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Welsh Independence in The Age of Brexit
Dare we dream of independence for our country? Have we the courage to go it alone? King Arthur has not been resurrected. Neither has Owain Glyndwr. We are tired of waiting for Y Mab Darogan, the Son of Prophecy, first predicted many years ago as the saviour of our country in its hour of need. It’s time to realise in fact that we are all the Children of Prophecy and that we need to dare to wake up to our own potential. Confidence is a requisite ingredient to a successful life. Wales has endured over seven centuries of being governed by another country and hamstrung by an inferiority complex which still weighs us down at key times. Following on from the establishment of the devolved Welsh Government in 1999, we must now learn the assuredness of nation builders and the statesmanship of just governance.
The current political situation in Britain forces us to ask why we would actually want to still be associated with this shambles. Article 50 has been triggered and we face almost two more years of wranglings, bitterness and deceit as a grudging member of the European Union.
This presents yet more possibility for the atmosphere to become ever more heated, for the United Kingdom to become even more Disunited. I believe the present state of affairs affords a renewed and urgent opportunity for distinct countries within the Union to plan to begin the walk away from it.
Of course, at the time of writing, nothing is certain about Brexit but the signs are that we are in the process of returning to a time when tolerance and understanding of people who appeared to be different in some way were in short supply. The racism that has always lurked in the background is at large, emboldened by the scaremongering of the conniving amateur operators of UKIP and their sleeping partners. Added to disability hate crime that is encouraged by Government austerity measures, it will help to turn a post-Brexit U.K. into a kind of scruffy, backward, civil warring, bigoted, frontier fiefdom. Let us not forget that an M.P. who appeared to be a decent human being was assassinated by a right wing thug inspired by the pernicious propaganda of Brexiteers. I for one do not wish to live in a country which is a breeding ground for such hatred and lack of culture. “Taking back control” has a number of applications and the U.K. does not enjoy exclusive rights to acts of leaving.
The neurosis of no longer having an overseas empire creates in some citizens a kind of nostalgia for lording it over people they consider inferior, a readiness for violent action and an unwarranted feeling of supremacy. The British Empire still exists-just ask the Welsh, the Scots and the Irish. It’s time to finally dismantle it.
Do we want to be dependent on what is effectively a 4th rate funding mechanism? The batting order of wealth distribution is England (mainly London and the Home Counties), then Scotland, followed by Northern Ireland with us at the bottom of the barrel while England is fast becoming a de facto adjunct as London’s corrupt financial centre dominates the rest of that country. It is not unlikely for the North of England (“ the Northern Powerhouse”), Cornwall and other areas far from the capital to also harbour notions of breaking free from the rest of the U.K.
Independence would allow the Welsh to scrutinise anew the democratic process which has become compromised and almost meaningless in much of the Western world thanks to cynical lobbyists, the psychological warfare and algorithms of companies like Cambridge Analytica and the bias of the media. Additionally, learning from recent money manoeuvres that caused misery to millions of people, any newly created state would benefit from a robust set of financial standards from the outset.
The Scots are interested in attaining independence and one of the arguments the doubters throw in their faces is that they can’t afford it now that North Sea oil revenues are in decline.
They will of course raise similar or even greater objections to the idea of a working, financially fluid, independent Wales. The Bank of England abandoned the Gold Standard in 1931 and governments don’t run the economy in the same way we finance our lives. They rely on a never-ending series of IOUs and they print money. We could do that especially with our own currency. Please see an attached link to tax expert Richard Murphy’s website which gives further information on how British finances actually operate
http://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2017/05/04/how-are- you-going- to-pay- for-it/
We could also sue the British Government for reparations for coal and other materials taken from our land, for the territory occupied by military bases and the unallocated money and interest from public donations following mining disasters. The fiscal policies of the Tory Government mean that we exist in a decade with the lowest growth in wages in 200 years, with fat cats at one end and the gig economy at the other. We could do better.
Iceland has a population of 333,980 and Luxembourg 583,995 while Wales has around 3.16 million people within its borders, many times more than these tiny, autonomous states.
The Royal Family would have to cease to have any connection or rights to Wales. The non-Welsh Prince of Wales, an imposition of ancient conquest, would be no more. The aristocracy would be dissolved in an attempt to create an egalitarian state. We don’t need them. We never did. Change happens. This time we have to ensure that we are driving it, not having it imposed upon us as we are so used to.
The terrain of Wales is mostly mountainous and lends itself towards being protected by a compact and mobile self-defence force armed with conventional weaponry supported by morally instructed alliances. There are already a number of military bases we could take over and our deep water harbours are valuable assets.
An independent Wales would not need, in my opinion, to be called “Wales” for this is not how we described ourselves in our formative years but rather the suspicious name conferred on us by our Saxon enemies (Old English wealh:foreigner, stranger or slave). Cymru Newydd would be a hopeful, positive title for a forward-looking, tolerant, multi-racial, multi-lingual, creative and free space: a modern, productive and prosperous new country. I look forward to meeting you there some day...
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