Scotland: General Election and Constitutional Future

Jonathan Edwards Excerpts

Wednesday 17th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (Ind) [V]]

Diolch, Madam Deputy Speaker.

It is, of course, no surprise that a Government who are willing to undermine people’s rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly by pushing through powers to restrict public protest will not authorise Scotland’s right to choose its constitutional future. Despite their best efforts, the British Government have utterly failed to prevent the turbo-boosting in support for Scottish independence.

We in Wales who are looking at developments in Scotland see that the status quo is finished and we are having to think about what that means for us. I suspect many in my country share the feelings of the former First Minister, Carwyn Jones, that an England and Wales Union has little appeal. The reality is that the choice facing the people of Wales and Scotland is increasingly moving towards between seizing independence or being left with neutered ceremonial buildings in Cardiff Bay and Edinburgh—devolution in name only.

As has become so painfully clear, Brexiteers in this House gave little thought to the impact of leaving the European Union on the British state itself. However, one thing I have learned from my years in this place is that the British establishment never leaves a good crisis to go to waste. Realising that leaving European economic frameworks would require the creation of new structures for the British state, or the Great Britain part at least, the British Government pounced on every opportunity to place a Westminster straitjacket on Wales and Scotland, even within devolved competencies. The default position has been to centralise power in Westminster, a position regrettably accepted by the Labour party, which has always endorsed ultimate Westminster primacy, despite being the governing party in Wales.

I make that point because the Labour party’s compliance has consequences: a broken funding system, an ever-increasing wealth gap and the highest rates of child poverty of any UK nation. Never have those failings been more apparent than during this crisis, where those who have the least have been affected the most. Members are used to bandying statistics around this House in a game of one-upmanship, but I ask them, if they take anything from what I say today, to reflect on the real state of affairs for communities and families in Wales and Scotland. The economic and social model of the British state is letting them down and those who fail to oppose it are complicit.

The Labour party may have accepted that position, but increasingly the people of Wales, as they have in Scotland, are refusing to do so, hence the remarkable growth of YesCymru and the increasing support for Welsh independence. The devolution middle ground, which served the interests of all the Welsh political parties in different ways, is disappearing. The current constitutional turbulence is therefore likely to become a hurricane in the years to come. When the wind blows over, I hope to see Wales, Scotland and indeed England emerge as confident, outward-looking, collaborative and independent nations. Diolch yn fawr iawn.