The invention of Wales

Jan Morris, a writer, became a fervent Welsh nationalist in her dotage. In one of her lesser-known works, she imagined an independent Wales in the mists of the 21st century. Its capital was Machynlleth, a small town of 2,163 people in the middle of Wales. For it was here that Owain Glyndŵr, a 15th-century Welsh soldier, set up shop after rebelling against the English and briefly achieving the “fulfilment of Wales”.

Even in the hands of a writer like Morris, an imagined tale of Welsh independence was a tough sell. Her publishers had warned her: a Scottish figure would have a “larger sales potential”, they said. It was the only work she published that failed to elicit a single letter from readers. In Machynlleth today, the site of Owain’s parliament hosts a small museum dedicated to the Welsh prince and “Caffi Glyndŵr”, a coffee shop with a logo of Prince Owain holding a sausage triumphantly aloft.

Come May, however, an idea that was once Morris’s most fevered imagining will take a step towards reality. Plaid Cymru, which supports independence, will probably emerge as the largest party in Senedd elections. About 32% of the Welsh population would support independence, says More In Common, a pollster. Barely a decade ago, support struggled to get into double figures, putting independence in the “Elvis is alive” bracket of public opinion. Now it stands roughly where Scottish voters were before their referendum in 2014, setting off years of constitutional wrangling.

Yet, still, an independent Wales is almost impossible to imagine for people other than Morris. For an ancient place, Wales is a modern beast. Its trappings of statehood are young. Cardiff was made its capital in 1955. Its flag was recognised in 1959. The border did not reach its current form until 1974. Its parliament, introduced in 1999, has enjoyed full lawmaking powers only since 2011.

What powers the Welsh government does wield are the soft edges of statehood. It controls education and health and (some) transport. The sharp parts—sending people to prison, for instance—are kept in London. Scottish independence would be a matter of institutional archaeology, digging out what has always been there. When it melded with England, Scotland clung to its symbols of statehood: its church, its legal system and its education system. In Wales, independence is a matter of institutional invention, building something that has not—Prince Owain’s efforts aside—really existed before.

Things have shifted. Even though a majority of Welsh voters (unlike Scottish ones) supported Brexit, that referendum in 2016 triggered a jolt in the number of people identifying as Welsh only. Soon after, covid-19 offered an aperitif of statehood. The border, so malleable throughout history, became firm. Mark Drakeford, the then Labour first minister and a bicycle-riding, clarinet-playing, baggy-jumper-wearing fellow, threatened to stop people from entering Wales from England. Why should second-home owners from another country be free to spread the virus in my country?

Traditionally, one thing stood in the way of Welsh independence: the Welsh. Voters rejected a devolved parliament by four to one in a referendum in 1979. Watered-down versions of devolution struggled. In 1997 barely 50.3% of Welsh voters supported the Welsh Assembly. Abolitionists, who wish to return power to Westminster from Cardiff, are still a noisy minority.

Even Welsh separatists were not big on separatism. For much of its existence, Plaid Cymru avoided the “I” word. Keeping Welsh civilisation—particularly its rich language—alive and free was far more important than vulgar political power, argued Saunders Lewis, one of the party’s co-founders. It officially added “independence” to its constitutional goals only in 2003, points out Richard Wyn Jones of Cardiff University. In many respects, they are still unbothered. About 2% of Welsh people consider independence the main priority for any incoming government, says More In Common. This rises to only 3% among Plaid supporters.

Despite the surge in support for it, independence is incidental to Plaid Cymru’s rise. The party is a Schelling point around which progressive voters who hate the idea of Nigel Farage’s Reform UK in power in either Wales or Westminster can form. An independent Wales is, however, the preferred destination of any country run by Plaid Cymru. Ignoring that is the political equivalent of reading Playboy for the articles and being surprised to discover a naked woman on the next page. Harri Webb, a Welsh nationalist and poet, declared—a touch prematurely—in the 1970s: “Wales is marching backwards into independence, everybody desperately pretending that we are going somewhere else.”

Such inertia is a powerful force in politics. Not that many in Westminster appreciate it. The idea of Scottish independence furrows brows; the idea of Welsh independence triggers giggles. “I think it is far more likely that Wales will leave the union before Scotland does,” argues Lauren McEvatt, a former Tory special adviser to the Wales Office, in comments gleefully circulated by independence campaigners. Not due to any colossal constitutional fight, but a mixture of neglect, mild contempt and mockery taking its toll, eventually.

British politics has entered a centrifugal period. After the May elections each devolved part of the United Kingdom will be run by a party seeking its abolition. In Northern Ireland Sinn Fein, whose leaders were once deemed such a threat to the British state that the sound of their voices was banned, is the largest party in the province. The SNP is about to enter its third decade in power north of the border. Even after an array of SNP scandals, independence now enjoys a slim lead in most recent polls. And in Wales a once-strange literary dream slowly turns into an even weirder reality. ■