Mick Antoniw says the Senedd election results were a defeat manufactured in Downing Street.
The mythological bubble of inevitable Labour Party supremacy in Wales has been well and truly pierced. Labour has been the majority party throughout the 27 years of devolution and over 100 years of Westminster elections, but the writing has been on the wall for well over two decades.
Those large Labour majorities in mining and steel-making communities have symbiotically declined year on year alongside the heavy industry that forged them. New Labour increasingly disentangled itself from traditional Labour socialism, believing that the traditional working-class vote would nevertheless follow, having nowhere else to go. It was a foolish belief.
In Wales, devolution offered an alternative and bucked the trend. “Welsh Labour”, the ideological brainchild of former First Minister Mark Drakeford as special advisor to First Minister Rhodri Morgan, sowed the seeds of a different devolved direction; part of the Labour family but with clear red water, more traditional Labour socialist values, diverging from the more middle-class rightward drift of the Tony Blair government.
The establishment of the Welsh Assembly, now the Senedd/ Welsh Parliament, consolidated a Welsh Labour identity which recognised the changing class base of the country but also incorporated the increasingly diverse centre-left vote.
The 2021 Senedd election produced, despite all the predictions, the best results for Welsh Labour in its history, gaining 30 of the 60 Senedd seats.
As its devolved responsibilities increased and with substantial primary legislative powers, improving its long-discussed capacity became inevitable. This election moved to a fully proportional closed list system, increasing the size of the Senedd from 60 to 96 members.
Welsh Labour could then have expected to win maybe 45 or so seats. The result is very different. 9 seats is a political disaster. What went wrong?
There are historic factors, but the results became increasingly predictable as far back as 2019 with the incoming leadership of Keir Starmer. As he abandoned the commitments to continue the progressive social and economic agenda begun by his predecessor, the party shifted step by step further to the right. More importantly, in this process is the restructuring of the party to a top down and increasingly authoritarian model. Greater control and manipulation of selection processes, intolerance of dissent, suppression of political diversity and the abuse of administrative suspensions to increasingly disempower and sideline the membership.
For “Welsh Labour “, it became clear that it was to be supplanted with a “UK Labour” model. Welsh Labour and devolution were to be constrained, to know its place in favour of a new union jack flag waving Britishness.
The problem with this is that over time, it undermined the successful “Welsh Labour” identity, which was far more in tune with the growing importance of regionalism across the UK. As we witnessed resilient Labour success in Liverpool, Manchester, and London, UK Labour sought a different direction, which failed to understand the developing diversity of the centre left in Wales, which had coalesced around Welsh Labour. Standing up for Wales was the successful message during 14 years of Tory austerity and mismanagement.
The election of a Labour Government in Westminster raised high expectations, most of which were never realised. Instead, a disastrous mantra of two governments working together disembowelled the Welsh Labour identity. Apart from not being an accurate reflection of the relationship, it was clear that UK Labour was increasingly pursuing a British unionist agenda not very dissimilar to its predecessor Tory government and that devolved government was not a partner but an appendage to an overriding central strategy. The Welsh office, a pre-devolution institution to give Wales a voice at the Cabinet table in London, increasingly became Westminster’s voice in Wales, adopting a role more in keeping with a form of colonial governorship.
For the first time in history, there will be a nationalist government in three of the four governments of the UK. These results are a crossroads. They could result in a ground zero political change in Welsh politics. Much will depend on how the Labour Party responds to the new reality. At present, it is in a sort of political denial. Once the shock waves have run their course, there will be room for serious political soul-searching and analysis, leading up to the November Welsh Labour conference. There will be an opportunity to change direction. At the forefront of this debate will be the demand for an autonomous devolved Welsh Labour Party, part of the broader Labour family but politically independent and free to fully reflect the interests of the people of Wales and to restore its commitment to being part of the UK, but always able and free to stand up for Wales. If it fails to achieve this, Welsh Labour could go the way of the old Liberal Party 100 years ago.
And at Downing Street, we need a change of direction and new leadership, an orderly transition and an open and democratic contest. The country has spoken.