Labour is already failing in government

Darren Millar MS

May 16, 2023

Politics

According to Sir Keir Starmer, “a Welsh Labour Government is the living proof of what Labour in power looks like.” If you want to see how a Labour government would operate at UK level, look no further than their abysmal record in Wales.

Whether it’s on health, housing, education or the economy, Wales is the sick man of Britain.

1-in-4 people in Wales are on an NHS waiting list and inhumane 2-year waits, which have been virtually eliminated elsewhere in the UK, still stand at almost 40,000.

A continuous failure by Labour to build even half the homes that Wales desperately needs is exacerbating a housing crisis.

Our education system is languishing at the bottom of the British PISA and GCSE rankings.

And Welsh pay packets are the lightest in Britain.

The Labour Party is also presiding over a growing North-South divide. Nowhere is this more evident than comparing the investment in our transport infrastructure. The North Wales Metro project has only been allocated £50 million, one twentieth of the £1 billion in funding of the equivalent project in South Wales.

Instead of addressing these longstanding issues, the Labour Government in Cardiff Bay is distracted with a whole host of vanity projects; sending more politicians to Senedd, trying to gerrymander the voting system, a costly basic income pilot that includes illegal immigrants, rolling out blanket 20mph zones, cancelling road building, and even consulting on banning meal deals.

And that isn’t even half of the list of expensive pet programmes that Labour Ministers spend their hours and hundreds of millions of taxpayers’ money concocting.

Labour politicians across the UK cannot agree as to what they want to do with the future of devolution and how the Union is to work together in partnership, just look at Gordon Brown’s report.

The former Prime Minister’s report contained a 40-point plan. Wales was a mere footnote in the document, which recommend the further devolution of some very limited powers to the ‘Welsh Assembly Government’. A term not used for well over a decade.

The Labour Government in Wales lacks a united vision for the future of the country’s constitutional arrangements. Their plans seem to value the appeasement of their nationalist coalition partners while using oxymoronic ‘unionist’ rhetoric.

But, as Labour should know from bitter experience, it is impossible to appease Plaid Cymru in Wales as no amount of devolution will ever be sufficient for them. Nothing but the splintering of the United Kingdom will satisfy them, or the SNP in Scotland.

While the nationalists in Wales do everything in their power to tear apart one of the most successful political unions in history, Labour ministers are busy fighting with their colleagues across the border for more and more powers.

Mark Drakeford is fixated with the devolution of justice, despite his failure to get to grips with the issues already in his in tray and this being ruled out by Sir Keir.

Labour ministers are busy fighting with their colleagues across the border Quote

The Labour Party’s failure to defend the Union means that The Conservative and Unionist Party must live up to its name by pressing the case for the Union harder and with more consistency than any other UK-wide party in the history of the United Kingdom.

The Welsh Conservatives are certainly the only party in Wales that truly care about the integrity of our precious United Kingdom.

The other parties in the Cardiff Bay bubble support the millions being wasted on the Commission on the Constitutional Future of Wales, the most expensive talking shop ever established by Labour to date.

The Commission’s first report was predictable. It suggested that the only options for the future of Wales are more devolution, federalism or Welsh independence. Which is surprising given that polls show a consistent three out of four people in Wales supporting other options, including the status quo.

Given Labour’s record in Wales, it is abundantly clear why there is no public appetite for further powers to be devolved to the Senedd. 

So our message to the Welsh Government is clear:

Stop the scramble for powers and focus on the day job.

Ditch the wasteful spending on pet projects like more politicians, constitutional and Senedd reform.

Wales already has the powers it needs to deliver a better economy, better schools and better hospitals. Use them.

And focus on tackling the problems in our Welsh NHS, education system, housing sector and economy; these are the people’s priorities.