The First Welsh Constitutional Crisis: The Alun Michael Resignation

Abstract

In February 2000 Alun Michael, the First Secretary of the eight month old National Assembly for Wales resigned when faced with the likely success of a vote of no confidence against him. In the light of the controversial leadership election twelve months earlier these events were widely perceived as a snub to the Prime Minister himself who had championed Michael over his challenger, Rhodri Morgan. However, the aim of this paper is to argue that the ‘crisis’ of February 2000 tells us less about Number Ten and issues of ‘control freakery’ and more about the National Assembly's struggling to come of age. The crisis will be analysed as unfolding on three levels, revealing insights into the impact of devolution. Firstly, in constitutional design terms, the crisis centred around two different perspectives on how the Assembly should work: the corporate body model and the parliamentary model. Secondly, in political terms a new Welsh political dynamic revealed itself as AMs came to see themselves as a polity, whose principal role is to govern, not just implement or manage centrally devised policies. Thirdly, in terms of inter-governmental relations, the crisis illustrates the difficulties that the centre has in realising that it has to work with a new polity and not a devolved administration in Wales.