An Independent Welsh Tory Party, Is It?
Rene Kinzett mulls over the advantage of the Welsh Conservatives going their own way.
7 Sep 2011, 17:10
Should Welsh Tories do their own thing?
To be perfectly clear, I want a truly independent centre-right force in Wales, not a branch of a brand that can be easily attacked by opponents as being "Westminster-based" or "London-centric" as the Welsh Conservative Party is oft used to, especially from Nationalists. Such things as a Welsh Conservative Policy Forum, a Welsh Conference and so on are still, in practice, not enough to overcome the image problem - note the relative precedence given to the UK Party Leader, the Secretary of State, the Chairman of the Welsh Party and the Group Leader of the Welsh Conservatives at the National Assembly.
A Unionist Party of the centre-right has a massive role to play in Welsh politics. There is no dichotomy between being a unionist party and a party based wholly and solely in Wales. It is a legitimate goal for any Unionist Party of Wales to want Wales to remain a part of the UK and to have a good representation in the Westminster Parliament and at the Cabinet table of No 10 Downing Street. There is no real difference between a Welsh Unionist Party wanting Wales to be in the UK and Plaid Cymru wanting Wales to be a full member of the EU or the UN. The UK is a supra-national club, and Welsh membership of it has proved to be mutually beneficial for Wales and the rest of the UK.
To be both a Unionist and a deeply committed to the Welsh nation, its culture and heritage is not a strange position to take. Many politicians and political parties have taken this line across the political divide for generations. Equally, I totally respect the line taken by Plaid Cymru, since its inception, to advocate for full independence, regardless of whether this is done in sotto voce, directed at one group of electors or another, or with full vigour across the political divide, depending on the politics of the day.
The charge by Plaid Cymru that a move to create a new centre-right party in Wales, committed to the Union, but nevertheless totally independent from any other UK party, is just about vote grabbing is laughable. Of course the idea about creating a new party is about providing a broader based movement for centre-right politics in Wales and thereby winning more votes for the cause. That is why political parties exist, otherwise you may as well set up a pressure group.
I think the real motivation for attacks from Plaid Cymru against those proposing a new centre-right party in Wales is shown by their charge that such a party would only be possible if a total realignment in Welsh politics occurred at the same time. Well, that is true and it is my opinion that the creation of a truly independent party of the Union in Wales would be the catalyst for such a process. Plaid Cymru are scared about such a prospect as they know that their narrow sectionalism, their base appeal to voters that to vote Welsh Conservative is to vote for a London-based political party, would be blown out of the water by this. A broad-based centre-right party of the Union, independent, run and led by its Members in Wales would be a very attractive proposition to many people who, had they been living in England and not Wales, would be natural conservative-leaning voters.
For Welsh politics to fully mature and for pluralism to flourish across Wales and for the only real prospect of ending Labour's near hegemony of the political landscape, the pro-Union forces of the centre-right must build a new vehicle to carry forward conservative ideals and policies into a new era.
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Rene Kinzett
Rene Kinzett was the Conservative candidate for Swansea West at the 2010 election.
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Comments (8)
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... and this of course would ( assuming Murdo's successful ) create a de-facto English Conservative Party. At last England would get the political representation we have lacked for so many years as "British" politicians play at appeasement with an English cheque book.
08/09/2011 14:48I'll do an article in response to this, but until then I'll leave you with the article I wrote in response to Murdo Fraser's proposal:
http://dilettante11.blogspot.com/2011/09/federalism-and-unionism-not-same-thing.html
08/09/2011 15:58Sorry Rene but your piece is just rambling party politics and has little to do with either the principles that underpin conservatism or what’s going on in the UK. It may suit the Celtic fringe to be spoon fed by England through the Barnett Formula, but it’s not going to suit the English for much longer. Well, not the ones who work for a living and don’t spend every waking hour watching telly. As for conservative principles, they’re neatly summarized in three ideas; small government, fiscal responsibility and free markets. I don’t hear any of those from the present leader, or the last. Or from you. If I've missed something, please let me know.
08/09/2011 23:46@Dilettante - thanks, look forward to reading it, even if we still don't agree!
@Hugh - sorry, I just don't think we agree. You've not "missed something", rather we come at this issue from entirely different perspectives. I am not the type of Conservative Party Member who thinks there is one true version of "being a conservative", although I know others have a firm view on ideological purity. Which is odd, really, as I rather like a pragmatic approach to Toryism, the anithesis of dogma.
09/09/2011 11:32Also, please see my other article about this issue elsewhere: http://waleshome.org/2011/09/its-not-just-scotland-that-needs-a-new-right-of-centre-party/
09/09/2011 11:36Ideas, concepts, things, all have attributes. Being a Christian suggests a belief in the resurrection, being a pilot suggests that a person might fly something, being deaf suggests a person might not hear well and being a conservative means having a set of beliefs or values on which to base your actions. Hedging your bets and being unprepared to say what you believe in, then cloaking this in faux-pragmatism, means you probably haven’t committed to an idea. The evidence is that neither you nor the leadership of the Welsh Conservatives are prepared to commit to a set of principles, so you may as well from your own party. Just don’t call it conservatism.
09/09/2011 13:16@Hugh: living in a world where you know what you think is right, pure and incontrovertible must be lovely. Am afraid I don't have that luxury. I have ideas, beliefs and commitment to causes, but am not answerable to your strict adherence to a particular creed of conservatism.
09/09/2011 14:47Since writing my original post, I’ve also read some of the stuff you’ve written elsewhere, and I can’t find a single example of something on which you’re prepared to comment.
There’s nothing on the Welsh economy and why Wales has the highest levels of employment in the public sector in the UK and what that does to competitiveness, nothing on the health of the people of Wales and why, apart from central Scotland, Wales has some of highest levels of chronic disease in the Europe and nothing on why students in Wales are being consistently outperformed by students in England.
Nothing, diddley squat, zero, zilch.
09/09/2011 23:28