On 11 September the Scottish people voted, calmly an overwhelmingly, for a Scottish Parliament with significant legislative and tax-varying powers. Thus ended nearly 300 years British constitutional history. On 18 September the Welsh people with a great deal more trepidation narrowly voted for a Welsh Assembly. This heralds the greatest change in the governance of Wales since its annexation to England in the 16th century. The British state will never be the same again.

The decisive results in Scotland can not be questioned. Support for a Scottish Parliament is clearly the settled will of the Scottish people. The Welsh result is more contradictory and, taken superficially would appear to beg more questions than it answers. A more detailed analysis shows some extremely important patterns in voting and consequently consciousness.

The Welsh result is, in some ways, the most remarkable of the two, given that the 1979 Welsh referendum was lost by such a large margin. Only 20 per cent of those who voted were in favour at the time, compared to 52 per cent in Scotland. It was only the artificial barrier that 40 per cent of the electors had to vote yes which prevented Scottish devolution from proceeding then.

It is clear from the voting patterns that support for an Assembly is very uneven in Wales. It is concentrated in the working class areas which suffered most under 18 years of Tory rule. Contrary to the claims of No campaigners, it is not simply linguistically based, since predominantly English speaking valleys and areas contributed as much to the victory as did Welsh speaking areas. Indeed, Welsh speaking Ynys Môn (Anglesey) only narrowly voted in favour.

Large majorities in favour were delivered in Labour's working class heartlands. Neath and Port Talbot voted 2 to 1 in favour, Rhondda by a majority of 15,000 and Caerffili by a majority of 6,000. The final result, which narrowly clinched victory, came from Carmarthen. This includes important working class areas like Llanelli, the Gwendraeth Valley, Ammanford and Carmarthen town itself. It registered a vote of 65 per cent in favour, based on a comparatively high turnout, allowing the Yes vote to scrape home by a majority of 6,721.

It is also striking that in every one of the areas in which rebel Labour MPs campaigned for a No vote, or cast doubts on the proposals, the vote was overwhelmingly in favour. This is a firm rebuttal for Allan Rogers in the Rhondda, Llew Smith in Blaenau Gwent, Ray Powell in Ogmore and Alan Williams in Swansea, along with doubters like Denzil Davies in Llanelli and Ted Rowlands in Merthyr.

Two areas with large working class populations which did register significant votes against were Cardiff and Newport. This reflects the much lower level of Welsh national consciousness in these areas and, in Cardiff at least, a strong feeling that a Welsh Assembly would be a bloated version of the increasingly unpopular Cardiff Labour council.

The role of Llew Smith in the No campaign is particularly problematic, since his appalling stance on this question has done a great deal to discredit the Labour left. He is the only Campaign Group MP in Wales and his stance has allowed opponents to lump together all his positions as: 'old-style state centralist socialism'. This could have particularly damaging consequences for any effort to build a campaign against the next European Inter-Governmental Conference, to be held in Cardiff next year. There are currently huge illusions within both the Wales Labour Party and Plaid Cymru about the prospects for Wales in a Maastricht Europe. Llew's stand on the Assembly will make it all the easier for people to dismiss his arguments against EMU as emanating simply from a London-centred, British nationalist perspective. There are already calls for his deselection, with the most likely replacement being a pro-Assembly Blairite.

It is also instructive to examine the motivation of other key figures in the No campaign. Two Labour Party members from the Rhondda, Carys Pugh and Betty Bowen, achieved national prominence by being the first to launch a No campaign. Carys Pugh excelled herself with rabid comments about Peter Hain's South African background and the suggestion that he should return there. Betty Bowen was a little more measured but revealed a great deal with her comment that: 'I was born Welsh, I'm a Rhondda girl through and through, but I'm still a British subject'. That word 'subject' - it says it all. Such a sentiment brings to mind Lenin's comments that: 'Nobody is to be blamed for being born a slave; but a slave ... who justifies and eulogises his slavery ... arouses a legitimate feeling of indignation, contempt, and loathing.'

Despite the closeness of the result, the vote on September 18 is a massive step forward for the people and the politics of Wales. The creation of an Assembly gives socialists an exciting opportunity to reinvigorate and enliven political life in Wales. It will give us an elected body which can be both a forum for debate and a focus for demands and campaigns.

Activists in Cardiff West CLP have proposed a number of key points for debate on the nature of the Assembly. Based on their experience during campaigning, they have called for an Assembly which:

• Abolishes the vast majority of the quangos. Those that remain, such as the Welsh Development Agency and the Welsh Tourist Board, must be under tight democratic control.

• Dismantles the huge bureaucracy created by the Tories in the Health Service and opposes further hospital closures.

• Ensures that women are equally represented in the Assembly and that black people are fairly represented.

• Ensures that members of the Assembly do not enjoy any special privileges, while cuts are being made in other areas. Assembly members should be paid the average wage of a skilled worker in Wales.

These positions form a useful contribution to the public debate which must now develop, a debate which was so conspicuously absent before the vote. Strenuous attempts were made to stifle any disagreement, in an effort to maintain a facade of party unity. That false unity very predictably collapsed in the week before the vote, with extremely damaging consequences for the Yes campaign.