New Wales
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The Little Red Book

published in mid-January 1999

Page 1 of 8

by Roger Warren Evans

WALES IS IN THE SPOTLIGHT. For the first time in a thousand years, the UK state is devolving power from Westminster to constituent elected assemblies. The UK state first embarked upon its centralising path with the incorporation of Cornwall (947), to be followed by Wales (1536), Scotland (1707) and Ireland (1800). Southern Ireland was subsequently torn from the UK state by rebellion, with continuing adverse consequences. Now, three new self-governing provinces are being created, by peaceful means.

THE LABOUR PARTY occupies that spotlight. Labour bears the primary responsibility for the success of devolution. Political opponents, both Tories and Nationalists, have attacked Labour throughout the legislative process. They do not wish the project well, in either Scotland or Wales. Labour bears the responsibility for devolution alone, albeit with equivocal Liberal Democrat support.

FOR WALES, Labour bears a special responsibility. Wales has for a century been distinctively radical, in both Labour and Liberal terms. The constituency of Merthyr Tydfil gave a political home to the pioneering Scots leader Kier Hardie, in 1894. In 1906, many of the very first Labour MPs came from Wales. And the voters of Wales have consistently supported Labour candidates, in both local and Westminster elections.

THURSDAY 6 MAY 1999 will be, for Labour in Wales, a glittering opportunity. The self-governing province of Wales will generate its own constitutional space. That space will in part be statutory: over 300 statutes have now been identified, under which powers will pass to the new Assembly. But self-government will generate other spaces, of identity, of allegiance, of confidence, of culture and cultural aspiration. It is the destiny of Labour in Wales to take the lead, in the cultivation of those new open spaces.

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