Scotland, Independence, Wales, the UK etc...

Well, what ever happens today in Scotland, I think that Salmond has won: the concessions that have been offered Scotland by the leaders of the main parties in the UK are generous to say the least. In effect a no vote will trigger practically everything but independence and full financial autonomy, while a yes vote will lead to much protracted negotiations and to be honest I'm not sure either side in this has a good idea of how these will turn out.

The questions of economy, currency union and EU membership are academic to a point. Firstly Scotland's economy will probably do quite well, though the independence vote is not specifically about the economy but rather the right of a people to decide their own future - democratically. Currency union might well become a moot point - if Scotland enters a currency union with the UK pound then there isn't really much the UK could do about it; there are alternatives such as pegging a Scottish currency against the EU in much the same way as Montenegro has done. Even if Scotland's currency did devalue then this could be a good thing for inward investment.

EU membership is interesting, especially as Spain and quite probably Belgium has vested interests in quelling their own internal independence movements - even then the pressure from their local voters and even smaller EU nations which might feel threatened by over dominance by larger members might sway this. EU membership also solves the currency issue.

Border controls and the like? Well Scotland couldn't become a Schengen country unless the UK joined too and I strongly doubt that we'd see passport checks at any time in the future other than in the more fanciful predictions.

My main issue however is - regardless of yes or no - is what happens to Wales and to a smaller extend to Northern Ireland and England. Certainly some Welsh politicians seem blissfully unaware or even naive of the implications. Even the Conservative Party in Wales has come out much more in favour of devolution of powers to Wales than Labour.

Politicians always has vested interests anyway: the Conservatives know that their only chance of any power in Wales is through the Senedd while Labour can always sit back and count on votes from their heartlands both in Wales and England. If Scotland leave, or even in Westminster is reorganised to solve the West Lothian Question this might change as Welsh MPs would have little influence even if they did vote on English specific legislations. There's an interesting discussion about this on the TrueWales web site in an article written by Rachel Banner (24 Jan 2012): The West Lothian Question.

Ironically it has been Welsh MPs who have probably made some of the most important decisions regarding England the UK: Nye Bevan and the NHS, Lloyd George and Home Rule (which unfortunately didn't come to pass due to World War 1) and even back to the Welsh advisors to Queen Elizabeth the First who promoted the idea of naval supremacy.

If we come back to what has been offered Scotland now and since the 1998 devolution votes one must seriously ask the question of why Scotland gets so much at the expense of the rest of the nations of the UK. I'm still unsure why every change to devolution in Wales requires a referendum such as that back in 2011 which granted Wales the power to make laws specific to the needs of the nation. Are politicians so weak and afraid of their decisions? Surely the populace voted those MPs into power to make such decisions for the good of the people and so they should take the responsibility themselves rather than pass it off to often under informed voters?

So on Friday, will Wales be offered DevoMax? I doubt it - no politician is that brave.

Election Boundary Changes in Wales

Just some raw figures from The Guardian's description of the proposed boundary changes for the next UK general election:


Boundary changes: the first map of the UK's new constituencies

Simon Rogers and James Ball
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 11 January 2012 07.30 GMT

How would the UK have looked if the 2010 election had been fought with the new constituencies? Would your MP still have a seat? Boundary Commissions for England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and now Wales have published their recommendations - and we've collated them to show the country as a whole. A crude analysis of the 2010 results creates the following map.

Party	Seats 2010	%age seats 2010	Seats New Boundaries	%age seats (new)	Difference %age points
Conservative	8	20%	5	16%	-4
Labour	26	65%	22	73%	+8
Liberal Democrat	3	7.5%	2	6.6%	-1
Plaid Cymru	3	7.5%	1	3.3%	-4

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NB: These results and predicitions are based on the 2010 results following the methodology used by The Guardian. These results refer to the Welsh MPs as elected to the Westminster parliaments and not to the Welsh Devolved Government which is elected by a separate system.

Given that these changes are being made by the Boundary Commission which should be independent of any serving government, it is interesting the rise in power of Labour in Wales at the expense, especially of the nationalist party Plaid Cymru. This raises an interesting point, especially with the current debate and discussion about Scottish independence and the position of the major national parties within the UK. Scotland's nationalist party's - SNP - seats under this new model wouldn't change, in Northern Ireland, Sinn Fein, loses its stronghold to a highly variable mix of other parties, and in Wales, as we can see, Plaid Cymru loses 66% of its seats.

Caveat: these results are based upon the 2010 result and extrapolated over the proposed changes - things could and probably will change in a real election, especially given current economic and political circumstances.

Now there has been discussion on the fairness of these changes and one reason for the rise in Labour and the reduction in smaller parties and the Conservatives might be to address the balance of power in a future Westminster Parliament given that England overall has a large Conservative majority. The other reason could be that this is an attempt to weaken nationalist or smaller parties in Westminster. The latter is also interesting given the move in Wales of the major parties: Labour, Conservatives and Liberal Democrats to distance themselves away from Westminster and even in the case of the Conservatives to even consider changing their name in Wales.

And in here lies some interesting aspects of devolution in the UK, for example in Wales, the Conservatives who were highly sceptical and anti-devolution have come to support this as the only mechanism by which they can have some power in Wales (and Scotland too) and ironically for Labour, a pro-devolution party, became at a national level a kind of anti-devolutionist party given the extremely awkward set of rules and processes placed upon the Welsh Government to actively prevent use of that body's powers. Now after the last referendum in Wales which finally gave primary law making powers in the 20 or so devolved areas of government after some 800 years, we still have the possibility of anther referendum to given Wales tax-varying and borrowing powers in line with Scotland, though not control over certain fiscal issues such as the ability to print its own currency.

However one of the good things is that this does reduce the number of MPs in the UK overall but does somewhat distance the national MP away from their constituents, especially in England where no intermediate form of government exists. At least in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, the respective devolved governments are closer to the local people with more interest in local issues.

Paxman, Plaid Cymru, Arian, yr Economi, yr Etholiad,...a ble mae Llundain?

Yr Etholiad ym Mhridain 2010... Paxman a Phlaid Cymru (a = versws, yn bosib?)



Plaid Cymru 1 - 0 Paxman