /></span></div>
Pedryn Drycinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14529524938002180510noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9026206080954518407.post-70273956535182049442015-06-22T05:23:00.000-07:002015-12-15T08:49:22.222-08:00Theodore Huckle and “our aspiration for the devolution of justice”<br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">I always listen very carefully to what the Counsel General,
Theodore Huckle, has to say. He is by all accounts very close to Carwyn Jones,
is at the heart of internal Welsh Government discussions about the evolving
Welsh constitutional settlement, and as a law officer, has a refreshingly
direct and ‘unspun’ approach to the constitutional issues of the day. He never
says anything that goes beyond his brief or the scope of his office, but neither
does he evade questions or seek to artificially limit the information he
provides to Assembly Members or the public on matters that are within his remit.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">Mr Huckle gave a speech to the Law Society Wales Summer
Reception last Wednesday. The majority of the speech focused on how the rule of
law should be enhanced by ensuring better access to it, and in particular, the
duty that ambition places on Welsh lawmakers for clarity, certainty and wide availability
of legislation. His stated support for consolidation statutes, codification in
general and initiatives such as the one-stop legal commentary ‘Cyfraith Cymru
Law Wales’, are to be welcomed by those of us who believe that a separate Welsh
legal jurisdiction and justice system are not only inevitable in the medium
term but highly desirable in the short. But this support is not new, and he has
spoken about it many times in the past. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">One paragraph of his speech does, however, hint at a change of
rhetorical positioning of the Welsh Government vis-à-vis the devolution of Justice.
Early in his speech he states:</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 36pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">“Responsibility for the justice
system, including legal aid, currently sits with the UK Government and
legislature. The Silk Commission recommended the devolution of justice matters,
and we wait to see what will come of that. But whilst I agree fully with Lord Neuberger’s
observation in his 2013 Tom Sargent Memorial Lecture that “without justice
there is no rule of law” that does not mean we do not have responsibilities towards
the rule of law even outwith our aspiration for the devolution of justice.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
</div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">This short
passage suggests two very important elements of current thinking in the Welsh
Government. Firstly, that they have not ruled out that Whitehall may still
react positively to Silk II and the devolution of policing and the justice system
(“we wait to see what will come of that”), and secondly, that the Welsh
Government has now adopted a more a publically assertive position in support of
judicial devolution (“<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">our</i> aspiration
for the devolution of justice” – my italics).</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
</div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">Theodore Huckle
does not speak out of turn, and whilst personal opinion on policy might be
expected in a speech by an elected politician like Carwyn Jones, it is much
less common in the discourse of a legal officer such as the Counsel General. Is
it fair to speculate, therefore, that the Welsh Government now has an official
policy of supporting the devolution of justice and that they are pressing that
case with Whitehall as part of the new Wales Bill process? Has that support
been elevated from the status of a personal opinion of the First Minister to that
of Government policy which the Counsel General is now free to discuss on the
floor of the Assembly? It’s a question our AMs might wish to pursue at the next
CG Questions…</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
</div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">The whole speech
is available from the Welsh Government website <a href="http://gov.wales/about/counselgeneral2/cgstatements/rule-of-law/?lang=en" target="_blank">here</a> in English and <a href="http://gov.wales/about/counselgeneral2/cgstatements/rule-of-law/?skip=1&lang=cy" target="_blank">here</a> in
Welsh.</span></div>
Pedryn Drycinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14529524938002180510noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9026206080954518407.post-28413833981377811602015-06-18T08:52:00.000-07:002015-06-18T08:54:59.191-07:00Waterloo, Whitehall, The One Show and Project (re)Britain(ize)<br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The British Government has certainly been putting in the
overtime over the last few years to eke every last drop of nation-building elixir
out of big events like the Olympics, the Jubilee, the Royal Wedding, royal births,
WWI anniversaries, WWII anniversaries, the Falklands anniversaries, the Richard
III commemorations, etc. You name it, it will have been blanket-covered by the
state broadcasters and their stooges in Fleet Street, festooned with Union
flags and lashings of Dunkirk spirit, images of smiling people and One Show <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">vox pop</i> platitudes, all carefully
choreographed from some Whitehall office with a brass sign on the door saying ‘Project
(re)Britain(ize)’. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">This is only to be expected of a state apparatus which has
known for some time that it is in real danger of imploding under the weight of
its own contradictions and historically hard-coded iniquities, in danger of perhaps
being reduced to some sort of leviathan London city-state no more significant
on the world stage than Singapore or Dubai; just colder and rainier. Seriously,
we shouldn’t be surprised and we can’t really blame them for trying to convince
us that there really was a ‘great’ Britain once. State apparatuses only exist
for one purpose, to protect and perpetuate the state and its apparatus, and
since time immemorial they’ve been doing this by fair means or foul.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Now, you can be the judge of whether ‘proactive management’
(state co-opting) of ‘British’ historical anniversaries falls into the ‘fair’
category or ‘foul’. As far as I am concerned, they are an aggressive, cynical
and manipulative insult to the intelligence and political maturity of the
people they are designed to dupe. They are also, as it happens, effective only in
polarising opinion, sending neatly corralled hordes of already convinced loyal Britishers
into a frenzy of tearful patriotism whilst sending <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>otherwise moderate Brito-sceptics like myself (and
50% of Scotland) scrambling even faster for the ejector-seat button. None of
this would matter were it not for the fact that occasionally a really
interesting and important anniversary does come around such as the Battle of
Waterloo (well, the Congress of Vienna really); historical events which really should
be reviewed more frequently but which are largely neglected in the annual round
of remembrances of more recent British ‘successes’. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">To that extent, I’d love to think that Breakfast News, the
One Show and the Daily Mail will have a probing discussion of Britain’s role in
the restoration of despotic, monarchical rule across Europe in 1815, its collusion
in the suppression <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>of the powerful new
forces of radicalism and democracy which the French Revolution had unleashed across
the continent (and to which even England would succumb 15 years later), and the
unprecedented stampede for British overseas colonies which came about as a
direct result of the defeat of her only serious naval rival and the acquisition
of key French territories overseas; a stampede that would result in the
hundred-year moral obscenity <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>that was
the British Empire of course. Somehow, carefully guided by that
pin-stripe-suited Sir Humphrey in Whitehall, I suspect our beloved media will
probably lead with that hero of liberty John Bull giving the nasty big-nosed
French dictator a good spanking, saving Europe at the same time and showing the
world once more how things should be done, how ‘great’ Britain really is. The
Union is safe in your hands Sir Humphrey, rest assured.</span></div>
Pedryn Drycinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14529524938002180510noreply@blogger.com0