Confronting the UK’s constitutional crisis — Part II: taming the Welsh dragon
This is the second in a series of articles which explores the approaching constitutional crises confronting the United Kingdom. You can read the first article, which deals with Scottish independence, here.
Wales has produced some of Britain’s finest actors: Richard Burton, Anthony Hopkins and Michael Sheen all grew up in South Wales. During his illustrious career, Sheen has skilfully portrayed famous Englishmen including Nixon-inquisitor David Frost, the grinning Tony Blair (whom he has played three times) and the legendary football manager Brian Clough. Having cemented his status as a member of Britain’s cultural establishment, Sheen was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 2009. Yet during an online interview with Owen Jones last December, the Welsh Hollywood actor announced that he had handed his OBE back:
“I just realised I’d be a hypocrite if I said the things I was going to say in the lecture about the nature of the relationship between Wales and the British state.”
He went on to describe his ‘political awakening’ and criticised Unionists by likening their arguments to those used by an abusive partner in a rotten relationship:
“You wouldn’t be able to survive on your own. You aren’t strong enough or clever enough, or resourceful enough to be able to survive outside this relationship.”
The troubling re-emergence of sectarian violence in Northern Ireland and the personality politics of Nicola Sturgeon and Alex Salmond in Scotland may be dominating the headlines, but something is stirring in Wales. The pro-independence campaign YesCymru had 2,000 members a year ago; now it has more than 17,000. YesCymru’s latest polling with YouGov suggested as many as 33% of Welsh people would support independence — an unprecedented proportion. While independence remains a minority position in Wales, it is a minority that is no longer confined to the fringes of the political debate on Wales’s constitutional future.
Wales was last independent in 1282, when Edward I of England finally defeated the Prince of Wales, Llywelyn the Last, and the two nations have been constitutionally entwined since the Act of Union 1536. But with their distinctive Celtic culture, the Welsh people enjoy a proud sense of nationhood that has existed for over 1500 years.
For a long time this identity struggled to find a voice loud enough to make a significant political impact. For much of the 20th century, Welsh nationalism — which often concentrated on the preservation of the Welsh language rather than advocating for independence — seemed a parochial business. Support for Welsh independence was reserved to rural, Welsh-speaking parts of North and West Wales and the nationalist party Plaid Cymru failed to win the hearts and minds of the South Welsh Valleys — the nation’s Labour-voting population centre. Support for independence duly hovered around 15% and, far from roaring, Welsh nationalism was a sleeping dragon.
Peter Mandelson, Tony Blair’s fabled spin doctor, once remarked that the people of South Wales “will always vote Labour because they have nowhere else to go”. Historically, the party has enjoyed fierce loyalty from its post-industrial heartlands and has won every general election in Wales since 1922. The devolved Welsh Assembly at Cardiff has also been dominated by Labour since the legislature’s inception in 1999.
But the tectonic plates of Welsh politics are moving. Michael Sheen’s announcement that he is “indy-curious” — the term used for people entertaining the possibility of voting to leave the United Kingdom — is indicative of the shifting attitude away from unionism among Labour voters in South Wales.
Like in Scotland, Brexit has played a part in this. Although Wales voted to leave the European Union in 2016, the bickering and paralysis at Westminster afterwards was a turn-off. Brexit has acted as a constitutional reset in voters’ minds and old certainties are being questioned. It is notable that the younger, more pro-European voters are the most pro-independent — a ComRes poll last month found 45% of 16–24-year-olds favoured independence.
Another reason is the Welsh government’s perceived competence in its handling of the coronavirus crisis which has given the Welsh people a much greater belief in the virtues of self-government. Mark Drakeford, First Minister of Wales and leader of the Welsh Labour party, has won plaudits for much of his work overseeing the country’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic. This has stood at odds with Boris Johnson’s rather haphazard approach which has acted as a wedge between England and Wales. “Boris Johnson is acting as the prime minister of England, not the UK,” said Peter Hain, a Welsh Labour peer.
In response to the changing weather, Mr. Drakeford has shifted Welsh Labour’s stance away from unequivocal support for the Union. Speaking to the Welsh Affairs Select Committee he said:
“We have to recognise that the Union as we know it is over. We have to create a new Union.”
What this “new Union” would precisely involve is unclear but Welsh Labour’s manifesto promises to work for a “new and successful United Kingdom, based on a far-reaching federalism” and that it will establish an independent commission to consider the constitutional future of Wales.
Notwithstanding Mr. Drakeford’s emphasis on constitutional reform, support for Labour is wavering. Last month an opinion poll found that just 32% of Welsh voters would back Labour at the upcoming Senedd election. If these results play out in May, YouGov puts the party on course to win just 22 out of the available 60 seats — the worst result in its history — which could force Labour into a coalition with Plaid Cymru. In a first for the party, Plaid Cymru has promised to hold an independence referendum within five years if the party wins a majority, and the nationalists may earmark their constitutional agenda as a precondition to any agreement with Labour.
However, like in Scotland, the Welsh government would first require a transfer of legislative competence from Westminster in order to hold a referendum. This could come either by way of primary legislation passed by the UK parliament, or by an Order in Council from the UK government. The process of requesting the necessary powers to lawfully hold a referendum in Wales is broadly similar to the procedure followed in Scotland under what is known as a “section 30 Order” — the necessary statutory framework for Wales is contained under section 109 of the Government of Wales Act 2006. Due to final legal authority residing with Westminster, however, the UK government is under no legal obligation to transfer such powers to the Senedd.
The immediate threat of Welsh independence should not be overblown. Unlike the SNP in Scotland, Plaid Cymru do not command the support of the majority of Welsh people and the party is only predicted to gain around 23% of the vote at the Senedd elections in May. Nor are the majority Welsh people yet convinced by Welsh independence.
But the recent surge in support shows that Welsh membership of the Union should not be taken for granted. Scottish independence may trigger a domino effect that would push Wales out of the Union. What would have been unimaginable only a few years ago may yet come to pass.
Nick Gill is a solicitor at a City law firm and a politics graduate, with interests in constitutional and public law.
