Huw Davies is Deputy Chairman of the South Wales East Conservatives.
David TC Davies, the Welsh Secretary, has recently stated that he would be relaxed about a potential coalition between Plaid Cymru and the Welsh Conservatives in the Senedd. I believe this would be a strategic mistake for Tories in Wales, and would have untold unfortunate consequences for the future of the United Kingdom.
Some within the Welsh Conservatives need to stop treating Plaid Cymru as just another party. They are the same as the SNP and Sinn Fein: they desire the destruction of the United Kingdom. Plaid wants an independent Welsh republic carved out of British territory. How does that contend with a deeply British party like the Conservatives? It’s like two pieces of two different jigsaws. They may fit together in practise, but the pattern would be wrong.
Like a broken record, you hear repeated suggestions that “in government, we can moderate them”. This is another huge misunderstanding of Plaid – and nationalism. It is an absolutist creed. It cannot be abated nor compromised with. In the eyes of Welsh nationalists, Wales in political terms is half a nation shackled to Britain, unable to do as it pleases. Nationalists don’t want half a nation, otherwise they wouldn’t be nationalists. They want full-bodied separation, not a halfway house.
I understand why such a coalition would be desirable. Labour has been in power in Wales for 25 years and seems to have an unbreakable hold on the country. The half-proportional set-up does allow the possibility of such an unholy marriage between the Conservatives and Plaid.
But this does not mean that somehow, we would have a coherent alternative government. Other than not being Labour, what do we have in common? There is no ideological alignment on anything substantial which could hold together a government for a long five-year term.
Plaid themselves openly admit it is an impossibility. Their membership would be aghast at such an idea as getting into bed with the dreaded Tories. All political parties want power, but even the nationalists know it shouldn’t come at the cost of their deeply held principles. Nationhood is not for sale for them.
We should be exactly the same. Power for its own sake is not worth it when the entity you’re working with hates everything you stand for.
Going back to the Secretary of State’s comments, he delved into the make-up of Plaid’s voter base. One part is a left-of-centre nationalism based in the South Wales Valleys, the other being a socially conservative Welsh-speaking West and North-West Wales. His assessment here is quite correct, but it doesn’t necessarily make them any more palatable.
Those small ‘c’ conservatives are motivated by something far deeper – identity politics. Now that this is becoming more and more important in the political makeup of Britain, the idea that we can win these voters over is a non-existent prospect. It is reminiscent of the doomed strategy of the Welsh Conservatives in the 2000s, which got us precisely nowhere.
To give the Minister credit, he gave an honest account that winning a majority in the Senedd is a difficult prospect for the Conservatives. But I fear he reached for a quick hopeful answer (as you would him expect to). It is an out-of-date answer. But what other answer could he give other than admitting that devolved politics is a cul-de-sac for or party?
Our vote is too spread out across Wales for us to win enough constituency seats to win a majority, and the new system being brought in means any party would need 50 per cent to take full control. Winning 50 per cent is a huge task, which is very rare in British politics.
In the coming months and years, the Welsh Conservatives need to have a long hard think about our approach to devolution. Doing deals with Plaid won’t deliver us anything more than trouble and mean that we have compromised on our belief in British nationhood. It may be the easy solution to our problem of evermore Labour rule, but it would not be a pragmatic one.
To solve our devolution conundrum, we need to believe in real One Nation politics again. Only our uncompromisable devotion to the political unity of the United Kingdom will see us through to victory in Wales.
Huw Davies is Deputy Chairman of the South Wales East Conservatives.
David TC Davies, the Welsh Secretary, has recently stated that he would be relaxed about a potential coalition between Plaid Cymru and the Welsh Conservatives in the Senedd. I believe this would be a strategic mistake for Tories in Wales, and would have untold unfortunate consequences for the future of the United Kingdom.
Some within the Welsh Conservatives need to stop treating Plaid Cymru as just another party. They are the same as the SNP and Sinn Fein: they desire the destruction of the United Kingdom. Plaid wants an independent Welsh republic carved out of British territory. How does that contend with a deeply British party like the Conservatives? It’s like two pieces of two different jigsaws. They may fit together in practise, but the pattern would be wrong.
Like a broken record, you hear repeated suggestions that “in government, we can moderate them”. This is another huge misunderstanding of Plaid – and nationalism. It is an absolutist creed. It cannot be abated nor compromised with. In the eyes of Welsh nationalists, Wales in political terms is half a nation shackled to Britain, unable to do as it pleases. Nationalists don’t want half a nation, otherwise they wouldn’t be nationalists. They want full-bodied separation, not a halfway house.
I understand why such a coalition would be desirable. Labour has been in power in Wales for 25 years and seems to have an unbreakable hold on the country. The half-proportional set-up does allow the possibility of such an unholy marriage between the Conservatives and Plaid.
But this does not mean that somehow, we would have a coherent alternative government. Other than not being Labour, what do we have in common? There is no ideological alignment on anything substantial which could hold together a government for a long five-year term.
Plaid themselves openly admit it is an impossibility. Their membership would be aghast at such an idea as getting into bed with the dreaded Tories. All political parties want power, but even the nationalists know it shouldn’t come at the cost of their deeply held principles. Nationhood is not for sale for them.
We should be exactly the same. Power for its own sake is not worth it when the entity you’re working with hates everything you stand for.
Going back to the Secretary of State’s comments, he delved into the make-up of Plaid’s voter base. One part is a left-of-centre nationalism based in the South Wales Valleys, the other being a socially conservative Welsh-speaking West and North-West Wales. His assessment here is quite correct, but it doesn’t necessarily make them any more palatable.
Those small ‘c’ conservatives are motivated by something far deeper – identity politics. Now that this is becoming more and more important in the political makeup of Britain, the idea that we can win these voters over is a non-existent prospect. It is reminiscent of the doomed strategy of the Welsh Conservatives in the 2000s, which got us precisely nowhere.
To give the Minister credit, he gave an honest account that winning a majority in the Senedd is a difficult prospect for the Conservatives. But I fear he reached for a quick hopeful answer (as you would him expect to). It is an out-of-date answer. But what other answer could he give other than admitting that devolved politics is a cul-de-sac for or party?
Our vote is too spread out across Wales for us to win enough constituency seats to win a majority, and the new system being brought in means any party would need 50 per cent to take full control. Winning 50 per cent is a huge task, which is very rare in British politics.
In the coming months and years, the Welsh Conservatives need to have a long hard think about our approach to devolution. Doing deals with Plaid won’t deliver us anything more than trouble and mean that we have compromised on our belief in British nationhood. It may be the easy solution to our problem of evermore Labour rule, but it would not be a pragmatic one.
To solve our devolution conundrum, we need to believe in real One Nation politics again. Only our uncompromisable devotion to the political unity of the United Kingdom will see us through to victory in Wales.