AFTER a fortnight’s flurry of activity ahead of the Referendum the dust is beginning to settle. In the run up to the vote on further law making powers, the media had little else to talk about.
You were probably asked which way you were going to vote. You may have discussed or reiterated the range of arguments put forth by both campaigns and voiced an opinion on their relative validity.
But have you readdressed the debate since? Are you abreast of developments, or has it faded once again into the obscurity of “whatever will be, will be”?
I do not believe were given all the information needed to make a qualified decision in the referendum. In fact I would go so far as to say the wool was pulled over our eyes, and quite deliberately so.
If you had watched the televised debates I believe you have every reason to feel very annoyed about the spin that was spun.
On many programmes various figureheads from the yes campaign kept assuring the viewer that the referendum was a mere “tidying up exercise”, a deliberately obtuse phrase I came to loathe as more politicians spun this yarn. We were consistently reminded that a yes vote would simply ensure fluidity of legislating and that there was no hidden agenda or disguised ambition.
Yet not more than a day after votes were counted, the majority of those pledges were revoked. We were told the referendum was not about tax raising powers. We were ensured that there were no plans to instate an extra 20 Assembly members. It was reiterated that there was no pursuit of a separate legal jurisdiction and that the referendum was not a step towards independence.
Yet in truth, it was about all of the above. In fact, it will likely be the last referendum the people of Wales will have on their country’s position in the UK. After all, the Welsh Assembly now has the powers to make laws without recourse to anybody, so what is to stop the train from derailing?
The inertia is certainly there. Yet worse still is either the sheer audacity or a latent disregard of people’s intelligence that saw many key figures regress on promises made not even a week prior.
The very day after the count, an announcement was made that a report will be commissioned on taxation and borrowing powers for the Welsh Assembly Government. Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg told BBC Radio Wales on March 5 that the UK government hoped to announce the formation of a committee similar to the Calman Commission in Scotland to look at financial powers in Wales.
He stated he would find a way to make sure that the “Welsh Assembly Government is fully accountable for the money they spend” allowing “greater financial responsibility to be built into the system.”
When asked if that meant tax-varying powers in Wales, he said “In the Scottish case it did lead precisely to that.”
Welsh Secretary Cheryl Gillan confirmed that Westminster would look into how the Assembly is funded adding it was a promise to do so after the referendum. Chancellor George Osborne confirmed the UK Government was keen to get "an all-party process underway". So what about other pledges made on expressly what the referendum would not encompass? Have they too been recanted so soon?
Leading Liberal Democrat Lord Roberts of Llandudno was quick to call for the 20 extra AMs proposed by the Richard Commission, while the Assembly's
Presiding Officer Lord Dafydd Elis Thomas proclaimed the Wales Office and position of Secretary of State for Wales should now be abolished.
This week, Carwyn Jones told the Committee for the Scrutiny of the First Minister that a distinctive legal jurisdiction for Wales must be created via the Assembly's new lawmaking powers. March has not even come to a close, but march on do the politicians who guaranteed that the referendum referred to no more than the abolition of Legislative Control Orders.
Already the debate has begun on taxes, a separate legal system, more politicians and further separation from Westminster. Sadly however, the debate will continue without you. You will be told you have already had the chance to contribute.