Luke James - The Election Blog 2011

Luke is a student representative from Swansea, Wales. Former chair of Plaid Cymru's youth and student section and current bureau member of the European Free Alliance Youth.

“For once we find ourselves swimming with the tide of history,” Adam Price concluded in his recent article on the economics of Welsh independence. Unsurprisingly I agree, but I also believe that the tide of public opinion is starting to turn in our favour too.

On March 4th this year we saw Wales united in voting yes for Wales to have primary law making powers. Monmouthshire was the only constituency to vote no, with a recount and by the smallest margins.

That’s in stark contrast to the result of the 1997 referendum when Wales was a nation divided over the question of a National Assembly. Wales was split right down the middle, the cultural divide of East and West evident for all to see.

What a remarkable change in just 14 years, the mindset of the Welsh people has been transformed. And just a day later I was equally excited to see the results of an ICM poll on BBC Wales which put support for independence at 16%. What a difference a day makes.

Unionists were probably relieved to see the words ‘Wales will never be independent’ emblazoned across the front of our one national newspaper a few weeks later. The Western Mail’s survey on independence asked people whether they thought Wales would ever be independent, 53% said never, 38% said yes and 9% didn’t know.

But break the figures down and we have cause to be optimistic. For example, young people were more likely to believe Wales would be independent, 40% said they thought they would see an independent Wales whilst 47% disagreed.

Women, people in lower social classes and the people living in Wales’ most disadvantaged areas along with young people were more likely to believe Wales would be independent.

To me the survey results show a clear theme - it’s the fat cats who have most to lose in an independent Wales. It’s the people who reap the rewards of London’s unregulated capitalism at the expense of young people, women and working people who don’t want to see Wales break away from London rule once and for all.

The alternative is the economics of independence that Adam Price made the argument for so clearly in his recent article. But that’s not a new message.

In 1966 Carmarthenshire sent shockwaves through Wales and the World by electing Gwynfor Evans as Plaid Cymru’s first MP. Gwynfor made a historic broadcast announcing Wales was still alive, in it he said: “We’re not puppets at the mercy of economic forces, we can control events, we can control economics and we can control politics - they should serve our community, no destroy it.”

Gwynfor went to London alone for Wales, swimming against the tide of the Labour movement in Wales but he wouldn’t be silenced. My party, Plaid Cymru, has delivered so much in government over the last few years which we should be proud of, not least the referendum. But we shouldn’t lose sight of our history, for most of it we have been outside the mainstream and alone in calling for Welsh solutions for all of the people of Wales.

We should learn from our own history that opinion changes, sometimes quickly and sometimes there’s slow progress but if we don’t lead the debate it won’t ever happen.

Wales looks set to vote Labour to ‘protect us from the Tories but it’s another false dawn for the people of Wales, there’s only one way to liberate ourselves from colonial capitalism and that’s independence. 

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