PM convenes roundtable to discuss Devolution, Languages and Local Government
In a move largely seen as a departure from his predecessor’s indecisiveness, Prime Minister Gareth Bevan is set to convene a high-level roundtable discussion on devolution, bringing together both its proponents and opponents at Pontcoed Castle (the PM’s summer residence). The announcement came via a press release from the Prime Minister’s Office earlier this week, which accompanied formal invitations to politicians, academics and commentators, who had been identified by the new government as being influential voices on the issue. Devolution had been a major centrepiece of the Labour Party’s electoral campaign, having wrestled the issue away from its long-standing association with the fringe politics of the eccentric populist movements of the country and into the national spotlight as part of its broader platform to ‘transform Aloria.’ The press statement noted that the meeting, which is set to be held over the course of seven days, would be governed by a simple aim: to decide the extent to which the new government ought to pursue its devolution agenda. The roundtable is set against the backdrop of the Labour Party’s landslide victory, which, apart from securing the party an unusually confident and secure majority, also inflicted significant losses on the Centre Party, the Green Party and the PDR in several key constituencies. Yet despite commanding a majority that would easily allow for the party to pursue its programme with very little resistance, some analysts like Vaddon Dawes have noted that the decision to have the roundtable in the first place was an early sign of the party’s determination to build broader consensus around devolution. This, according to Dawes, is partly in response to the modest yet symbolically important gains made by several newly established regional parties, most notably Strollad Brwelzh (Party of Bro-Gweltraz) in Bro-Gweltraz, Parti Syldor (Party for Sildar) in Sildar and the Social Democratic Party of Kurmal (Sozialdemokratische Partei Kurmal). “Their victories have all but demonstrated that there is a measurable appetite for greater regional autonomy among voters and the politics which centre around that question,” Dawes noted.
Attendance at the roundtable itself has been framed by Moel Llwynbwlch (the PM’s Office) as being deliberately expansive, as evidenced by the broad net cast by those invited to participate, which has not come without its controversies. Invitations have been extended to representatives from all major political parties, including the Centre Party, the Greens and the PDR, as well as organised labour, business councils, civic leaders and academics, among others. Representatives from Stollad Brwelzh, Patri Syldor and the SPK (who have temporarily organised into Bloc Rhanbarthol - the Regionalist Bloc) and their extra-parliamentary allies are also expected to be in attendance in a move which Moel Llwynbwlch Chief of Staff Wolfgang Vaughan described as an acknowledgement of the newfound ‘weight’ of the regional parties. At the same time, despite overtures towards ‘casting a broad net’, a number of the nation’s more radical political figures and extra-parliamentary groups have railed against their exclusion from the roundtable. Iwan Dyddlan’s pro-centralist Amddiffyn Ein Hundeb (Defend Our Union) and the fringe but social media viral Volksaktionsfront (VAF), led by the eccentric Niels Von Bingen, have both highlighted their exclusion from the event as being a deliberate attempt by the central government to ‘silence those who speak for the true heart of Aloria’. In a tweet made following the announcement of the roundtable, Dyddlan said: “I think it is incredibly stupid to call a roundtable on such an important issue and then attempt to turn it into an exclusive event. He [the Prime Minister] is intentionally shutting out the very voices that have been connected to this argument for years, if not decades. Everyone deserves to be heard on this issue.” Von Bingen, for the most part, has shrugged off his party’s exclusion from the roundtable, saying that he was not interested in attending the ‘talk shop’. “From the very moment it was announced, I knew that it would eventually turn into a talk shop since that’s all they’re good for, talking their mouths off,” he said via a telephone interview earlier this morning. In a tweet seemingly responding to the reporting on Dyddlan and Von Bingen’s exclusion from the roundtable discussion, Cabinet Secretary Dr. Cadwgan Nist stated that the Prime Minister and the wider Council of Ministers were not interested in any discussion that might be derailed by ‘unserious personalities’. In the tweet, he noted that while the government recognised the intensity of feelings surrounding devolution (both for and against), there was nonetheless a need to establish a clear distinction between those who ultimately wanted to see the issue settled and those whose principal aim was to be antagonistic to the entire discussion.
Although the scope of the Labour Party’s proposal has yet to be revealed to the general public, many have nonetheless latched onto what information has been made available during the recent electoral campaign to form the basis of their own respective positions. In a joint press statement co-signed by Arthur Roscrow, Leader of Parti Syldor, Bernez Kerderrien, Leader of Stollad Brwelzh and Roland Cossmann, Leader of the KDSP, the three leaders stressed that while devolution ought to be a meaningful transfer of power from the central government to regional bodies, it must also lend recognition to the unique social, political and cultural relationships already existing in regions such as Sildar, Bro-Gweltraz and Kurmal. “The question is devolution cannot be solely about the transfer of power from one body to another; It must be accompanied by recognition and respect for the history, culture and politics of the regions themselves,” the statement read. Some have speculated that the brand of devolution likely to be favoured by the Prime Minister would mirror that which is currently in effect in Luthori, where there exists a strong central government alongside ‘enhanced’ regional/local decision-making on a select set of issues. Even some within the Labour Party have warned that the supposed ‘incrementalist’ philosophy being parroted by persons close to the Prime Minister risked ceding ground to the regionalist parties, whose success is partly related to their coopting of a more unambiguous stance on devolution than Labour itself. “If we are to kick-start and hopefully put this question of devolution to rest, we must think boldly and move beyond the incrementalism I’ve been hearing whispers of. We need to see the central government handing control over policing, healthcare, social services, housing, economic development, finance and budgeting to the regions. If we fail to do so, we would have missed the point as to why voters feel comfortable turning to regionalist parties in the first place,” Glynn Hargest, MS for Harries, a constituency bordering the regionalist hotspot of St. Matthews.
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