Is Welsh devo-scepticism beginning to unravel?

Calls to abolish the Welsh parliament are nothing new: Wales rejected devolution in 1979 and voted only by the smallest of margins for partial self-government almost 20 years later. In spite of this, the Welsh political establishment have embraced the potential of devolved politics over the last two decades.

And so the devo-sceptics have never had a way to deliver their mission. But they didn’t go away. Quite the opposite: abolitionists have been given a new lease of life throughout the last 12 months. They have latched on to the backward perception that the Welsh cannot govern themselves, and have attacked Mark Drakeford and Labour throughout the pandemic for making different Covid decisions to London ‘for the sake of it’. For them, it is devolution rather than a Downing Street hellbent on centralisation which has plagued UK governance. A decent minority of Welsh unionists agree.

There is no clearer evidence for this than a dramatic Welsh Political Barometer poll published last month.