A realistic option for a constitutional future for Wales?

Introduction

Following the 2021 Senedd election — and Welsh Labour’s electoral victory — federalism will be high on the political agenda. But at a time when Wales’ constitutional future is at the heart of political debate, with support for independence running at unprecedented levels, and while Westminster is working to roll back the devolution settlement backed by Welsh electors in two referendums, it is far from clear that federalism and how it deals with the constitutional issues facing Wales is understood by the electorate. …

Since 2015, the Liberal Democrats have been on the political fringe. The gains made from the 1980s onwards were wiped out in the 2015 in the aftermath of Coalition: apart from a short-lived renaissance in the 2019 European Elections, they have never been recovered. Despite modest gains in the share of the vote in the 2019 General Election, there was no real recovery and the party remains on 5%-8% in the polls.

Where, now, is the basis of Liberal Democrat support? The party looks rather like, in marketing-speak, a niche offer. But successful political parties are not niche offers; they…

The hottest issue in contemporary Welsh politics is the future of Wales itself. Within the space of little more than a few months, support for independence has consistently reached more than 30% in the opinion polls; the cross-party pro-independence group Yes Cymru has seen its membership rise from 2000 to 16,000 in a year.

Enter Welsh Labour, traditionally staunchly unionist in its approach. With Brexit and Covid provoking questions about Wales’ position in the UK, and faced with a surge in support for independence, even Welsh Labour leader and First Minister Mark Drakeford — who, during the Welsh Labour leadership…

The main purpose of Brexit has always been to roll back employment law and environmental standards: to create an ultra-capitalist state along lines that Ayn Rand would recognise and applaud, but dressed up in nationalistic and nostalgic language. Brexit is, and always has been, a culture war. That is why there is not going to be a deal.

And where is the UK Labour movement in all this? Not just the Labour Party but the Trade Union movement, whose members will be hurt so badly by this?

Keir Starmer talks of “moving on” and Len McCluskey argues that Labour must…

On a quiet November afternoon, nearly a year ago, in a quiet side-street in East Finchley, I made myself ineligible for membership of the Labour Party.

I had of course already left. But the very moment I put that first leaflet for Luciana Berger — a Jewish woman who had been driven out of the Labour Party, while pregnant, by racists, and standing in Finchley for the Liberal Democrats in the General Election — through that first letter-box in East Finchley, just down the road from where my grandmother had lived and a couple of miles away from where I…

Later today, the Liberal Democrat Conference will be debating a motion supporting a commitment in principle to a Universal Basic Income (UBI). The arguments about UBI have been well-rehearsed, on both sides. I shall be voting in that debate — and I hope to be called to speak — in support of the principle of UBI for all those familiar reasons. I’m not going to rehearse those arguments here.

But for me there is one powerful argument that needs to be at the heart of the debate.

Traditionally, politicians of all parties have seen work and employment as the path…

We fell for it again. We on the left got very worked up about the stories that Tony Abbott, former Australian PM and a man known for his climate change denial, his sexism and homophobia, was going to have a pivotal role in Britain’s post-Brexit trade set-up. But once the list of members of the newly-constituted Board of Trade was announced, it became clear that Abbott was one among many, and the real story was a bit different.

Looking at that list, one appointment — and a series of non-appointments — stand out. The appointment is that of Daniel Hannan…

Dear Ed

Congratulations on being elected leader of the Liberal Democrats. As a recent rejoiner to the Party, after a gap of more than thirty years, I was encouraged to hear your determination to listen. Here, for what it’s worth, is my contribution.

A little bit of background. In some ways we have a lot in common. We both read PPE at Oxford, and rose to the eminence of President of the Oxford University Liberals (I think you arrived just after I left). I was in the hall when David Steel told us to go back to our constituencies and…