Wales and Westminster

Wales has been ruled from Westminster for generations. Many Welsh men and women have gone there to represent their compatriots back home in Wales. Yet they have failed Wales. Westminster lies at the heart of the Union, and it is the Union which has deprived Wales of its talent and its prosperity. It has been a running sore, as people have drifted away from their roots, and have sought what they considered to be a better life in the outside world. These politicians, through their misguided intent, continue to fail Wales, and many of them represent an electorate who are equally misguided, as a result of the failure of government to provide education and opportunity to a people who are fundamentally different from the people east of the border. The people of Wales have been conditioned to accept their lot, to be thankful for small mercies, and to be content with the status quo. The status quo is that the Welsh have had no status, neither as a people nor as a nation, and have been systematically absorbed into the British realm. Their distinctive culture and unique language have been ignored, or even at times despised.

The British have pursued their age-old policy of ‘divide and rule’, so that the people of Wales have fallen into two camps, those who cling to their culture, language and traditions, and who are loyal to their nation, attending the eisteddfodau and singing their national anthem in Welsh, flying the flag of the Red Dragon in their gardens and on the maes chwarae , and those who have been anglicised, gentrified and lured away from their native roots. So you hear some declare their pride in the Union, the union flag, the idea of ‘Britishness’. They condemn their fellow countrymen as separationist and backward-looking. They pour ridicule on their heritage and their language and wish to eradicate all traces of Welshness (except the ones on the rugby field). Some still declare their pride in being Welsh and British, but they are deluding themselves – they cannot be both ( see my postings on this subject). Some of these people sit on the benches of the House of Commons in Westminster, believing that they are representing Wales and the true interests of the Welsh people. They wear their daffodil on St David’s Day and pay lip service to the United Kingdom. They rest on past glories, the campaigns of the British Raj and declare, as the last PM did :”the glory days of Britain are not over”.

But let me say they are, and Britain is changing rapidly from being a state which once ruled the world to its true, and no less proud, identity as a group of nations about to realise their long-held aspirations. Ireland has shaken loose, Scotland is well on the way, and Wales will follow. The world will never be the same again.
Neither will Wales.