Tuesday, July 23, 2024
The Welsh Labour schism
I've just come across an interesting blog on the Vaughan Gething affair from the Labour Senedd Member for Llanelli, Lee Waters. It is an honest and searing appraisal of what went worng with Gething's tenure as First Minister as well as the problems facing the Welsh Labour Party going forward.
Waters starts by saying that Welsh Labour are in a pickle. He says that after 25 years as the largest party in the Senedd, and 102 years as the party of Wales, Labour have become the establishment.
He adds that while their opposition is weak then, like many political systems where single parties dominate, Welsh Labour turns on themselves from time to time in order to check power and keep themselves honest:
'We are currently in the midst of the biggest schism since 1999, when the ‘pluralist’ section of the party embodied by Rhodri Morgan went ten rounds with the ‘machine politics’ section of the party represented by Alun Michael, and beat ten bells out of the each other. Those bruises took a decade to heal.
The last four months has seen the same happen again, albeit beneath the surface. The inevitable resignation of Vaughan Gething has brought that into the open and now party leaders are desperately trying to keep a lid on it by brokering a quiet deal to avoid any further open conflict.
How do we ‘heal the wounds’ is a question that bleeped across my WhatsApp frequently over the last week. The instinctive response being offered up is to come behind a ‘unity candidate’ and all will be well. I completely understand the instinct, and necessity, to pull together in common cause.
Disunity is a genie that is very difficult to get back into the bottle. But unity is not an end in itself; if that becomes our primary focus it risks a search for the lowest common denominator.
Unity is a consequence of renewing in office. It is the end result of a process to reach an agreement. It follows an exchange of ideas and is not some precondition for a contest where the less that is said the better.
There are honest differences, as there should be in any group of intelligent adults let alone a political party. We need to talk them through, test the arguments. Persuade and then decide.
We are not a management committee, we are a political movement. We were created for a purpose - to bring about change for working families, to challenge power, to make society fairer, and be a voice for the voiceless. That requires a passion, a hunger, and courage to reshape and reform ourselves as a political force to meet the modern context, in order to do the same for our society.
I think the new MP for Swansea West, Torsten Bell, hit the nail on the head, “The question”, he said, “is whether social democrats can turn themselves from simple defenders of the system into insurgents”.
That’s the real challenge to the people who wish to lead.'
His verdict on how Gething mishandled the whole donations saga is damning, not least with regards the £25,000 donation from the taxi firm Veezu:
'Set aside the much publicised stench of the extraordinary donation from David Neal, I think the equally problematic donation from taxi firm Veezu has attracted no attention. Bear in mind at the time of the leadership election we were in the process of passing a taxi reform Bill which has now been ditched, Vaughan took a £25,000 donation - which is the single largest donation to a Labour leadership campaign (before the Dawson one) - from a company at loggerheads with trade unions, who until recently was also paying right-wing Conservative Alun Cairns.
We now have had the extraordinary spectacle of a First Minister announcing on the floor of the Senedd that we are failing for the second time to honour a manifesto commitment to bring forward legislation on taxi reform (instead we are to have a draft Bill, which is something) and being forced to add when making the announcement: “Members may wish to note a declaration of interest concerning the company Veezu”.
Never before has a First Minister had to declare a formal conflict of interest on a key matter of Government business.
The fact it has passed without a single comment tells us something about where we have reached.
When I spoke out in the Senedd about the donations I rooted my objections in the damage this was being done to political culture, and to democratic norms. Here’s what I said:
The point about devolution, this place, a Parliament we have created from scratch, is that we set higher standards. 25 years ago we talked of devolution as the beginning of a new politics; but the reputation of politics, and politicians, seems to be lower than ever.
The First Minister told a Senedd committee last week that his approval ratings haven’t been affected by the controversy. I must say that surprised me, and troubled me. Whether the polls bear that out or not, it really isn’t the point. Surely the question isn’t what any of us can get away with, it’s what is right?
The fact that some voters just shrug their shoulders is what should worry us. Far from being an endorsement, I fear it’s a reflection that we are all tarred with the same brush. And we all get it - you’re all the same; you’re in it for yourselves; you’re on the make. Not only is it really demoralising for many of us who see politics as a genuine public service, a sacrifice; but it’s also dangerous to the fabric of our democracy at a time when it’s already under huge strain.
Academics call it ‘norm spoiling’.
They say that when accepted standards of behaviour, norms, are undermined, it lowers expectations. And that lays the ground for a new set of weaker standards to take hold. That is why we need to confront this situation.
I have felt increasingly dislocated by the fact that so many people in the Labour Party have been prepared to turn a blind-eye to what the public have been able to see very clearly. But ultimately our political culture has asserted itself and acted.'
He says that the central question of this leadership contest should be how Labour can meet the appetite for change in a way that honours their values as a political movement:
'But the voters aren't daft, and the warning signs are clear enough for those who want to look for them in the General Election result. Whereas the Westminster voting system this time flattered us, the new more proportional voting system we’ll be using in Wales will be far less forgiving if our support levels don’t get back beyond the 30% threshold. The last YouGov poll put us at 27% at a Senedd election - just 4 points ahead of Plaid.
The d’hondt voting system we’ve legislated for will actively work against us if our numbers stay at that level and a generation in the wilderness awaits.
That’s where we’re heading as I write, and people are panicking and so the ‘we must unite’ banner is quickly pulled up the flagpole and the call has gone out to rally round. My worry is that a superficial unity is in fact counter-productive. We have to be prepared to do the hard work of remaking our unity based on a real consensus of approach. Not a backroom deal to avoid having to go there.'
To be fair, Waters has been very open about his views on this affair but as he says, the Gething camp was not prepared to listen:
'One of the reasons why the last three months has been so painful in the Welsh Labour Party is that the schism that has surfaced has revealed a genuine tension in values. I literally felt sick when I felt compelled to speak out against what I saw as ‘norm spoiling’ behaviour; and when my cry of pain was ignored I made myself ill with the thought of endorsing this amorality in a confidence vote. I couldn't do it, and didn’t do it.'
So, as many suspected, it wasn't just that Gething lost the confidence vote because two members were absent, but at least one of them says that he couldn't bring himself to vote against it. As Waters says in conclusion:
We now have to try and come together and heal. But let's learn the lessons of these torrid few months - the best way to resolve disagreements is to address them openly and honestly. People don’t like divided parties, but they like dishonest ones even less.
'We are currently in the midst of the biggest schism since 1999, when the ‘pluralist’ section of the party embodied by Rhodri Morgan went ten rounds with the ‘machine politics’ section of the party represented by Alun Michael, and beat ten bells out of the each other. Those bruises took a decade to heal.
The last four months has seen the same happen again, albeit beneath the surface. The inevitable resignation of Vaughan Gething has brought that into the open and now party leaders are desperately trying to keep a lid on it by brokering a quiet deal to avoid any further open conflict.
How do we ‘heal the wounds’ is a question that bleeped across my WhatsApp frequently over the last week. The instinctive response being offered up is to come behind a ‘unity candidate’ and all will be well. I completely understand the instinct, and necessity, to pull together in common cause.
Disunity is a genie that is very difficult to get back into the bottle. But unity is not an end in itself; if that becomes our primary focus it risks a search for the lowest common denominator.
Unity is a consequence of renewing in office. It is the end result of a process to reach an agreement. It follows an exchange of ideas and is not some precondition for a contest where the less that is said the better.
There are honest differences, as there should be in any group of intelligent adults let alone a political party. We need to talk them through, test the arguments. Persuade and then decide.
We are not a management committee, we are a political movement. We were created for a purpose - to bring about change for working families, to challenge power, to make society fairer, and be a voice for the voiceless. That requires a passion, a hunger, and courage to reshape and reform ourselves as a political force to meet the modern context, in order to do the same for our society.
I think the new MP for Swansea West, Torsten Bell, hit the nail on the head, “The question”, he said, “is whether social democrats can turn themselves from simple defenders of the system into insurgents”.
That’s the real challenge to the people who wish to lead.'
His verdict on how Gething mishandled the whole donations saga is damning, not least with regards the £25,000 donation from the taxi firm Veezu:
'Set aside the much publicised stench of the extraordinary donation from David Neal, I think the equally problematic donation from taxi firm Veezu has attracted no attention. Bear in mind at the time of the leadership election we were in the process of passing a taxi reform Bill which has now been ditched, Vaughan took a £25,000 donation - which is the single largest donation to a Labour leadership campaign (before the Dawson one) - from a company at loggerheads with trade unions, who until recently was also paying right-wing Conservative Alun Cairns.
We now have had the extraordinary spectacle of a First Minister announcing on the floor of the Senedd that we are failing for the second time to honour a manifesto commitment to bring forward legislation on taxi reform (instead we are to have a draft Bill, which is something) and being forced to add when making the announcement: “Members may wish to note a declaration of interest concerning the company Veezu”.
Never before has a First Minister had to declare a formal conflict of interest on a key matter of Government business.
The fact it has passed without a single comment tells us something about where we have reached.
When I spoke out in the Senedd about the donations I rooted my objections in the damage this was being done to political culture, and to democratic norms. Here’s what I said:
The point about devolution, this place, a Parliament we have created from scratch, is that we set higher standards. 25 years ago we talked of devolution as the beginning of a new politics; but the reputation of politics, and politicians, seems to be lower than ever.
The First Minister told a Senedd committee last week that his approval ratings haven’t been affected by the controversy. I must say that surprised me, and troubled me. Whether the polls bear that out or not, it really isn’t the point. Surely the question isn’t what any of us can get away with, it’s what is right?
The fact that some voters just shrug their shoulders is what should worry us. Far from being an endorsement, I fear it’s a reflection that we are all tarred with the same brush. And we all get it - you’re all the same; you’re in it for yourselves; you’re on the make. Not only is it really demoralising for many of us who see politics as a genuine public service, a sacrifice; but it’s also dangerous to the fabric of our democracy at a time when it’s already under huge strain.
Academics call it ‘norm spoiling’.
They say that when accepted standards of behaviour, norms, are undermined, it lowers expectations. And that lays the ground for a new set of weaker standards to take hold. That is why we need to confront this situation.
I have felt increasingly dislocated by the fact that so many people in the Labour Party have been prepared to turn a blind-eye to what the public have been able to see very clearly. But ultimately our political culture has asserted itself and acted.'
He says that the central question of this leadership contest should be how Labour can meet the appetite for change in a way that honours their values as a political movement:
'But the voters aren't daft, and the warning signs are clear enough for those who want to look for them in the General Election result. Whereas the Westminster voting system this time flattered us, the new more proportional voting system we’ll be using in Wales will be far less forgiving if our support levels don’t get back beyond the 30% threshold. The last YouGov poll put us at 27% at a Senedd election - just 4 points ahead of Plaid.
The d’hondt voting system we’ve legislated for will actively work against us if our numbers stay at that level and a generation in the wilderness awaits.
That’s where we’re heading as I write, and people are panicking and so the ‘we must unite’ banner is quickly pulled up the flagpole and the call has gone out to rally round. My worry is that a superficial unity is in fact counter-productive. We have to be prepared to do the hard work of remaking our unity based on a real consensus of approach. Not a backroom deal to avoid having to go there.'
To be fair, Waters has been very open about his views on this affair but as he says, the Gething camp was not prepared to listen:
'One of the reasons why the last three months has been so painful in the Welsh Labour Party is that the schism that has surfaced has revealed a genuine tension in values. I literally felt sick when I felt compelled to speak out against what I saw as ‘norm spoiling’ behaviour; and when my cry of pain was ignored I made myself ill with the thought of endorsing this amorality in a confidence vote. I couldn't do it, and didn’t do it.'
So, as many suspected, it wasn't just that Gething lost the confidence vote because two members were absent, but at least one of them says that he couldn't bring himself to vote against it. As Waters says in conclusion:
We now have to try and come together and heal. But let's learn the lessons of these torrid few months - the best way to resolve disagreements is to address them openly and honestly. People don’t like divided parties, but they like dishonest ones even less.
Will Welsh Labour listen or will they anoint a so-called unity team as First Minister and Deputy and carry on as before in the hope that it will all go away? If they do then they could have a rude awakening at the next Senedd elections.
