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For a Democratic Welsh Assembly!

[Autumn 1992; unpublished (?) draft]

An elected assembly is once more on the political agenda in Wales. The idea has widespread support amongst working people and is the official policy of the Welsh Labour Party and Wales TUC. Yet thirteen years ago it was overwhelmingly rejected in the devolution referendum. What lies behind this turn around?

These have been no ordinary thirteen years. Wales has never once voted Tory but has suffered four consecutive Conservative governments. The consequences of Tory rule have been particularly severe in Wales. The destruction of steel and coal dealt body blows to the economy and the much vaunted 'recovery' has been largely based on low-waged, low-skill jobs. Wales and Northern Ireland are now the poorest parts of the British state. The decline of industry has meant an increasing reliance on services, particularly the public sector, to provide work. This makes the Welsh economy especially vulnerable to further cuts in public expenditure.

As a consequence many Welsh workers feel increasingly dissatisfied with a British centralism which provides them with little benefit and over which they have no control. There is also a feeling that if the Scots can kick up a fuss, then so can we! Developments in Scotland, be they positive or negative, will have a big impact on the mood and confidence of those supporting an assembly in Wales.

The Wales TUC conference held in April passed an emergency motion on the assembly. It called on the Wales TUC to establish a Constitutional Convention, in collaboration with the Campaign for a Welsh Assembly. The general council is now divided over implementing this policy, with lack of money due to British TUC cuts being used as one excuse for inaction. The Wales LP executive has since voted against participating in the Convention and has set up its own 'Policy Forum' on the issue. The Campaign for a Welsh Assembly is organising its own committee of the 'good and the great' to look at options for an assembly.

In this context the conference on a 'New Agenda for the Valleys', called by Peter Hain MP, is a welcome initiative. The Neath Declaration, published to coincide with this event, poses some real questions about Labour and TUC policies in Wales to date: on foreign direct investment as the cure for economic ills; on Maastricht and its effects on Wales; on the assembly and its role.

One thing is clear: we can't suffer another five years of Tory rule in silence. We need an active and united campaign for a Welsh assembly, led by the Welsh Labour movement This should demand an assembly elected by proportional representation, with small constituencies and quotas for women. As for the powers such an assembly should possess - let the Welsh people themselves decide! Let them decide through their actions and through voting for the parties they support in elections to the assembly. Let the first meetings of that assembly, elected by the whole of the Welsh people, decide its own powers and its relationship to the British parliament. 

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