THE WELSH Tory group at the Assembly is being faced with a terrible conundrum over the referendum on extra powers for Wales which the Labour-Plaid government plan to hold either later this year or in the first half of next year, writes Clive Betts from the Assembly press gallery.
The party seems to have only one demand. This is that the referendum is NOT held on the same day as next year’s Welsh general election.
But what is their true reason for threatening to abstain when the “trigger motion” is debated and voted on next Tuesday ?
Their abstention – if combined with the Lib Dems – would cause the motion to be lost as it would fail to gain the necessary enhanced majority which the Government of Wales Act demands.
One reason for taking this attitude is that they are looking over their shoulders towards the hoards of devolution-sceptics who lurk within that party’s undergrowth.
Mr Bourne is acting in the way that a leader really should act – he has decided that the only way forwards for his party is to turn its back on its years of opposition to devolution; instead, it must embrace the concept.
Both Mr Bourne and David Cameron, his party leader in London, have emphatically stated that they would not stand in the way of the holding of a referendum
But, faced with a definite demand that he put his name to an advance in that previously-abhoured policy, Mr Bourne may feel that he has to demand a price from the two government parties
That price seems to revolve around the date of the referendum.
Questioned by Cambria at the weekly press briefing on why he was taking this stance, Mr Bourne gave a reason very similar to that touted by the Lib Dems – who are making a very similar demand.
He talked of the difficulties of running a Yes campaign, and also of the dangers of finding that campaign muddled both with the practicalities of a Welsh general election campaign, with the very different policy arguments being put forward in that battle.
But there could be another reason why Mr Bourne and the Tories are opposed to the referendum and election both being held on the same day.
When Cambria put that particular reason to Mr Bourne, he was honest enough to admit that this particular idea had indeed crossed his mind. But he had rejected it.
Yet when Cambria asked a very senior figure in Plaid Cymru why the Tories might be so opposed to the use of the same date for two elections, he (or it could be she) was extremely blunt.
“Because they would lose votes in the Assembly election,” this individual said. This would happen, it is argued, because of voters linking a Yes vote in the referendum to a vote for one of the three obviously pro-Assembly parties.
Equally, of course, No voters would be more likely to turn to the Tories. But the first group of voters would outweigh the second in terms of numbers.
Which means that the Tories in London have likely laid down the law to Mr Bourne – separate the two polls, or you’re in trouble with us. Which explains the strength of his threat to abstain – and, with luck, kill moves for a double vote on one day.
Of course, any No vote to the trigger-vote proposal – and that is how an abstention would be portrayed by other parties – would risk undoing so much of the good pro-Welsh work which Mr Bourne and some of his colleagues have been achieving with his group and party over the past few years.
It would risk the Tories seen yet again as the “English party”. Which is the last thing which they would want. Even if some in the grassroots would be unconcerned.
