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ON THE RECORD
RECORDED FROM TRANSMISSION BBC-1 DATE: 7.7.96
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JOHN HUMPHRYS: Have we reached the stage in British
politics now where the problem for politicians is not so much how to react to
the government but how to react to Labour? This week we'll be reporting from
Wales where the Welsh Nationalists are struggling with Labour's plans for a
referendum before some sort of Welsh Assembly. I'll be asking the Leader of
Plaid Cymru, Dafydd Wigley: what's the point of his party now?
*****
HUMPHRYS: Dafydd Wigley, the Labour Party, a
Labour Government would give Wales some sort of devolution. There isn't any
point in Plaid Cymru any longer is there?
DAFYDD WIGLEY: Yes there's every point and there's more
point after what has happened during the last two weeks, where the Labour Party
in London have imposed a policy on the Labour Party in Wales and told them that
the referendum they're preparing will be a Yes/No choice between a status quo
and an executive assembly, which was rejected in 1979. Now we as a Party
believe that we ought to have a Parliament with law-making powers, with direct
links through to the European Union and that we ought to be able to take full
responsibility for our own lives and not just have a talking shop in Cardiff.
HUMPHRYS: Alright, but that option is not going to
be offered on that referendum, so how will you vote?
WIGLEY: There is a lot of time before that
referendum takes place. We have a campaign leading through to the General
Election and Plaid Cymru's central plank in that campaign is going to be to
enable Wales to have a real choice. Without an additional question on that
referendum it is going to be a pretty meaningless one and not only will Plaid
Cymru voters be disenfranchised but also the Liberal voters and indeed many
Labour voters would like to see the Parliament in Cardiff having law-making
powers, at least over those matters that currently come under the Secretary of
State for Wales. So we'll be campaigning hard on that and after the General
Election when a Bill comes forward in Parliament for a referendum. We would
want to see at least one additional question put to the people of Wales.
People of Scotland are getting a second question. The people of Wales should
have one about a law-making Parliament.
HUMPHRYS: Well I've no doubt you would want to see
it but you ain't going to get it.
WIGLEY: Well, time will tell.
HUMPHRYS: So therefore what are you going to do?
WIGLEY: Time will tell. If we do find ourselves
in a referendum campaign with only a choice between the status quo and an
unacceptable assembly then we will campaign on our full policy. It will be a
matter for the people then to judge how or whether indeed they vote in the
referendum. That is not our choice. We'd much prefer the people of Wales to
be enabled to indicate where they want to go. After all, this is a
consultative referendum. The Labour Party have said they want an inclusive
system of government in Wales. If they believe in an inclusive system then
all the people of Wales should have an opportunity to express an opinion in
that referendum.
HUMPHRYS: Right, but, so you would offer no
guidance then? In the event that your question wasn't on the referendum, you'd
offer no guidance. That would be a cop-out.
WIGLEY: No we will be campaigning hard why the
Parliament that we want should have the powers that we believe are essential.
HUMPHRYS: Oh, I understand that.
WIGLEY: At the end of the day, at the end of the
day when we know exactly what Labour are going to offer then we'll be able to
give more guidance possibly. But you see there are two questions that haven't
been resolved so far: one that I touched on, that is the exact nature of the
question of the referendum and the second is what exactly will Labour's
proposals be. They've been changing at the rate of knots over recent weeks.
They now say they're going to have Proportionl Representation, something that
we welcome very much. I believe that if they face the reality they are going
to have to go down the road to have law-making powers. If they do that then
of course, our attitude could be a little different.
HUMPHRYS: Alright, but if they don't do that, if
they stay where they are at the moment - and there has never been the
slightest indication that there would be a Welsh Parliament with law-making
powers under a Labour Government - then, what do you do? What do you recommend
your supporters to do?
WIGLEY: Can I make it absolutely clear. There's
one thing that we will not do and that is we will not go down the same road as
in 1979. At that time the Labour Party had a policy that's quite similar to
what they're proposing now, an Executive Assembly. We campaigned for that in
the referendum. We found the Labour Party, led by people like Neil Kinnock,
campaigning against and we were going around the streets of Wales advocating
Labour's policy - not our own policy - and Labour Party people coming after us
telling the public to vote No. Now, never again, under any circumstances am I
or my Party going to find ourselves in that position.
HUMPHRYS: Ah well then you've told me what you'll
do.
WIGLEY: Yes, most certainly we will not be
campaigning Yes for an assembly of the same sort as was put forward in 1979.
And if the Labour Party are looking for a consensus for Constitutional change
in Wales, they are going to have to build a better model than they put forward
in 1979 and they would have to apply themselves to that pretty quickly.
HUMPHRYS: Right, so what we might see is the
extraordinary spectacle of you recommending a No vote, if the question is: Do
you support an assembly for Wales. And then going through or having
previously gone through the lobby in the House of Commons with the
Conservatives.
WIGLEY: We don't rule out any option at this
stage. We don't know what Labour are going to be offering.
HUMPHRYS: But you just ruled out an option.
WIGLEY: And when we do we'll make up our minds.
But I'm making it absolutely clear, beyond any doubt at all, we will not as a
Party be trapped as we were in the 1970s. You imagine it, the Labour Party
campaigning against their own Party's policies around the streets of Wales.
HUMPHRYS: But, that was then.
WIGLEY: There are indications that that's
happening again, that Tony Blair is going to allow some of the Labour rebels in
Wales - and we're seeing them raising their heads again in the last couple of
weeks - they're going to campaign against the Labour Party's policies. That is
not acceptable. You see if we're going to have an assembly or a Parliament
it's got to make a difference to the people of Wales, a difference in terms of
Education and Health policy. It's got to defend Wales against policies that
a Conservative Government might impose from London. And under the proposals
as they stand at the moment, what we're going to have is a Scottish Parliament
that could make its own Education laws but an assembly in Wales that
couldn't. And, when we have a Redwood led government coming in in the year
2001/2002 that passing Acts to privatise Education being imposed on Wales and
the Welsh Assembly being able to do nothing about it. Unless we get law-making
powers we will not be able to protect the people of Wales.
HUMPHRYS: So in other words you are prepared to
allow to happen what happened seventeen years ago, resulted in - well, you know
what it resulted in! There's hardly any point in me saying it!
WIGLEY: Seventeen years ago, we had what was
virtually, a civil war in Wales. We had families divided, we had politicians
divided, we had people fighting against each other and we got to the worst
of all worlds. And indeed, the report that was brought out by the Constitution
Unit, published a couple of weeks ago in London, suggested that the Executive
Assembly, of a sort put forward in 1979 - and which Labour are still running
with - is the worst of all worlds. It's the appearance of having some sort of
say in Wales but, in reality, no power at all.
HUMPHRYS: I thought the worst of all worlds was
what you've got now, which is what you describe as a quangocracy, run by the
Tories, with absolutely no true representation in Wales. This is, surely, the
worst of all Welsh Assembly, elected by Wales people at least would be a
move in your direction. And, for you to say we will have no more part in that,
whatsoever, it's going to look very odd indeed. You'll be cast into the outer
darkness - not for another seventeen years - for ever.
WIGLEY: That assembly will only be of use to the
people of Wales if it can make a difference and if, indeed, the laws within
which it has to act, not only in terms of Health and Education, but in terms of
Employment, in terms of Environment and Agriculture. And, all Acts that are
laid down by London, imposed on Wales - although Scotland and Northern Ireland
will be able to make up their own laws - then the assembly will not be able to
make a difference.
HUMPHRYS: But it would be an improvement on what
you've got now, surely?
WIGLEY: There's no point in having an assembly
that nobody with any ambition in politics would want to go to. It would become
a retirement home for elderly Labour Councillors from the Valley areas in
Glamorgan and Gwent. That is not going to deliver the change that Wales
needs. Neither is it going to be credible in European terms and that's the
other big change since 1979. There's a need for Wales to have a profile in
Brussels. A profile that not only small countries, like Ireland and Luxembourg
have, but even small nations like Catalonia have their representatives in
Brussels, to speak up for them. We need a Parliament that has that
credibility. Labour's assembly doesn't give us that.
HUMPHRYS: But look, the people of Wales have had
their opportunity for many, many years now to vote for that, by voting for
Plaid Cymru and what we saw in the last General Election was that Plaid
Cymru got nationwide throughout Wales a derisory vote. You have four MPs and
those only in the Welsh speaking areas of Wales. So, they've had the
opportunity to go down the road that you want to go down. They have rejected
it. They're now being offered something else and you are rejecting that
because you say it's not everything. Well, of course, it's not everything but
it's something.
WIGLEY: Plaid Cymru, at present, stands
ahead of both the Conservatives and the Liberals in the opinion polls and
also in the elections that we had - the local elections. We have almost as
many councillors as the Tories and Liberals put together. We came well ahead
of the Conservatives in the European Election and we've been standing at about
18-19% in opinion polls. Yes, we're some way behind the Labour Party.
HUMPHRYS: Some way behind?
WIGLEY: But, I'll tell you. Since Tony Blair
has shot the Labour Party in Wales in the foot and disregarded their opinions
in coming to Labour's policy, we've seen a swing to Plaid Cymru. We saw it
only last Thursday in an election in Carmarthenshire. A nine per cent swing to
Plaid Cymru, in one of our target seats and I think, that is going to happen in
the General Election. We're going to see a massive increase in our vote, an
increase in our numbers of Members of Parliament and if the Labour Party still
insists on treating Wales as a second class nation, giving Scotland an elected
Parliament, but giving Wales nothing more than a talking shop, then, in the
following election, we're going to take them to the cleaners.
HUMPHRYS: Well I have heard that before with the
greatest possible respect.
WIGLEY: Watch this space.
HUMPHRYS Well, I've watched this space for many
years and we've heard the same sort of thing from the Liberal Democrats and
before them the Labour Party. It's fine to do well in a local election,
particularly in your own areas. The by-election that you referred to was in
Camarthenshire. So that's not exactly the area where you have to make your
great breakthrough. The reality is that you may be out in the wilderness for
many, many many years to come, and here at least in the Welsh Assembly you have
something that heads vaguely in your direction.
WIGLEY: I think the interesting thing will be
how Labour people in the traditional Labour areas, the old coalfield areas,
start reacting when they find that they have a neo-Conservative government
under Tony Blair in office. Whether they then realise that if we're going to
have the radical policies we need to deal with the social problems and economic
problems in Wales we must have our own parliament. At that stage the forty per
cent vote that we're getting in Local Government elections in places like the
Rhondda and the Cynon Valley, that will come through into a vote in General
Elections. And, that is when, I believe, we'll have the leverage to make sure
that we do get a real Parliament. You see, the difference between Scotland and
Wales to some extent is this. The SNP have been getting a rating of
twenty-five per cent, even up to thirty per cent in General Elections.
When Plaid Cymru get that support that's when Wales will get the same sort of
Parliament as Scotland is getting. It's only pressure from ourselves that will
make sure Labour deliver it.
HUMPHRYS: But you have offered radical policies
before. You have offered the people of the Welsh Valleys, the people of
Cardiff an alternative in the past, in the Parliamentary Elections, General
Elections and they have said: Thanks but no thanks. What they want, may be,
is much more attention paid to the Welsh culture. Now you've got that, you've
won your battle over the Welsh language - very effective it has been too. But
that it seems, is as much as the people of Wales want.
WIGLEY: Yes, it's true that a lot of progress
has been made with regard to the Welsh language and that's why in the 1997-98
period it will be very different to 1979. Then there was a perception that the
referendum was about language and culture to some extent. Now, it's going to
be a referendum about democracy and what we want to make sure in that
referendum is that it is a democratic referendum with the opportunties for the
people of Wales to show where they want to go. There have been two changes
since 1979. One is the fact that we've had four Secretaries of State for
Wales in succession that haven't even been Welsh MPs. It's a Governor General
type of Government type of system and that hasn't been something that's
delivered the goods or given us confidence that we have a voice in London to
speak up on our behalf.
The second change has been the growth of
the European Union. That now takes so many decisions in Brussels and
Strasbourg and we must have a voice from Wales out there. If we're going to
get the same sort of bargain as Ireland has had and you know the Republic of
Ireland now has a higher GDP per head than does Wales. Last year it overtook
Wales. That is because they've got an effective system of Government, a voice
in Europe and that's what we've got to get in Wales as well.
HUMPHRYS: Well yes perhaps but that has been on
offer, it has been turned down, you have achieved somethings, as I say. Isn't
it about time, in reality, that you said: We've done a large part of what we
set out to do but now it's about time that we said: Look, we'll back Labour's
strategy, we will accept that we are a pressure group and that's about it.
WIGLEY: With respect you've suggested that our
alternative, our proposals, have been turned down. They haven't because they
haven't had an opportunity in a referendum to be considered by the people of
Wales.
HUMPRHYS: You've had General Elections. That's a
referendum.
WIGLEY: The Labour Party have indicated that
they believe that a referendum must be held. Because at a General Election you
can't tell whether the people are voting for one strand or another strand of
detailed policy. Right, if that is the case, let's have a referendum that can
allow the people to differentiate whether they want the status quo, whether
they want a powerless assembly, whether they want a federal parliament as the
Liberals are offering or whether we want full self-Government in Europe as
Plaid Cymru is offering. Now given a fair referendum, you would see that as a
means of identifying what the people of Wales want, what road they want to go
down constitutionally and we would work with all interested parties to ensure
the will of the people of Wales was then implemented.
HUMPHRYS: Dafydd Wigley, thanks very much indeed.
And I was speaking to Dafydd Wigley a
bit earlier this morning. And that's it for this summer. We'll be back in
September. Goodbye.
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