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I claim no special insight into the mind of our First Minister, Mark Drakeford. But it would be surprising if he did not have distinctly mixed feelings when the Labour’s 2019 election manifesto was published.

On the one hand, as a very long-standing supporter of his party’s left, he would surely have been delighted to see Labour propose a programme for government that is full of socialist red meat.

But on the other hand, as Labour’s First Minister he must also have been left seething.

Bluntly speaking, the manifesto represents nothing less than a humiliation for Drakeford and his government.

The Labour manifesto for the 2017 general election contained two major victories for Carwyn Jones. First, buried deep but nonetheless unambiguous, was a commitment to reform the mechanism by which the UK’s devolved territories are funded; that is our old, old friend the Barnett Formula.

As anyone with even a modicum of interest in Welsh politics will know, Barnett treats Wales in curmudgeonly fashion, at least in comparison to Northern Ireland and, in particular, Scotland. In this context, any commitment to reform Barnett represents a major victory for Welsh Labour and a nigh-on catastrophic defeat for Scottish Labour.

There are literally billions of pounds a year at stake.

Given this, it is perhaps no surprise that Labour has dropped the commitment to reform Barnett this time round.

Rumour has it that it was only the chaos that characterised Kezia Dugdale’s stewardship of the Scottish party that opened the door for Carwyn Jones and his colleagues two years ago. So perhaps we should not be surprised that any suggestion that there might be a rebalancing of spending in favour of Wales has completely disappeared from the 2019 Manifesto.

But what is less understandable is that Labour now envisages shifting the balance even more decisively towards Scotland by pledging enormous additional investment there – no less that £100 Billion over a ten year period – whilst offering nothing even vaguely similar to Wales.

This despite the fact that the Welsh economy is substantially weaker than that of Scotland.

In the same way that the Conservatives have tried to buy the support of the DUP by pouring additional funds into Northern Ireland, it would appear that Jeremy Corbyn and his allies are determined to revive the fortunes of the moribund Scottish Labour Party by slinging a money pipeline over Hadrian’s Wall and turning on the tap.

One very much doubts whether Labour endeavours will be more successful than those of the Tories. We shall see. But what is beyond doubt is that neither Wales nor its Corbynite First Minister are a financial priority for Labour.

Carwyn Jones’ second great victory was to ensure a manifesto commitment to legislating onto the statue book the Government and Laws of Wales Bill, namely a piece of draft legislation created by the Welsh Government that embodies its vision of a long-term devolution settlement for Wales. Most notably, it would create a Welsh legal jurisdiction and devolve control over the criminal justice system, including the police and prison services.

Two years later, however, and that commitment has vanished. Following a successful rear-guard action by Welsh Labour MPs who are in the main bitterly opposed to any change to the status quo, all that remains is the following: “The Thomas Commission on Justice in Wales is clear that the justice system is not working for Wales. Labour governments in Wales and Westminster will work together, using the Commission’s report, to put that right.”

Let’s be clear. The 500+ pages of the Thomas Commission Report are utterly damning indictment of the current system. Which should hardly come as a surprise given that Wales has the highest imprisonment rate in Western Europe; that all the available evidence suggests that the criminal justice system in Wales is racist to its very core; that the number of children in care in Wales has grown to a frighteningly high level, etc. In response, the Commissioners unanimous and unambiguous recommendation was the whole system should be devolved.

Like his predecessor, Drakeford has been equally unambiguous in supporting this development. By contrast the position of the bulk of Welsh Labour MPs is reactionary in the strict sense. They propose no alternative solution.

(Image: Iolo ap Gwynn)

Rather they support the maintenance of a system whose failings are manifold and manifest as a way of protecting their own self-interest.

Yet Corbyn and his allies have chosen to support their position rather than than of the Welsh Goverment, relegating 2017’s

clear commitment to the meaningless platitudes of 2019.

Given Wales’ electoral importance to Labour, let alone Mark Drakeford’s personal loyalty to Jeremy Corbyn, the treatment of Wales in the party’s 2019 manifesto is genuinely remarkable, and represent a humiliation for the Welsh First Minister.

Turning from the party that has dominated electoral politics in Wales for a century to the party that hopes finally to displace it, what are the auguries for Wales as evidenced in the Conservative manifesto?

Perhaps the first thing to say is that, despite having been forced to resign from his post Secretary of State for Wales at the start of the election campaign, the influence of Alun Cairns on his party’s thinking is palpable.

Indeed it is undeniably the case that Cairns has had more influence on the Conservative general election manifesto than Drakeford has managed with regards to Labour’s.

The Welsh section of the Conservative manifesto is a rehash of those familiar themes that have characterised the Tory approach to Wales since 2015. ‘Cross-border’ initiatives are lauded (but only one way of course – with Wales servicing growth in England), all in the name of ‘strengthening the Union’.

No effort is spared in trashing the Welsh Government.

And of course, there’s the usual guff about supporting S4C and the National Eisteddfod – although this time accompanied by a statement that suggests that whoever drafted this section is unaware that it is the Welsh rather than the UK Government that funds the National Library and the National Museum.

This is a party that proclaims its love for the Union while simultaneously demonstrating that it has little understanding of how it actually works.

The centre-piece of the Welsh section is a commitment to the establishment of yet another so-called growth deal aimed at tying Wales closer to England, this time the ‘Marches Growth Deal’.

A completely detail-free initiative that is squarely aimed at the two marginal constituencies of Brecon and Radnorshire and Montgomeryshire.

Here in its profound cynicism and utter vacuousness the manifesto achieves ‘peak Cairns’. It’s hard to avoid the conclusion that Conservatives simply do not care if voters decide that their party is refusing to take Wales seriously...

The only genuinely important commitment to Wales in the Conservative manifesto is found in the section on the ‘UK Shared Prosperity Fund’, that is the fund intended to take over the role of European structural funds once the sunlit uplands of Brexit have

been reached. It’s worth repeating the exact wording as one suspects that we’ll be returning to them frequently over the next few years. “It will replace the overly bureaucratic EU Structural Funds – and not only be better targeted at the UK’s specific needs, but at a minimum match the size of those funds in each nation.”

Good news as far as it goes. The worry is, of course, is that given official estimates of the likely negative effect of Brexit on the UK economy and, therefore, the size of the tax take, this is the one Wales-related commitment that a future Conservative government will struggle to deliver.

There is a bitter irony in the fact that Wales would appear to be a key electoral battleground in the 2019 general election and yet the ambitions for Wales on display in the manifestos of the only two parties with a chance of leading the next UK government are so crabbed and limited.

While Labour offer the moon on a stick to Scotland and the Conservatives attempt to assuage a guilty conscience by restating their commitment to Northern Ireland in the most extravagant terms, their manifestos show that both parties are happy to ignore and side-line Wales.

This article is an adaptation of a piece that first appeared in the December 2019 edition of the Welsh language current affairs magazine Barn.