With Keir Starmer’s election as British Labour leader, Welsh Labour at last has a competent and ideologically-aligned senior partner in Westminster that shares its vision for the future of the United Kingdom and whose election will boost hopes for a victory in the Senedd election next year.
The Corbyn era ended perhaps as it was always destined to, with campaign-framed dreams of social revolution and inversion of the British state overtaken by a withering loss of relevance and a painful dose of reality. No longer high on their own supply of 2017’s glorious failure (always forgetting the key supporting role played by the least able campaigning Prime Minister in modern history), 2019’s sobering failure has brought this notably unsuccessful electoral period to a close.
This current Covid19 crisis of unprecedented reach has galvanised a UK Government until recently in thrall to opaquely-funded think tanks of the right (Policy Exchange lead amongst them) to implement anti-austerity policies in an adrenalin-fuelled frenzy of action and intervention. (The inevitable come down will truly test the mettle of the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer as their party’s lodestars seek to reign in state intervention and spending once the coronavirus threat is neutered. The balance between party ideology and a persuasive electoral offer will never again be as even as 2019. Can they emerge battered but not Bruged?)
As Whitehall wrestles with policy and delivery in a time of crisis, the new broom has wasted little time sweeping clean the shadow cabinet. Gone with apparent good grace are the guardians of the flame, leaving to unite on the back benches with burnt fingers and a lasting glow of having won the argument. Starmer, signalling from the outset that he is determined to salve open wounds and understands the value of good party management, has plentifully convinced the vast majority of the PLP that his stewardship of the party will be competent and professional, beginning with successful completion of the task of letter writing.
Promises have been kept, signals have been sent and even the oft-maligned Brownite wing of the party has reasons to be cheerful. Two MPs with constituencies in Wales have seen considerable and deserved promotions, Nick Thomas-Symonds continues his ascent into the senior offices and Jo Stevens secures a return to the front bench shadowing DCMS, which will be of considerable challenge as and when the BBC charter renewal rolls into view (and with it, the very future of S4C). Meanwhile, Nia Griffith’s descent from her elevated role as Shadow Defence Minister has been softened by a (likely brief) return to the Shadow Wales Secretary portfolio.
One of the clearest winners from the Starmer ascendancy is the Welsh Government. Starmer’s sincerely held socialist principles are wrapped in the same uncontroversial, moderate and distinctly electable-looking fashion that Welsh Labour has been sporting since the late 1990s. He has deep and longstanding friendships in Wales and will prove a far better co-campaigner than any of his predecessors.
Despite the empowered role of then First Minister Carwyn Jones in the 2017 campaign, which arguably kept the baseline of support high enough for the eventual Corbyn surge to reach Wales, the latter election of Cardiff’s Corbyn didn’t offer any noticeable help in the 2019 election as the First Minister was neither recognised nor much admired during the campaign. Despite long-standing similarities of principle, the inclination of the Welsh Labour leader to attempt to nudge the dial instead of rocking the boat always gave lie to the ‘Cardiff’s Corbyn’ moniker.
Corbyn’s fundamental lack of knowledge about devolution and Wales was never truly addressed, as underlined by his rapidly-rearranged education rally in April 2017 where he had been due to come to Cardiff to campaign against education provision before being educated himself that it was his own party that designed and delivered education policy in Wales. Such disasters will not be repeated again.
Key to Starmer’s alignment with the Welsh Government is his conceptualisation of how the UK does and should work in the future. His leadership campaign theme of federalism and subsidiarity chimes with Welsh Labour’s vision for the future of the UK. (Though it’s doubtful that the new Shadow Home Secretary will support the full devolution of justice to Wales as the Welsh Government appears to want, given his past statements. But then, times do change.) Of course, the Celtic Fringe has heard all this before from Labour’s leadership but, given Wales is now the last country in the UK that consistently returns a Labour majority, it seems the British Party’s leader finally needs to grasp this nettle.
The early indications are that Starmer genuinely values the Welsh Government’s experience and seeks to harness the power of its electoral machine to bolster its campaigns in England and attempt to salvage the remnants of the party in Scotland. The spirit of mutual admiration and respect should end the electoral disasters of using trope lines from the British Labour press office that can create grimace-inducing electoral moments in non-English territories. More substantially, the Welsh Government needs credible allies in Westminster and it has one in the Leader of the Opposition. Whether promises to involve Mark Drakeford, Richard Leonard and Sadiq Khan in Shadow Cabinet materialise or not, it’s clear that the Welsh Government’s representations will get fair hearing under Starmer. The Welsh Government itself will benefit from the profile-building opportunities this will provide as it tries to gain ground on the Scottish Government’s profile in the British consciousness. In times of inter-governmental dispute Wales has found itself steamrollered again and again and there is understandable optimism in Cardiff Bay that Keir Starmer will make fighting for good outcomes for Wales central to his case for a reformed and modernised British state.
Whether the 2021 Senedd elections proceed as scheduled or not, it seems inevitable that Keir Starmer will lend his wholehearted support to the campaign in Wales. For activists and party organisers the sense of relief that they shan’t have to concern themselves about whether their leader in Wales or Westminster (or neither) should feature on their campaign literature or events will be liberating. The mere fact that there will be professional dialogue and coordination between the Labour campaign teams at either end of the M4 means that the irregular distribution of campaign resources from 2019 is unlikely to be repeated.
In short, Plaid Cymru and the Welsh Conservatives should be prepared to battle a reinvigorated Welsh Labour campaign.
If the combination of Brexit and Covid-19 has taught us anything, it is that we live in the most volatile times. Given that uncertainty, who could be a better choice to lead the British Labour Party against Boris Johnson? Cometh the hour, cometh the slightly dull, well educated, highly articulate, legally-trained, competent-looking man. Sadly, it appears that it still has to be a man.
Richard Martin is a writer and producer.
