Normal Mouth (Rhondda, blogger): Wendy Alexander has by no means had an easy induction as Scottish Labour's Leader but because her approach is the right one, it will bear fruit.
Scotland Office junior Minister David Cairns declared over the weekend that "Scottish Labour does not believe that Scotland would wither and die as an independent country." This is a hugely important statement and one that should sit as the foundation of Labour's approach to confronting Scottish separatism. The significance is tempered only by the fact that Cairns's words are seen as a response to the SNP's ascendance and have the feel of an admission drawn under duress, rather than given freely.
Welsh Labour need not wait for a calamity to befall it, and should make an equivalent declaration now, as I have argued in the past. Tactically, clinging to the absurd notion that an independent Wales would become some sort of Zimbabwe of Western Europe provides nationalists with a straw-man against which to argue. Their false dichotomy of a free and automatically prosperous Wales or an impoverished vassal state is easier to maintain while Labour does not deny it. More elaborate and worthwhile argument is abjured.
But there is a more significant reason, to which Cairns's words allude. What does it say about Labour's ambitions for Wales if it cannot concede that she possesses all the basic qualities to provide for her people and play a meaningful part in the world's communities? Are we supposed to believe that Labour strives for a prosperous, healthy and smart nation, but has the wherewithal to do it only for so long as the project is underwritten elsewhere?
Welsh Labour should declare that Wales is capable of existing in whatever constitutional status she chooses. It should readily acknowledge that at around 3 million people Wales is equivalent in size to any number of independent European states and possesses all the basic qualities (infrastructure, economy, civil and political rights etc) necessary to either become an independent nation, or enter into any one of a range of alternative constitutional arrangements.
Then, coupled closely to such a declaration, the party should make clear which constitutional arrangement it believes to be in Wales' best interest. It should stress that continued membership of the Union works not because without it Wales would fail, but because with it she is more likely to succeed.
The reasons why are not the purposes of this post. The point is that, by acknowledging both the right of the people of Wales to decide their own constitutional status and by making it plain that the argument is one of relative rather than absolute viability those reasons can be addressed in a way they cannot at the moment. At present we are stuck in a vacuum where proponents and opponents of independence talk past one another. Labour, ever the dynamic force in Welsh politics, can end that unedifying shadow boxing. It should do so.
