What next for the Welsh Tories?

Jonathan Edwards

What started as a stunt in an Agricultural Show has turned into a full-scale crisis for Tory Senedd Leader Andrew RT Davies.

In the sort of engagement exercise often used at such events, Mr Davies invited visitors to fill two jars, one supporting devolution and one calling for the Senedd to be abolished.

As we approach 25 years since the creation of devolved government in Wales, some would say it is a perfectly reasonable question to ask. However it obviously opened old wounds for the Tories in Wales over a question that many in the party deemed settled.

Mr Davies is a bull-in-a-china-shop type of politician. As leader however, his statements and political actions have serious consequences.

By questioning the legitimacy of the Senedd, senior Tories in Wales have baulked at the potential implication of the direction he may be heading.

Will there now be a move against him amongst his Senedd colleagues and the wider party? Who knows, but obviously matters are not happy in the party in Wales, which is unsurprising after being wiped out in the general election.

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Unhappy

When parties are unhappy, leaders often find themselves facing double scrutiny from their own camp and the clarion calls for a fresh start become deafening.

What really interests me is that the growing row highlights a major strategic dilemma facing the Conservatives in Wales after the events of July.

Heavy election defeats inevitably lead to introspection. The wider UK party is undertaking that process via a prolonged leadership election.

In Wales senior party figures must be pondering where exactly they go from the position they now find themselves in, and in particular in the context of a Senedd election fast approaching.

The Tories face an unenviable task. From an organisational point of view they have lost 12 MPs - some of whom were serious big hitters like Stephen Crabb, James Davies, David Jones, Simon Hart and David TC Davies. There will be a serious organisational hole left for the party to fill and a loss of substantial staffing resources.

Reform

Strategically it also faces a threat from its right flank in the growth of Reform.

I suspect this new landscape is what really led Mr Davies to ask the good people of the Vale if they supported Senedd abolition.

He and others in the party are probably thinking primarily about how they can take on the Reform threat and reunite the political right. The problem with that strategy is can the Tories seriously out-reform Reform?

As a historian in a past life, what always struck me about the Tories in history is that they were great reformists when the times required a change of direction.

Robert Peel and Benjamin Disraeli in the 19th Century completed remodelled the party as the franchise was extended. Thatcher remodelled the Tories completely on the back of the stasis of the 70s. So successful was she that every other UK party continues to adhere to her philosophy 40 years later.

Lately, I am sure future historians will argue that Boris Johnson remodelled the Tories during the 2017 – 19 Parliament, although they will probably argue he wasn’t as successful as Peel and Disraeli in that his attempts at realignment proved to be politically and economically unsustainable.

What alternative is available to the Tories than moving further rightward and more devo-sceptic?

Bold

Standing still for the Tories in Wales is no longer an option. The question to me is whether the party is prepared to be bold or not.

The easy option would be to fight on a Reformist platform. But a potentially game changing approach could be on planting its tanks on Plaid Cymru’s lawn and proclaiming that the next Tory UK Government will use Brexit freedoms and favour full fat devolution and support devolving the major job creation levers of VAT, Corporation Tax, and full income tax powers to Wales.

The party in Wales could also declare semi-independence from the wider UK party, making the Senedd leader the Welsh leader, while retaining close organisational and financial links.

In doing so it would then be able to achieve two strategic aims. Move the political debate in Wales onto tax and spend and the economy is more natural Tory territory.

The current focus in Wales on the debate being dominated by how to manage public services alone falls into Labour’s lap. Secondly, the Tories will be able to compose a narrative of how they will improve the living standards of the Welsh people via the fiscal firepower at their disposal and gather the support of those likely to vote at the Senedd election who will likely be drawn towards Reform.

If the Tories were to put such an offer on the table, the other parties would have to respond. Such a strategy will help the Tories entrench in the minds of the electorate that Labour are a status quo force in Wales.

It will also create a world of trouble for Plaid Cymru, who favour tax devolution but have no coherent idea about what to do with taxation powers.

Some in Plaid favour a Republic of Ireland model of lowering taxes to increase competitiveness, especially in terms of attracting Foreign Direct Investment and rich entrepreneurs, while the majority of the activist base of the party favour a Scandinavian model with far higher levels of taxation. Applied properly the Tories could split Plaid Cymru in half.

On such a platform the Tories could reasonably argue that they are the most pro devolution party going into 2026 while supporting the Union.

It would throw a hand grenade into the run-up to the election debate in Wales leading into 2026. It’s the sort of realignment that sits completely at ease with the Peel, Disraeli, Thatcher traditions of their party and would place financial accountability at the heart of the political debate in Wales – the cornerstone of Conservative political philosophy.

Jonathan Edwards is the former MP for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr