Ripening time? The Welsh Labour government between Brexit and parliamentary sovereignty
| Published date | 01 August 2023 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/13691481221104334 |
| Author | Gregory Davies,Daniel Wincott |
| Date | 01 August 2023 |
| Subject Matter | Original Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/13691481221104334
The British Journal of Politics and
International Relations
2023, Vol. 25(3) 462 –479
© The Author(s) 2022
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DOI: 10.1177/13691481221104334
journals.sagepub.com/home/bpi
Ripening time? The Welsh
Labour government between
Brexit and parliamentary
sovereignty
Gregory Davies1 and Daniel Wincott2
Abstract
The Welsh Labour government occupies a unique position in UK territorial politics, favouring neither
the status quo nor independence for Wales while advocating a new settlement for the whole state.
This article provides a detailed examination of its policy, focusing on its position on the doctrine of
parliamentary sovereignty. Drawing from a range of documentary sources, we analyse the Welsh
government’s constitutional proposals and its decision-making in the wake of the 2016 referendum
on European Union membership. We argue that Welsh policy is defined by ambiguity. While it
advances an alternative constitutional vision, it refrains from rejecting Westminster’s sovereignty
outright. In the aftermath of the referendum, it sought to accommodate that sovereignty with
its own constitutional claims through enhanced intergovernmental collaboration. In light of the
Johnson administration’s centralising reforms, the strategy appears to have failed. Caught in the
fractious politics of the Union, Welsh constitutional policy now faces an uncertain future.
Keywords
Brexit, devolution, intergovernmental relations, parliamentary sovereignty, territorial politics,
Wales, Welsh Labour
The Principle of Unripe Time is that people should not do at the present moment what they think
right at that moment, because the moment at which they think it right has not yet arrived. . . .
Time, by the way, is like the medlar; it has a trick of going rotten before it is ripe.
– Cornford (1908)
Wales between two unions
The devolved and local elections on 6 May 2021 resulted in familiar political differences
across the United Kingdom. In Wales, England and Scotland, the incumbent parties – Welsh
1School of Law and Social Justice, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, UK
2Wales Governance Centre, School of Law and Politics, Cardiff University, Cardiff, UK
Corresponding author:
Gregory Davies, School of Law and Social Justice, University of Liverpool, Liverpool L69 7ZR, UK.
Email: g.j.davies@liverpool.ac.uk
1104334BPI0010.1177/13691481221104334The British Journal of Politics and International RelationsDavies and Wincott
research-article2022
Original Article
Davies and Wincott 463
Labour, the Conservative and Unionist Party and the Scottish National Party (SNP), respec-
tively – each reasserted their dominance. The outcome poses serious questions for the lon-
gevity of the United Kingdom, and not simply because the Scottish electorate returned a
larger, pro-independence majority to Holyrood.
The governments harbour conflicting views about the basic character of the state, con-
tradictions which have been accentuated in the process of UK withdrawal from the
European Union (‘Brexit’) (Wincott et al., 2021a). The UK Conservative government ima-
gines a ‘unitary state’ (Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, 2020)
predicated on the unlimited legislative competence of the Westminster parliament – known
as the doctrine of ‘parliamentary sovereignty’. The devolved governments, by contrast,
tend to view the United Kingdom as a union-state: a voluntary formation with multiple
sites of territorial sovereignty. For them, devolution is fundamental and irreversible: ‘a
constitutional transformation rather than a mere reassignment of functions’ (Keating,
2021). The governments’ conflicting views are connected to the diverse national-territorial
imaginaries that co-exist within the United Kingdom, each with its own perspective on the
past, the future, the legitimacy of the state and its modes of operation.
The position of the Welsh Labour government warrants particular attention. Whether
alone or in coalition, Welsh Labour rule has held unbroken throughout the 22 years of
devolved representative government. In its own words, it is ‘committed to both the Union
and devolution’ (Welsh Government, 2017: 20). Since 2012, its distinct, developing per-
spective on constitutional matters has called for wide-ranging reforms. Emphasising prin-
ciples and state-wide coherence, it has offered Welsh constitutional policy – ‘the Welsh
Way / y Ffordd Gymreig’ (Rawlings, 2019) – as a counterpoint to the ad hoc nature of
devolution since 1999. After the 2016 referendum, this advocacy acquired new urgency:
Brexit was ‘a major constitutional turning point’ (Welsh Government, 2017: 7–8).
Building on earlier proposals, it criticised parliamentary sovereignty as ‘outmoded and
inappropriate’ (Welsh Government, 2017: 19) and demanded a new constitutional settle-
ment based on principles of subsidiarity, parity of esteem and mutual respect between
governments. As a result, the Welsh government’s approach has garnered various, intrigu-
ing labels: ‘soft nationalism’ (Moon, 2016), ‘ambivalent unionism’ (Farquharson, 2020)
and ‘unionist nationalism’ (McEwen, 2021).
A pro-Union government questioning one of the defining principles of the United
Kingdom’s constitutional arrangements is politically significant. Elaborated by the Victorian
legal scholar, A V Dicey (1915: 38), as the Westminster parliament’s right ‘to make or
unmake any law whatever’ without rival, parliamentary sovereignty is more than a legal
doctrine. It conceals ‘a political conviction about the need for an unrestricted central power’,
one which established itself as ‘an article of faith among the British governing class’
(Loughlin and Tierney, 2018: 991). It remains the central pillar of ‘British-Constitutional
ideology’ (Nairn, 2015: 31), one to which the Labour party, historically, fully subscribed.
Whether the Welsh government’s challenge to parliamentary sovereignty is more rhe-
torical than real, however, requires scrutiny. Laying siege to the doctrine at times in recent
years, it rushed to its defence at others. This article analyses these decisions in depth. By
exploring their nuances, we can better understand the Welsh government’s aspirations.
Our focus on parliamentary sovereignty also provides a distinct contribution to recent
analyses of Welsh constitutional policy and intergovernmental strategy (e.g. Hunt and
Minto, 2017; McEwen, 2021; Rawlings, 2015, 2018, 2019).
We begin by tracing the emergence of the Welsh government’s constitutional critique.
Then we examine its characteristics and consider the rationale for its position. In the
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