As we commemorate the tenth anniversay of the first elections to the Welsh Assembly talk has already turned to the future. This morning’s Western Mail has highlighted an article in tomorrow’s paper in which they say the Presiding Officer will call for a referendum to be held on utilising all the powers in the 2006 Government ofWales Act on the same day as the 2011 Assembly elections.
To do so in my opinion would be a great mistake. Not only is such a proposal likely to incur the wrath of the Electoral Commission but it would result in a fractured and ineffective campaign that could well see the proposition defeated.
It would be an impossible situation to see the leaders of the four major parties sharing a platform one minute to call for a yes vote only for the next event to see them ripping bits out of each other as part of an Assembly election campaign. The chances of a cross-party campaign would be zero and the very compelling case for a ‘yes’ vote would not be made.
Politics Cymru draw attention to another post by BBC Welsh Affairs Editor, Vaughan Roderick in which he poses the question to a future Tory Government as to whether they will cooperate with a request for a referendum and says that it will be a test of Nick Bourne’s leadership of the Assembly Tory group as to whether he can get into the Conservative manifesto a specific and definite promise from Cameron that the Secretary of State would not reject demands for a referendum:
‘According to one forthright Conservative failure to do so would be disastrous and would allow the other parties to paint the Tories as an anti-Wales party: “if Nick Bourne loses the battle or refuses to fight it, then all the work he has done over the last decade will have been undone.”
Time for answers from the Tories I think.
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