ON September 18, 1997, the people of Wales voted on whether they should have a National Assembly. The referendum was held following the election of a Labour government pledged to campaign for a “Yes” vote.

The result was the narrowest majority — by 50.3 per cent to 49.7 —  in favour of establishing the National Assembly of Wales.

However, the turnout was only a tiny fraction above 50 per cent of the registered electorate. This meant that only 25 per cent of electors in Wales actually voted for the Assembly, by a majority of less than 7,000 of the one million votes cast.

Despite the efforts of the Labour Party leadership, the Wales TUC, the Liberals, Plaid Cymru, the Communist Party and others, this was an underwhelming endorsement of Labour’s feeble proposal for a National Assembly that would have no law-making or fundraising powers.

Yet the result was accepted as legitimate across the political spectrum by most anti-devolution Labourites and Conservatives. Only a few British nationalists who later found a home in Ukip argued that the result lacked legitimacy.

Nobody of any consequence said that the majority was too narrow to proceed with the establishment of the Assembly.

Nobody pointed out that the support of only one-quarter of the electorate was no basis on which to carry out the most significant constitutional change in Wales for more than 450 years.

Nobody pointed out that the referendum was merely advisory, and so could lawfully be ignored.

Nobody insisted that the result should be declared null and void, because “Yes” campaigners told lies in order to win votes (although both sides were guilty of exaggeration and distortion — and “No” campaigners led by Neil Kinnock engaged in the most divisive and disreputable scaremongering about the economic and linguistic chaos that would ensue should “Yes” win).

Nobody argued that young people below the age of 18 had been denied a vote on their future, on what kind of Wales they would like to inherit.

Nobody argued that the Welsh people were too stupid or ignorant to understand what they had voted for

When the Government of Wales Bill to enact the referendum result subsequently wound its way through an unenthusiastic Westminster Parliament in 1998, there were no moves of any substance to delay or block it.

There were no City of London millionaires rushing to the courts in an effort to negate the referendum or to block or delay the Bill implementing the result.

There was no contrived confusion over what the “Yes” voters had actually voted for. The ballot paper had simply asked them whether or not they agreed there should be a Welsh Assembly. Yes or no.

Not what kind of an Assembly with what kind of powers.

Not what should be the future relations between Wales and the UK or between the Welsh Assembly and the Westminster Parliament.
Not whether there should be only half an Assembly.

Nobody argued that the Welsh people were too stupid or ignorant to understand what they had voted for and so should have another chance to come up with a “better informed” decision.

No well-funded campaign sprang up overnight with full-time organisers and premises to call for a second referendum, or “People’s Vote,” in order to prevent the implementation of the first.

Nobody argued that public opinion might have changed since September 1997 and the public should be given a “final say” on what were now concrete proposals.

Had any political party argued back then, in 1997 and 1998, that the devolution referendum result should not be honoured, one can only imagine the scorn that would have greeted such blatant, cynical contempt for democracy.

Nowhere would the howls of outrage have been louder than in the Cardiff headquarters of Plaid Cymru, whose members had fought harder than many Labour ones for the “Yes” result.

Now move forward to June 23, 2016, and the EU referendum in Wales.

Welsh voters opted for Leave against Remain by 52.5 per cent to 47.5 per cent — a significantly bigger margin than had voted for the Welsh Assembly in 1979.

There were no City of London millionaires rushing to the courts in an effort to negate the referendum or to block or delay the Bill implementing the result

The turnout for the EU referendum was almost 72 per cent. Thus 38 per cent of the registered electorate voted to leave the EU, a substantially higher proportion — around 50 per cent more — than demanded a Welsh Assembly.

Yet Welsh Labour, Plaid Cymru and the Lib Dems all refuse to honour the result of the EU referendum. In some cases, this means repudiating a large proportion of their own supporters in the previous general election and who subsequently voted Leave: Labour (more than one-third), Plaid Cymru (around half) and Lib Dems (more than a quarter).

In a desperate attempt to deny this uncomfortable reality, Welsh Labour and Plaid Cymru representatives have tried to claim that most Remain supporters in Wales are Tories or Ukip (and now Brexit Party) supporters.

Yet, at most, these accounted for only half of the Welsh Leave voters in 2016 — and a third of those Welsh Ukip supporters back then subsequently switched to Corbyn’s Labour in 2017 and its pledge to honour the referendum result.

Since that high point, Welsh Labour’s support has collapsed in the EU elections in May this year to 15 per cent, below Plaid Cymru and less than half that of the Brexit Party. Its share in Welsh opinion polls is half that of the last general election.

This should come as no surprise.

Last December, most Labour Welsh Assembly members abandoned their own government’s “quarter-Brexit” motion in favour of a successful Plaid Cymru resolution against Theresa May’s Withdrawal Agreement.

In May, Labour’s four EU parliamentary candidates called not only for a second EU referendum but also for a Remain vote whatever the official policy of their party.

This extreme anti-Brexit stance failed to prevent the desertion of one-fifth of Welsh Labour’s previous supporters to the ultra-Remain parties, while helping to drive around two-thirds of that number into the Brexit Party or deliberate boycott camps.

Learning nothing from that debacle, the Welsh Labour government has now joined the Remain “ultras” and committed itself to a repeat EU referendum and a Remain vote.

In other words, both Plaid Cymru and Welsh Labour not only display the utmost contempt for democracy and the Welsh electorate.

Their desperation to remain in the EU would also mean decision-making powers in 70 areas of policy — including environmental protection, carbon storage, offshore energy, hydrocarbon licensing, renewable energy targets, flood risk, coastal erosion, waste management, water resources, forestry, rural land use, planning consent, local transport services, air travel, road safety, biodiversity, animal welfare, food standards and organic farming — remaining in Brussels with the EU Commission and Council of Ministers.

Under a framework agreement already negotiated between the Welsh and British governments, these powers would come directly to Cardiff after Brexit. So, too, might some over state aid to industry and agriculture.

Now, in an effort to prevent this happening, erstwhile Welsh nationalists and Welsh Labour socialists are falling over themselves to uphold the largely mythical sovereignty of the Westminster Parliament.

It would be sad, were it not so laughable.

Robert Griffiths is general secretary of the Communist Party of Britain.