Want to keep up to date on Welsh politics? Sign up and get political news sent straight to your inbox Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Invalid Email

Could Brexit pose the biggest risk to devolution so far?

There are serious grounds for believing that could be the case.

One year ago this week the Labour Party staged a major event at Cardiff University in collaboration with the university’s Wales Governance Centre.

Senior party figures including former Prime Minister Gordon Brown and ex-Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott engaged in a public debate that served as the launch of Labour’s “devolution taskforce”, whose findings would feed into a constitutional convention also led by the party.

The involvement of such a substantial figure as Mr Brown suggested that the party was taking the issue seriously, and the intention that it wouldn’t be a grandstanding exercise that was quickly forgotten was reflected in the first sentence of the piece I wrote about the event at the time: “Major constitutional change is required in the UK not for its own sake, but to kick-start desperately needed social change, a group of senior Labour politicians meeting in Wales has said”.

Yet the sad fact is that nothing of substance has happened since.

In trying to understand why not, I found myself envisaging a worst case scenario in which the National Assembly takes on the focus for alienated voter discontent that the European Union will presumably relinquish after Brexit.

Listen to this week's episode of the Martin Shipton Meets podcast:

Some valid and important points were made during the Cardiff event last year. Mr Brown – who may not have had public appeal during his Premiership, but who is unquestionably a serious political thinker – said: “I think if Brexit happens in the way the Government wants it to happen, there will be a vast concentration of power in Whitehall at the expense of the nations and the regions.”

This was extremely prescient given the major conflict that has arisen between the devolved administrations and the UK Government over the “power grab” they fear will take place at the time of Brexit.

There is considerable irony in the fact that Westminster argues the need for common regulatory controls over agriculture and the environment on the pretext of protecting what it calls “the UK Single Market” while simultaneously insisting that we leave the EU Single Market.

Westminster’s reluctance to discuss such controls with the Welsh and Scottish governments on the basis of equality validates Gordon Brown’s concern that greater power could reside in Whitehall after Brexit .

And that’s just what he doesn’t want. In Cardiff he went on to say: “We have got to start rethinking the British constitution in a way that gives more power to the nations and regions of the UK, and that demands that we think imaginatively, not just about what powers come to the Welsh Assembly and the Scottish Parliament, but also what happens in the regions of England.”

For Gordon Brown, Brexit should lead to a scenario where “we can make sure that some of these long-term structural inequalities in the UK are dealt with”. That, to him, “means that there has got to be a big discussion about a more federal, a more decentralised constitution for the country”.

Carwyn Jones spoke to the conference of his now familiar concerns about a Westminster “power grab”, and said there was a need in the context of Brexit not just to come to terms with a new relationship between the UK and the EU, but to consider “what the UK would look like in terms of its own internal mechanisms when the UK leaves”.

For Jon Trickett, Labour’s chair of campaign and election strategy, the vote for Brexit had proved there was “an alienation from the way in which we do politics in our country ... This underlying quiet alienation, a sense that somehow this is not working any more for our country as a whole, for our nations and regions, is something that we have to address.”

Mr Trickett concluded: “This is a major opportunity for us to re-think how we do our constitution, and pass power down, and also to tackle these issues of unequal wealth and income as well.

“It’s a great moment for us to redefine our nation and rebuild the bonds which somehow have become loosened between how we govern the country and our citizens.”

There was agreement, then, that there was an urgent need to address the constitutional future of the UK for very practical reasons related to the social justice agenda of the Labour Party.

So why has progress from the devolution taskforce and moves towards a constitutional convention stalled?

I spoke to sources in both the Labour Party and the Welsh Government. It seems that last year’s General Election was a significant factor. Minds that would have been focussed on driving the constitutional agenda forward were diverted into tackling the here and now of an election campaign.

It was also put to me that, in an informal kind of way, the relationship being established between the Welsh Government and the Metro Mayors in the north west of England was an example of the “working together” philosophy expounded at the Cardiff event in action.

While I can accept the point about the General Election, there’s something else going on too.

It’s a paradox that while those arguing for constitutional change have come to see Brexit as a reason why it should happen, the tortuous debate about the nature of Brexit is itself crowding out the other discussions that are needed.

There remains huge uncertainty about what kind of deal will be reached between the UK and the EU. Theresa May’s bland assertion this week that her government will be able to secure an outcome that gives both parties what they want is as fatuous as it is unrealistic.

Economists are virtually unanimous in their view that any kind of Brexit will damage the UK economy, but that the kind of Brexit supported by the Prime Minister and her allies will be particularly bad – especially in a country like Wales which depends on the ability to export goods to other EU countries.

For those who voted Remain and who accept the mainstream analysis of the economic consequences of Brexit, there will be no surprise if the gloomy predictions turn out to be accurate. Some will immediately turn their attention to getting the UK to rejoin the EU at some time in the future.

But for those who voted Leave, the failure of Brexit to provide the changes to their lives they hoped for will not necessarily make them angry with those who persuaded them to reject EU membership in the first place.

People rarely like to admit they’re wrong – and very few will acknowledge they were hoodwinked by politicians to vote in a way that turns out to be against their best interest.

Instead, they are likely to look for another scapegoat to blame for everything that does not make their life perfect.

Leave campaigners persuaded millions of voters that a shortfall in public service and especially NHS funding was the fault of the EU, when in fact it was down to the UK Government’s austerity policies.

Equally, those opposed to immigration – many of whom were nostalgic for a 1950s version of Britain – tended not to distinguish between EU and non-EU migrants, while the initial surge of EU migration after eastern European countries joined the EU in 2004 stemmed from a UK Government decision anyway.

After Brexit, the disaffected are likely to turn their attention elsewhere. In Wales, the National Assembly could prove to be an easy target.

Opponents of devolution were always stronger in Wales than in Scotland. In 1979 there was a four-to-one majority against setting up an Assembly, while in 1997 the Yes victory was tiny.

The Assembly’s first year was rocky until the popular Rhodri Morgan took charge and became a steadying force. But looked at objectively, Wales’ performance in three key policy areas – health, education and the economy – has been disappointing over the 19 years of devolution.

There are those who argue that it is the performance of always Labour-led governments that has disappointed, rather than the institution itself.

But many people fail to make the distinction, are for whatever reason ill-informed, and would be sitting ducks for a campaign aimed at destabilising and ultimately abolishing the Assembly.

Nothing can be taken for granted, and the pro-Union rhetoric used by Theresa May and other Ministers at present could easily be twisted into an attack on devolved institutions which want to destabilise the Union by pursuing different policy agendas in a post-Brexit UK where it’s vital that we all pull together.

Playing the British Nationalist card against those who would cause trouble for a Britain trying to make its way in a new era would be an excellent diversionary tactic that could take attention away from the economic woes caused by Brexit.

So while it’s understandable that Labour’s devolution taskforce hasn’t pressed ahead as quickly as was intended, it’s essential that it resumes its deliberations promptly. A progressive, alternative narrative is desperately needed to combat the reactionary forces that could wreck devolution and much else.