There is no such thing as Welsh Labour

By now we're all familiar with Labour in Wales being called Welsh Labour or Plaid Llafur, we're familar with people like Carwyn Jones even being touted as their leader. But I wanted to find out if there was any truth to the claims that there wasn't really such a thing as Welsh Labour and that they were merely a branch office of London Labour.

Off I trotted to the Electoral Commission to run a search*. I left only the tick in the political party section of the 'entity type' and ran a search for Wales. Only one result came back.

Parties with the word 'Wales' in their name

Fair enough, that was to be expected since they are 'Welsh Labour'. So I changed the search type to Welsh. And guess what, bugger all yet again.

Parties with the word 'Welsh' in their name.

How about searching for Llafur which is Welsh for Labour since they do claim to be called Plaid Llafur too.

Parties with the word 'Llafur' in their name.

Still nothing, there's something fishy going on here. Let's refocus the search and instead search for Labour instead. Now we're getting somewhere, there are seven hits for Labour. Two are for Northern Ireland, four are for small parties and just one is for the Labour Party.

Parties with the word 'Labour' in their name.

Let's have a look at what the details say for the Labour Party and see if we can make sense of the results.

Ed Milliband's London Labour in all its glory.

According to the Electoral Commission there is only one Labour Party which fields candidates in Wales, Scotland and England. That means there is no Welsh Labour and no Scottish Labour either. It lists Llafur as an alternative name, an alternative name to the one and only Labour Party that is registered in Wales, Scotland and England.

Not only that but the claims of it being 'London Labour' are true as that is where their Head Office is based. And guess what, since there is no Welsh Labour and no Scottish Labour that means that Ed Milliband is the one true leader of the whole Labour Party.

I don't have a clue who any of these.

I have no idea who any of these people are that are listed above but they are the 'additional officers'. I can't see any mention of Carwyn Jones or even Jim Murphy up there. Let's continue to see what else we can see.

One true all encompassing Labour Party which also takes in 'regional' branches in Wales and Scotland

Well this is interesting, the one true Labour Party has three separate emblems. One for use in Wales, one for use in Scotland and the final one is presumably for generic use. In the descriptions it also lists various Welsh translations that are registered to the one and only Labour Party that is registered in Wales, Scotland and England.

The one true Labour Party HQ'd in London has three faces depending on who they want to pretend to be.

The final conclusions can only be that there is no Welsh Labour Party and there is no Scottish Labour Party. There is only one Labour Party that operates throughout Wales, Scotland and England and that is based in London with Ed Milliband as its leader. This means that in Wales we have a Welsh branch and in Scotland they have a Scottish branch.

I don't think anyone will be shocked by this, but it's nice to have it down for everyone to see. Henceforth Labour in Wales and Scotland should be referred to as the Welsh or Scottish branch of London Labour as that is what they are.

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*Please note that the Electoral Commission website does not allow direct links, if you wish to 'try this at home' then you'll have to search for the keywords yourself. This is why I've included so many screen shots!