Saturday 7 November 2015

The Abolish the Welsh Assembly Party is launched. Don't laugh

The Wasting Mule somewhat gleefully reports that a new political party has been launched in Wales with the goal of scrapping the National Assembly.


The Abolish The Welsh Assembly Party is co-founded by David Bevan, who was previously a prominent Welsh figure in Ukip. 

Mr Bevan quit Nigel Farage’s party after Ukip dropped its opposition to the Assembly. In June 2013 Mr Farage voiced support for a federal future for the United Kingdom . 

Ukip’s then-MEP John Bufton opposed the shift in policy and said it would create the potential for a new party . 

 Before you dismiss this as fanciful consider their argument
After years of frustration and concern about the arrangements for devolution in Wales, a new party has been founded to represent the views of the many Welsh people who do not want an assembly at all. We believe that the Welsh Assembly has failed to deliver for the people of Wales. We are therefore committed to getting rid of the Assembly.
The Assembly is another expensive tier of Government which is totally unnecessary. We in Wales already have Councillors, MP's, MEP's. How many tiers of government does Wales need? 
The cost of running The Assembly is very difficult to estimate. We are tempted to think this is deliberate as the figure would, no doubt, be truly shocking. Now we find that Welsh Assembly members are going to see their salaries increased to £64,000 in 2016. Assembly Cabinet ministers will get £100,000 p.a. The First Minister's salary is due to increase to near the level of Prime Minister David Cameron, £140,000 pa. The First Minister is only in charge of devolved issues covering Wales.
When you consider the salaries of most people in Wales, this is outrageous. This, at a time when our Local Councils are facing huge cuts in services. Last year Wales was the only part of the UK to decrease spending on the NHS. Not only that, but Welsh patients were obliged to travel to England to receive life saying treatments not available in Wales. Senior members of NHS staff and many others have moved to England to receive treatments unavailable to them in Wales.
Standards of Education in Welsh schools have fallen well behind other areas of the UK.
The Assembly says the solution is to give them MORE powers.
We say, “Never reinforce Failure”.
Mr Bevan said
"It was only a few years ago that we had just councillors and MP’s working for the people of Wales. The Abolish the Welsh Assembly Party believe it is time to return to that system and get rid of this unnecessary tier in Cardiff Bay.
“We also believe that local democracy is delivered effectively by the 22 local authorities. We therefore oppose the Welsh Assembly Government’s plan to reduce their numbers.”
Mr Bevan seems to have be longing for the Halcyon days of the Thatcher government . Where  (as now) no matter what Party the people of Wales voted for we still got Maggie in Number 10 and she was given carte blanch to destroy out lives.


It is the simplistic argument of those who just look at cost and not  the outcome.

Abolishing the Assembly would leave Wales helpless  and simply West Britons totally impoverished and if you think things are bad under the Assembly it wil be far worse governed by diktat from London.

However we must be aware that because of "Welsh" Labour's mixture of constant mismanagement and lack of ambition the Assembly has not completely won over all of the People of Wales.

The reluctance to seek  the real powers we need to make a difference coupled with poor management of the Welsh NHS and Education sometimes look like "Welsh" Labour strategy is to like Mr Bevan kill off the assembly.

But I am a Cock Up theorist not a Conspiracy Theorist and doubt that's the plan.

 However if there is not a change of government or Labour changes it attitude from Carwyn's lethargic mode of government  then the view of those above will start to resonate.among people as a whole.

18 comments:

Unknown said...

Seems that the Welsh have yet to take the tumble to the behaviour of the Labour Party that we in Scotland have. I have to hold up my hands and say I have never supported them, always been a Nationalist and have watched them here destroy what qualities they had over my adult lifetime. We are not that fond of your Mr Carwyn either, given his attitude to the Independence issue here. Have to say though that we have a similar type of person who would dearly love to see the end of the Scottish Parliament, fortunately they have not set up a party and as Ukip is about as popular as the Black Death, I doubt we will see one.
Perhaps Welsh Labour or as I prefer it, Labour Party in Wales will end itself, our one needed no assistance. Looks like London Labour have started it's own internecine war!

Anonymous said...

'send 40 mps to westminister' lol - obviously nobody has told bevan and his coterie of crackpots and little englanders that boundary changes are set to reduce the number of welsh mps to around 30. there is of course no prospect of the welsh ever voting for a return to direct rule from westminister. the wales of 2015 is a world where a generation has grown up under devolved government for wales - they dont hanker for a return to the days when every decision affecting wales was made by someone in wokingham. indeed people under 35 in wales today are more likely to regard the national assembly as 'their government' rather than the westminister parliament.

the wales of 2015 is a country where even a conservative secretary of state uses language like "“Waving your flag and beating your chest at Six Nations matches, wearing a daffodil on March 1, is not strong enough.The reality of Welsh nationhood goes way back beyond the foundations of the United Kingdom, back before the English actually".

furthermore crabbe is speaking at a time where devolution is the norm, and the only arguments are over what further powers scotland, london, wales, northern ireland and the english regions should get. history has passed these losers by and they will go the same way as the royal hanger on david llewelyn's anti assembly campaign did a few years back.

but if bevan and one or two porhcawl golf playing colonels can muster any candidates and the deposits necessary hopefully their presence on the ballot papers next may will take a few votes off ukip and deprive them of any seats in the welsh assembly.

WelshnotBritish said...

Yawn, someone with a house worth half a million wants to become an AM because they do not like devolution despite devolution not actually being a devolved issue.

Anonymous said...

Great news! Now we have both the 'Devolution Deniers' and the 'UKIP Little Englanders' standing in the next Welsh General Election.

I hope the 'Monmouthshire is English' party and the 'GB football team for the Olympic's' brigade get their act together soon and select their candidates for election to the Senedd.

Hopefully, all these fringe, ultra Unionists will take votes from each other, thus allowing those parties who have the best interests of Wales at heart, the opportunity to get on with the job.

Anonymous said...

Clearly, the self-appointed leader Bevan will spin this as a plucky non-political party fighting for the common man and woman. Hogwash, this is a far-right nationalist party, set up and led by a far-right nationalist politician on a far-right nationalist manifesto.
The leader left a far-right party in UKIP to create his own, not, as you would hope, because of UKIP’s demonisation of immigrants or its policy on gay marriages; but because UKIP’s policy on Welsh devolution is not reactionary enough. Bevan’s desire to see the end of Welsh devolution is not for any high ideals, but simply because it does not tie in with his centralizing British nationalist manifesto, where any semblance of Welsh identity is seen as wrong and a threat to Britain. As such, no ifs no buts, his policy and his party’s policy, a product of his far-right views, means his party is one with straight ahead far-right nationalist agenda.
Bevan knows that his wider extreme far-right views are not supported by the Welsh public so, he uses a trick, used by far-right groups down the ages and like Britain First of late. Just run on a single issue (which has wider support). This will enable him to say that his party’s policy is non-political while those who support him will be merely a useful shield to deflect accusations of far-right extremism.
It is impossible for him to have any more than one policy as in that instance his far-right agenda would be exposed. We can gain a very good idea of how extreme these views could be by looking at the views espoused by a member of his old UKIP branch.
We all know that UKIP are a far-right party with some distasteful polices, but it appears that under Bevan’s command, views of an even more extreme nature proliferated. As we can see Bevan was Chairman of the Cardiff branch of UKIP and Treasurer of the UKIP Wales at exactly the same time - http://abolishthewelshassemblyparty.co.uk/aboutas – that the writer of the Christian Doctrine website joined the Cardiff Branch of UKIP - http://www.christiandoctrine.com/politics-list-view/731-first-night-at-a-ukip-branch-meeting . The now leader of the Abolish the Welsh Assembly Party was in charge as his branch colleague was writing and publishing that Obama, Blair, the EU and the UN are tools of Satan - http://www.christiandoctrine.com/satanic-rulers-obama-blair-eu-and-un - that Jews have been persecuted because they are opposed to God’s will - http://www.christiandoctrine.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=588:the-jews-today-a-brief-examination-of-romans-9-10-and-11&catid=181:end-times&Itemid=557 - and that “homosexuality is an abomination, deserving only of death” - http://christiandoctrine.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=697:the-truth-is-plain-homosexuality-is-an-abomination&catid=106:society-and-culture&Itemid=478 You will note from the vile Christian Doctrine website that, like Bevan the author of the website has also left UKIP, because they are not reactionary enough for his very extreme tastes.

Anonymous said...

I would request all readers to ask themselves one question: "What good, if any, has the establishment of The Welsh Assembly done for the people of Wales?". I asked this of a wide group of people (approx 100) in Brecon recently and the only positive I received was 'Charging For Plastic Bags'. Other than that the assembly seems to have caused more harm than good. The over whelming weight of opinion was that we should ask our MPs to vote on any issues that only affect us in Wales. In summary MPs from other parts of the UK should NOT be allowed to vote on areas that only concern us. This seems very sensible to me and will save millions of £'s which we can spend on public services like health and education.

Anonymous said...

In reply to Anonymous of 29th Nov, being all directly elected by the people of Wales, the Welsh Assembly has created a far more accountable system of democracy in the Wales, with the people of Wales voting for representatives and manifestos that relate and effect only Wales. As for policies and laws then I would ask in the last 10 years what has the UK Parliament done for the people of Wales. I would say nothing. But it does not follow that I would like to see its abolition.

As for the extreme far-right Abolish the Welsh Assembly Party I would wager that Bevan (being a British nationalist) does not want to see any separate Welsh identity and certainly no separate Welsh laws (which you indicate you are in favour of) or a democratic Wales only decision making forum.

As I said Bevan knows that his wider extreme far-right views are not supported by the Welsh public so, he uses a trick, used by far-right groups down the ages and like Britain First of late. Just run on a single issue (which has wider support). This will enable him to say that his party’s policy is non-political while those who support him will be merely a useful shield to deflect accusations of far-right extremism. I'm sure that the Party's self appointed leader (a good example of his rather feeble belief in democracy) will have a lot of honeyed words for those of other political persuasions toying with voting for his party, while all the while just using them as pawns in his wider far-right nationalist agenda. I hope that you will not be taken in by this well known far-right trick and have to live with the shame of knowing that you voted for an extreme far-right nationalist party for the rest of your life.

Anonymous said...

Please could someone tell me what it is about David Bevan that makes him an extreme right wing? I have met the gentleman a few times and although he is probably 'right of centre' nothing he has said in my presence makes me think his politics are more than moderately right of centre.

Anonymous said...

What makes Bevan extreme far-right? This is a man who left a right-wing anti-immigrant, zenophobic, anti-gay marriage, anti-EU, anti-multiculturalism party not because of any of those extreme policies (policies praised by the leader of Britian First Jayda Fransen for "singing from the exact same hymn sheet" as her party) but because UKIP’s devolution policy now accepts the democratic wishes of the Welsh people through the 1997 and 2011 referendum results (unlike Bevan) and has become too liberal?

This is also a man who was the Chairman of the Cardiff branch of UKIP and Treasurer of the UKIP Wales when his branch colleague was writing and publishing that Obama, Blair, the EU and the UN are tools of Satan - http://www.christiandoctrine.com/satanic-rulers-obama-blair-eu-and-un - that Jews have been persecuted because they are opposed to God’s will - http://www.christiandoctrine.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=588:the-jews-today-a-brief-examination-of-romans-9-10-and-11&catid=181:end-times&Itemid=557 - and that “homosexuality is an abomination, deserving only of death” - http://christiandoctrine.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=697:the-truth-is-plain-homosexuality-is-an-abomination&catid=106:society-and-culture&Itemid=478

I would put it to you that this man is far more than a bit more than just 'right of centre.

STRATS said...

UNDER THE UNITED NATIONS WHERE THERE IS A SOVEREIGN GOVERNMENT WALES IS A REGION OR PROVINCE AND NOT A COUNTRY

Anonymous said...

The assembly was passed on a 0.1% vote carried through at the last minute by Cerridigion. So ever since its inception there has been about 49.9% who didnt want a devolved assembly. And what a huge hash they have made of it.
eg buying Cardiff Airport White Elephant for 52 million pounds when Aberdeen GAVE their airport to the Scottish government.
Sian

Anonymous said...

Anonymous 16 April 2016....

Attitudes do change in 19 years, most young people in Wales would have grown up with Wales having an Assembly, plus many I know who voted No in 1997 have changed their mind & would not vote to get rid of it, some even agree with further devolution.

Following the recent events in Scotland, the only way the Union can be saved is if it evolved into a federal state. Turing the clock back would do more harm than good & fuel the flames of nationalism.
As for the failures (ie buying Cardiff Airport for £52 million), these are Labour failures, if you don't like how Labour is running then vote them out next week.

Anonymous said...

The welsh assembly is a massive waste of taxpayers money, get rid of it and put the savings to a far better use.

Anonymous said...

The record of the Welsh Assembly is a disgrace. Many Welsh people hold that if something is called 'Welsh' it has to be good. Sadly that is seldom the case.
Why do we have a Welsh Assembly? It is economically indefensible.

The simple short answer is that everything exists because the Corrupt Super Rich want it. So we must look at the situation through their eyes. The Welsh Assembly will inevitably lead to differences between England and Wales. When the time is considered right, the Corrupt Super Rich will suddenly 'realise' that it is and can only be a massive waste of money. So the media will inform everyone of the new facts and we will return to one Government again. The new single government will have the worst of both. I hope no one has difficulty in seeing that what we all lose goes straight into the pockets of the Corrupt Super Rich. Meanwhile, we all have to pay for this nonsense.
It would be a victory for all of us if the Welsh Assembly were abolished
and we demanded an increase in our living standards commensurate with the money saved.

Anonymous said...

In modern parlance it appears you 'have issues. Only a fool could not see that Blair is an evil man and a 'Tool of Satan' seems a most apt description. I see little good in the remaining three.
I am not a religious person but I have read the Gospels, and it is clear that the view of the established Church is not correct. For me the climax of the story is clear in Matthew 27 v25. There is certainly evidence for Jews being opposed to God's will.
I do not have strong feelings on homosexuality but any reasonable person must admit that it is a major perversion. It is not natural, and it is not normal.
Set against the above I cannot find any reasonable ground for your post.
Perhaps you felt you might get Brownie Points for your impersonation of a television set.

Anonymous said...

Ask yourself and also the canidates in next week election. Has the Assembly given us value for money?

Blogger said...

just reading these items! As far as being far right ATWAP is centre left I fighting for the 25% in poverty in Wales 27% in fuel poverty and the 85.000 who are collecting food aid in Wales.
We are fighting to reduce the numbers of people we the tax payer are paying for in Wales. £
500.700.000 = 1.5 million per day = 8 million per AM. And now they wish to go to 80 or even 100!
I voted for it thinking it would be good for Wales and all would work for the betterment of Wales Big Joke!!

Anonymous said...

And of course things in Wales were so much better when England told us what to do. LOL. The Assembly is a waste of money then start a campaign to scrap Westminster (Waste-monster) the biggest waste of money in the universe