My personal view is that a better deal would be a deal based on scraping the need for a referendum. I have also posted a number of opinions saying that if a referendum had to be held that it would be better sooner, rather than latter.
Throughout my musings I had assumed that the Only Labour Can Deliver a Referendum Brigade were assuming that the referendum would be held in time to give the Assembly its new powers after the next Assembly election in 2011.
It appears not.
Betsan Powys, almost as an aside, mentions a conversation she had with Red / Green sceptics in Plaid's Assembly group:
But there was a bigger question being posed by some too - a tactical question. IF the deal goes through and IF the promise of support for a referendum is part of that deal and is seen as nothing more than a make-or-break Plaid demand, isn't it going to be much harder for the 'Yes' camp to win the vote come 2011?
Sorry! Win in 2011! - So the much touted Referendum that is the lynch pin of the Red-Green deal won't be held until after the 2011 Assembly election?
That means supporting Labour, for no new powers until 2016. And in 2016 what will we have (if the vote goes "yes")? The powers that Scotland had twenty years earlier, but with less than one fith of the policy areas over which Scotland exercised those powers in 1997! This is called GOOD by Plaid's Labour Luvvies?
Neil Kinnock said in 1979 that devolution was the slippery slope to independence - Plaid argued that it wasn't at the time, but secretly believed that Kinnock was right, Plaid Cymru has based its national vision on Kinnock's belief ever since 1979.
Kinnock was wrong!
Welsh Devolution has proved, so far, that it has neither the lubricity nor the gradient required to lead to independence.
Its time for Plaid to realise this fact; to give up on its evolution of devolution policies, to go back to its roots and to re-ignite a proper Campaign for Independence.
In the current circumstances it would be madness to hold the referendum before this Assembly term is out. Personally, I'm not entirely confident that all will go well with what Wales has got under the GOWA 2006 - needs to bed-in a little over the next two years and it doesn't help with all the need for coalition talk (not a lot we can do about that). The next four years is definately make or break for the Assembly and will be very interesting for those that work there.
ReplyDeleteLabour-Plaid coalition aside, my thoughts are with Rosemary Butler at the moment... How can one woman have so much bad luck?
http://glamorganshire.blogspot.com/2007/06/whatever-shall-we-do-with-butler.html
Miserable,
ReplyDeleteI respect your view and one which is very consistent and thoughtfully argued. But do you honestly believe that such a campaign for independence will seriously win out in the short or even medium term? I would contend that much of Plaid growth has focused on them actually ditching the 'independence now' message.
I think the assembly's popularity is growing, but i also think that support is based on the notion we are not in perpetual motion to independence. Or to put it less categorically, ENOUGH people take this view to make the independence argument unwinnable.
As a Labour member, i would dearly love Plaid to revert to such a suicidal position, but surely you cannot say what you suggest is really a good electoral strategy for Plaid?
I am curious, i am not having a go. I am just a bit confused if you really believe this and how do you qualify it?
clear red water said:
ReplyDelete"I think the assembly's popularity is growing, but i also think that support is based on the notion we are not in perpetual motion to independence. Or to put it less categorically, ENOUGH people take this view to make the independence argument unwinnable."
How do you know that there are not enough people who want independence? Just read the newspapers, listen to the news, the electorate are fed up of government too centralised . The feel they have lost power of desicions that affect their lives. They feel they have lost power over their towns and cities, a legacy of Blair's term as PM, a complete control freak. The whole country has lost heart in trying to govern itself.
Someone somewhere has got to start asking for power back to the people. We should be in a positon to ask i Wales now. We do NOT ask the MPs. They allowed it to be taken away. The next GE should deal with them.
So asking for power to the people is not the same as asking for independence but we'd be getting there.