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Thursday 25 October 2012 - 06:13

Scots independence: is Wales next?

Story Code : 206505
Scots independence: is Wales next?
“It certainly couldn’t carry on as it is now. You can’t just take Scotland out and expect the UK to continue as before,” Jones said back in January.

However, the Welsh political attitude toward independence became further complicated later when Jones made it clear that the radical constitutional rethink he sought was short of independence.

Although, Welsh nationalist party Plaid Cymru was - and is -- calling for a fully independent Wales, opinion polls including by the BBC showed the Welsh support for independence is as low as seven percent.

Now the question remains with many politicians and an overwhelming majority of people rejecting full independence what is the real relation between Britain and Wales that persuades Jones to compare the situation with a Scotland seeking full secession from Britain.

The answer lies in the identity and the apparent appetite among the Welsh to maintain some form of self-determination that protects that identity.

Back in June, the Welsh Nationalism Foundation think tank quoted a poll conducted by the organization British Future that although Welsh people do not want independence, many of them desire to be clearly distinguished from the British.

The think tank said 21 percent of the people in Wales consider themselves to be Welsh as opposed to British.

Another 22 percent considered themselves to be more Welsh than British and 15 percent as either more British than Welsh or British but not Welsh.

Syd Morgan, of the Welsh Nationalism Foundation said while there was a “multiplicity of identities”, figures were “constantly changing towards the kind of welsh only, or Welsh more than British identity.”

The identity issue as reflected in the poll’s results was also clearly seen during the 2012 summer Olympic Games in London.

Back in July and ahead of England’s Olympic football match against Uruguay, veteran Welsh footballer Ryan Giggs asked Welsh spectators not to boo British national anthem “God Save the Queen” when it would have been played before the match at the Millennium Stadium in the welsh capital of Cardiff.

The stadium had spelled disgrace for Britain the previous March when spectators booed the British national anthem that was played in place of their own anthem, Land of My Fathers, before an England Euro 2012 qualifier.

The identity question took the spotlight again in the first week of August this year.

Mehdi Hassan, the senior journalist who is a regular contributor to British and Scottish newspapers including The Guardian and The New Statesman, said at the time that the monarchist character of the British national anthem has persuaded him not to sing it, a sentiment the Welsh answering the afore-mentioned identity poll would probably share.

What was mentioned seems to boil down to the Welsh being in the process of a fight to gain recognition of their distinct identity probably embodied in a distinct language the Welsh pride themselves in protecting, in a likely first step toward a future bid for political independence.

After all, Scotland and the SNP have built up their independence bid on a proud history of fighting British domination that goes back as far as 700 years ago.

They also have the distinct identity the Welsh are fighting for: after all the United Kingdom was formed following the 1707 Acts of Union between the kingdoms of Scotland and England.

The Welsh appear to need a similar basis, an identity to build support for independence around it.
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