The reaction to yesterday’s events over the vote to trigger a referendum on utilising the Assembly’s full powers is predictable but bizarre nevertheless.
To recap, all four parties want a referendum but the two opposition parties want to make sure that it can be won and for that reason they do not want it held on election day. It is right that this may be a decision for the future but by the time an order is laid specifying a referendum date it may be too late to reverse the process or lose the opportunity for a generation. That would not be desirable. That is why we need reassurances now.
This is not an academic argument. Outside this Cardiff Bay bubble the referendum is there to be won but it will take a masssive effort of persuading people of the case to vote yes. If we do not have all four parties on-board and concentrating entirely on winning that plebiscite then it will be lost. That is why, as a strong devolutionist, I am prepared to abstain on February 9th to ensure that we get the process right.
In this morning’s Western Mail, Plaid Cymru’s Deputy Leader says: “There are Conservative and Lib Dem AMs that are strong supporters of further devolution, and it’s hard to understand why on earth they would seek to endanger this vote over an issue that is not meant to be addressed at this stage.”
That sums up Plaid Cymru’s problem. They have lost sight of the main objective which is to secure a ‘yes’ vote. Too many of them are focussing on the trigger vote itself or on holding a referendum within the timescale set down by the One Wales Agreement. They cannot see what is going on around Wales itself. They think that the process of securing a ballot is an end unto itself, when the real objective is to win that vote and get an effective law-making Assembly that can make a difference to people’s lives.
As a footnote the comments of the First Minister in this article are really bizarre. The journalist reports that when asked why the Assembly Government had not immediately announced a vote on a referendum last month, Carwyn Jones said that the Government needed to talk to the Electoral Commission first: “A number of options were looked at in terms of how to take the process forward in an appropriate way. It quickly became clear that a trigger vote was the way of doing that.”
What I would like to know is what those other options were. As far as I know the only way of securing a referendum is by a trigger vote, whilst the One Wales Agreement is quite clear on what needs to be done. As an exercise in inanity this explanation must rank fairly high in the league table of lame political excuses over the first eleven years of this Assembly.
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I have a good deal of sympathy with your position, Peter. As I’ve said on Syniadau here and here, I find it bizarre and inexplicable that the motion makes no reference to the date, the wording of the question or any of the other details. It is in effect saying to Peter Hain, “We’d like a referendum, but we’ll leave it entirely up to you to decide when it is and what the question will be.”
I said in my post yesterday, I think there are definite reasons for leaving the possibility of a referendum on the same day as the Assembly election on the table. It would certainly benefit the Labour Party if both were to be held together, and it would also increase a turnout that might otherwise be very low. In short, you have every reason to be suspicious of the decision not to specify a date. But the motion has now been published, and therefore won’t be changed now (though you might try tabling an amendment). Failing that, I can see no good reason why Carwyn Jones and Ieuan Wyn Jones, perhaps in a joint statement with Peter Hain, should not issue a “statement of intention” or even a “preliminary draft” of the draft Referendum Order before next Tuesday.
But you have to accept that they probably won’t do that. And that puts you in an impossible position. My advice is that it is simply not tenable for you to let the motion fail. You still have the safety net of the vote on the final draft of the Referendum Order … so wouldn’t it be better to save your “veto” until then? At that point we will all know all the details, including the date and the question.
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My own view is that I don’t mind so much when the referendum is, so long as we actually have it. I have never had any doubt that the referendum will be won, but the big battle was to actually get it. However the date is obviously one of the prime sticking points for both the LibDems and the Tories (for very obvious practical reasons) so for the purposes of fighting a unified campaign I’m more than happy to go for October 2010. March 2011 would be fine too, and Vaughan Roderick beat me to the suggestion that the Assembly elections could be put off until June 2011, so as to allow a sufficient interval between the two votes.
As an aside, that is what happened last year, when local elections were delayed to co-incide with the Euro election. But that was done to hold the two elections on the same day in order to increase turnout in both … exactly the opposite of what you want.
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Finally, even though I don’t share your concerns about the referendum being lost, I do think it is important that we fight the campaign in the right way. I think it is tragic that the Welsh Government has let the opportunity of getting unanimous, enthusiastic support for the referendum motion slip through its fingers by refusing to address the proper concerns of both LibDems and Tories. They are playing party political games over something that all parties in the Assembly could have agreed on.
I fear that all this might be a signal of the way Labour intent to fight the campaign. That they will make it into a party political issue against the Tories because they think that is the easiest way to win over the 40% or so of their supporters who, in the polls, say they will vote No.