Huw Davies is Deputy Chairman of the South Wales East Conservatives.
David TC Davies, the Welsh Secretary, has just lately said that he could be relaxed a few potential coalition between Plaid Cymru and the Welsh Conservatives within the Senedd. I imagine this could be a strategic mistake for Tories in Wales, and would have untold unlucky penalties for the way forward for the UK.
Some throughout the Welsh Conservatives have to cease treating Plaid Cymru as simply one other celebration. They’re the identical because the SNP and Sinn Fein: they need the destruction of the UK. Plaid needs an unbiased Welsh republic carved out of British territory. How does that take care of a deeply British celebration just like the Conservatives? It’s like two items of two totally different jigsaws. They could match collectively in practise, however the sample could be mistaken.
Like a damaged report, you hear repeated ideas that “in authorities, we are able to reasonable them”. That is one other enormous misunderstanding of Plaid – and nationalism. It’s an absolutist creed. It can’t be abated nor compromised with. Within the eyes of Welsh nationalists, Wales in political phrases is half a nation shackled to Britain, unable to do because it pleases. Nationalists don’t need half a nation, in any other case they wouldn’t be nationalists. They need full-bodied separation, not a midway home.
I perceive why such a coalition could be fascinating. Labour has been in energy in Wales for 25 years and appears to have an unbreakable maintain on the nation. The half-proportional set-up does enable the potential of such an unholy marriage between the Conservatives and Plaid.
However this doesn’t imply that one way or the other, we might have a coherent various authorities. Apart from not being Labour, what do we’ve got in frequent? There isn’t a ideological alignment on something substantial which might maintain collectively a authorities for a protracted five-year time period.
Plaid themselves overtly admit it’s an impossibility. Their membership could be aghast at such an thought as moving into mattress with the dreaded Tories. All political events need energy, however even the nationalists comprehend it shouldn’t come at the price of their deeply held ideas. Nationhood just isn’t on the market for them.
We ought to be precisely the identical. Energy for its personal sake just isn’t value it when the entity you’re working with hates all the pieces you stand for.
Going again to the Secretary of State’s feedback, he delved into the make-up of Plaid’s voter base. One half is a left-of-centre nationalism primarily based within the South Wales Valleys, the opposite being a socially conservative Welsh-speaking West and North-West Wales. His evaluation right here is kind of appropriate, nevertheless it doesn’t essentially make them any extra palatable.
These small ‘c’ conservatives are motivated by one thing far deeper – id politics. Now that that is turning into increasingly necessary within the political make-up of Britain, the concept that we are able to win these voters over is a non-existent prospect. It’s paying homage to the doomed technique of the Welsh Conservatives within the 2000s, which acquired us exactly nowhere.
To present the Minister credit score, he gave an sincere account that profitable a majority within the Senedd is a tough prospect for the Conservatives. However I worry he reached for a fast hopeful reply (as you’d him anticipate to). It’s an out-of-date reply. However what different reply might he give apart from admitting that devolved politics is a cul-de-sac for or celebration?
Our vote is simply too unfold out throughout Wales for us to win sufficient constituency seats to win a majority, and the brand new system being introduced in means any celebration would want 50 per cent to take full management. Profitable 50 per cent is a large activity, which may be very uncommon in British politics.
Within the coming months and years, the Welsh Conservatives have to have a protracted exhausting take into consideration our strategy to devolution. Doing offers with Plaid gained’t ship us something greater than hassle and imply that we’ve got compromised on our perception in British nationhood. It could be the straightforward resolution to our downside of evermore Labour rule, however it might not be a practical one.
To unravel our devolution conundrum, we have to imagine in actual One Nation politics once more. Solely our uncompromisable devotion to the political unity of the UK will see us by means of to victory in Wales.