I think that Prime Minister Liz Truss may be a sleeper agent for YesCymru, hiding in plain sight, hell bent on facilitating the break up of the United Kingdom.
Now on the surface this might sound bizarre that vehemently “pro union” Truss is actually in the pocket of Welsh nationalists but there really is no other explanation for her behaviour. Let me explain.
I am pretty informed on Welsh independence and the debate around the constitutional future of Wales/wider UK. I have written a book on the subject. If you were to ask me what three things a politician should do get the people of Wales to support leaving the union, these things would be:
Make people choose between their Welsh and British identities.
Scorn, ignore and attack devolution.
Give Wales the short straw compared to other parts of the UK when it comes to funding.
If you were a politician minded to break up the Union, following these three strategies are sure to further your goal. This begs the question then, why is Liz Truss following all of them? Let’s take them in turn.
Read more: Nine things you need to consider when deciding whether to support an independent Wales
Make people choose between their Welsh and British identities
There are two sides to this. The first is that for many, many people, their Welsh identity and their British identity have sat fairly comfortably side by side. For those who feel Welsh and British, the two sides of their identity have been compatible. But the problem comes when we start digging into this idea of Britishness because being British means different things to different people (I recommend this book by academics Ailsa Henderson and Richard Wyn Jones on this topic).
What the Truss (and previously Johnson) administrations have done is try and impose a far narrower view of what Britishness is. The great benefit of Britishness from a unionist stand point has historically been its flexibility. But in pushing a version of Britishness which seeks to minimise, underplay and diminish the nations of the UK, the UK Government is forcing people to choose between their Welshness and their Britishness. I strongly suspect that Truss et al will be very disappointed in their answer.
People in Wales, especially younger generations, are more comfortable than ever expressing their Welshness. If you make them choose between Britain and Wales many of them will choose Wales. The insanity of their route by the UK Government is that it just doesn’t have to be this way. It is perfectly possible for people to feel Welsh and British, but Truss and her predecessor are putting strain on this.
The only rationale reason for this is that she is actually a secret Welsh nationalist, possibly with an anonymous Twitter account called Gwynfor ap Tryweryn, bringing down the house of cards from within.
Scorn, ignore and attack devolution.
Despite only just getting over the line in 1999, devolution is now very popular in Wales. Following a collective awakening among the Welsh populous during the pandemic that there are actually some advantages to having some say over our own affairs, the last Welsh Parliament elections saw anti devolution parties wiped out. On top of this the Welsh people have voted twice for devolution in successive referendums. You could argue that there is a far greater public mandate for devolution in Wales than there is Brexit in the wider UK.
There is now an assumption in Wales that we have the right to run, to a certain extent, a great deal of our own affairs. This is why if I was trying to break up the UK I would start to publicly make efforts to scorn, ignore and attack devolution.
It appears that Liz “the mole” Truss has got the memo. The “twrch daear” has not contacted First Minister Mark Drakeford at all during the first five weeks of her premiership (every other new PM contacted the First Minister on the day they took office).
This won’t be an accident. During her leadership campaign Truss said that the best way to deal with Nicola Sturgeon was to “ignore her”. From the point of view of tackling rising nationalism in the UK, this is an insane strategy. For many people, their support for independence is based on perfectly legitimate grievances. We can (and should) debate whether independence is a good solution to those grievances but the issues themselves are legitimate. Just ignoring them simply strengthens the hand of those who want to break up the UK. Yet this is exactly what Truss is doing.
Give Wales the short straw compared to other parts of the UK when it comes to funding
Wales getting a raw deal when it comes to funding is an absolute gift for those advocating the end of the UK. Let’s take the disastrous mini-budget.
Though all areas of the UK will see some reduction in their tax burden, the new budget is stingiest for Wales, especially when compared to the bumper windfalls in London and the south east of England. According to the Resolution Foundation, an independent think-tank focused on improving living standards for those on low to middle incomes, those living in the south east or London will see more than three times (on average, £1,600) the gains of those in Wales (an average of £500). London and the south east will see by far the largest savings with roughly three times as much cash ending up back in people's pockets in this area compared to Wales.
This isn’t an anomaly, it has been the rule when it comes to Wales’ treatment. The decision to classify HS2 as a Wales project robbed Wales of £5bn of funding. And this comes on top of historic underfunding of capital investments.
Again, these sort of oversights, where one of the poorest parts of the UK is short changed through accountancy sleight of hand, makes the independence side's case for them. It is an own goal that can only be explained by Liz Truss’ hidden desire for annibyniaeth.
This is serious
Now of course much of this column was tongue in cheek. I don’t really think that Lizzy is walking the halls of Westminster humming Yma o Hyd under her breath and wearing long-sleeved tops to hide her leek tattoo.
But I am deadly serious when I say the policies and behaviour of the Conservative Party in recent years is playing directly into the hands of those who want to see the UK break up. If you care about the Union you should be bloody worried.
This does beg the question of why they are doing it? In my view it comes down to a complete miscalculation of what the reasons for rising nationalism actually are. Truss et al see it as the machinations of some rabble rousers. Loud but not able to cut through to the public at large (and certainly not containing any legitimate grievances). This is then coupled with the fact that the Conservative Party in Westminster do not see devolution as a right. They see it as a temporary administrative settlement that can (and perhaps should) be withdrawn at the discretion of the UK Government.
While the UK Gov continues to fail to understand what is driving support for indy, they are doomed to continue to help facilitate the break up they fear.
Read next:
- Welsh Government refuses to support UK funding allocations in Wales in tit-for-tat row
Former Tory minister confirms party deliberately misled people of Wales over EU funding
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Nine things you need to consider when deciding whether to support an independent Wales
- Children grow up in poverty in the shadow of Wales' greatest wealth
- Governance in Wales is a convoluted mess that needs to be fixed
