Sunday, November 16, 2014

Call on "devolved nations" to have a say

I read with interest Leanne Wood's speech to the SNP conference, stating that devolved nations should have a say - on matters such as welfare.  The fact is that we do.  The "people power" that she referred to is the vote that each an every one of us has in Westminster elections.  The speech of the Plaid leader is in effect a call for independence by another name.

The fact that Plaid does not get the representation at a UK level that it gets for the Assembly is a democratic choice by the electors here in Wales.  What is being suggested by Plaid is to go behind the  verdict of voters at the ballot box.  Plaid want the position where Wales is subsidised, by a UK Government Treasury and tax take, but doesn't want to accept that a UK Government, when taking into account all the constituent parts of the UK, may have a different political guise to the one voted for at an Assembly level.

The same intellectual bankruptcy is shown by her demand that each constituent part of the UK should be required to vote by a majority to leave or stay in the EU.   I can not see why Plaid would suggest that the principle of one person one vote should be undermined.  The fact is that every voter in the UK should have an equal vote, to any other voter living in the UK, and that the "weight" of that vote shouldn't depend on where you live.  Plaid's position undermines democracy and takes away the power from people seeking to put it in the hands of a distrusted "political class".