Calum Davies: Plenty of Welsh voters want rid of the Senedd – but the devocrats pretend they don’t exist

Calum Davies is a Conservative councillor in Cardiff and previously stood for the Senedd in 2021.

Did you know that 31 per cent of the Welsh population want to abolish devolution here? It is quite a significant statistic, uncovered by YouGov last summer, but it’s not one that seems to enter the public political discourse much in Wales.

It is also not one that seemed to bother the so-called Independent Commission on the Constitutional Future of Wales, set up by the Labour Government in Cardiff Bay after the last election. That’s despite the constitution being a matter reserved for Parliament.

The Welsh Conservatives correctly predicted that the findings of the report from this body – packed with ex-lefty politicians and co-chaired by a former Plaid Cymru candidate – were pre-determined.

The only viable avenues, according to the Commission, were independence, federalism, or more devolution; the status quo wasn’t even an option, in the eyes of the incrementalists. This is despite a substantial minority view that abolition is the preference, and the desire of a majority of Conservative and Reform voters.

In its report, the Commission stated that it could not find many abolitionists. The report stated that Reform did not respond to an invite to engage – which was foolish of them and indicative of their hesitation to comment beyond their usual generic, national talking-points – while the Abolish the Assembly Party recently stated they were never asked.

So, were the Commission trying to find abolitionists – or hoping none would raise their hand?

Meanwhile, the abolitionists who did engage were concluded to have reached that view via invalid reasons. The Commission expressed confusion as to how someone could hold such views. However, it is not up to these unelected gatekeepers to decide how worthy are such views, or ascribe value to them. They exist, and are held by many Welsh people.

It is very much the norm that the public regularly holds views that are not aligned with the political class. But to pretend they do not exist or to deem them without quality is a recipe for disaster. Just ask those parties who never responded to the trepidation about high levels of immigration with an actual policy response.

As a so-called independent body, the Commision should not completely disregard the proposal supported by one in three people because it cannot comprehend that view.

It is also worth noting that the polling used by Commission – in fairness conducted several months prior to the YouGov poll – found that abolition was as popular as independence. Somehow, rolling back devolution was unrealistic but the establishment of an independent Wales was feasible. They had the temerity to write that:

“We have not received a reasoned proposal for reversing devolution and how it would be achieved, as opposed to criticism of the current workings of devolution. Those that did express a view often suggested returning to the position in the 1990s when Wales was governed by the UK Government, without considering the practicalities of doing so”.

We managed to leave the European Union after a relationship twice as old as devolution, suggesting such problems are not insoluble. It is certainly absurd to suggest that reverting to the pre-1998 constitutional status quo ante is a more uncertain proposition than setting up an independent Welsh state for the first time since the mid-1500s.

The problem here is fundamental. Devolution is a separatist project by definition. The Commission was never going to make any suggestions that did not move in this direction; otherwise, why would Mark Drakeford’s nationalist-leaning government set it up?

Closer to home, I found myself arguing against the devolution of the Crown Estate to Wales in a recent debate in Cardiff Council. Besides the lack of merit to developing more powers when the record so far been one of failure, I moved to impressing on the Labour Party why Plaid Cymru councillors had proposed the motion in the first place.

Forgive me for quoting myself but what I said at the time is the simplest way to put it:

“Plaid wants to split the Labour Party and its two governments. They want you to accept nationalist principles to further their aim of independence. They want a PR victory in getting this motion passed in as many Welsh councils as possible before the Senedd election.

“Nationalism is like water. Its patient. It just waits. And once you let it in, it gets everywhere, diluting the values that you hold dear. As the supposed primary unionist party of Wales, Labour has a responsibility to resist the nationalist sickness.

“Do not to give succour to the Plaid motion and play into their hands. The nationalists are incrementalists. Everything they do is geared towards their ambitions of independence. They’re not clever enough to understand the damage independence will have, but they are clever enough to wait patiently and get you to buy into their agenda.”

The reason I mention this is because it is essential to understanding why devoscepticism is missing from public debate, and why it always will be unless a dedicated group force it through by relentlessly pursuing the cause.

It is not in the interest of those within the power structures of devolution – from politicians and the media to third sector organisations and lobbyists (collectively ‘devocrats’) – to platform views that undermine the system that pays and empowers them. Of course, most people in this system likely do genuinely support devolution separate to these reasons but, because of them, they naturally will not make life harder for themselves.

A fundamental flaw of devolution is lack of public engagement: turnout in devolved elections has never reached 50 per cent in Wales; it barely scraped that threshold for the 1997 referendum itself; and turnout was much higher when devolution was rejected in Wales by a margin of four-to-one in 1979, a result conveniently forgotten by the devocratic class.

That is why the political class can get away with biased direction-setting reports such as the Commission’s, and the Welsh Government passes experimental laws like the detested 20mph default speed limit. They set the narrative and agenda on the direction of the constitution as no-one challenges them.

This goes a long way to explaining why devoscepticism is not seen in public debate: we’re all too disenfranchised, and cannot buy into a system that has let us down so poorly via e.g. record-long NHS waits, rock-bottom education standards, and a stagnating economy.

A party that seeks the votes of the devosceptic 31 per cent stands to gain a lot – a share of the vote higher than any party is currently polling, and the appreciation of a population who have never felt represented.