It's 10 years since the Lib Dem-Tory austerity coalition birthed Brexit and our brutal tribalism

'Penderyn' - Since Dafydd Iwan, former President of Plaid Cymru, for which Party this chap from Kidderminster left his English heritage, to stand as representative for Ceredigion in the 2015 General Election, is on record as characterising Mr Parker as holding 'outspoken left-field radical views' I feel no confusion whatever concerning my opinion of this gentleman's politics, and consequently no compunction in declining to alter my view that he was a Red Marxist masquerading as 'Y Ddraig Goch.' The Welsh electorate soon penetrated that disguise, and declined to elect him. I will also take this opportunity to address the simple-minded approach of 'O.R' (below) who assumes that one cannot acknowlege loyalty to both a United Kingdom and to a devolved Wales. Were I to have been spied flaunting the Flag of St. George here at home in Wales, I would with reason and justice have been put beyond the (Welsh) Pale. But isn't the traditional Union Jack actually a more authentic part of the organic growth and history of these Islands, that we now share with tolerable amity, than - say - some tasteless decorative addition of an artificial bureaucratic pretension from abroad? Both of you gentlemen have made the typically obtuse error of those of a sinister bias in imputing simple idiocy to anyone who chooses not to subscribe to your political solipsism. Neither in my sense of Britishness nor in my love of Wales do I require any lectures. You are both merely impertinent and of no perceptible importance.

It's the Union Flag, commonly known as the Union Jack, which includes Wales by dint of the fact that Wales was effectively abolished in 1536, with it being reitierated again in 1542 for good measure. Good job no-one told the Welsh, who just carried on being Welsh. People like Philip Davies may be proud of being Welsh, but that doesn't mean that the Welsh are proud about individuals like Philip Davies being in their midst. I personally detest seeing the Union Flag flying, not because of it's current significance but because of its representation of empire and what that empire did to countless millions of people. As for Mike Parker being a Marxist - it's risible. I've read much of what Mr Parker has written, and most of it shows an insight of the kind that would make any true Marxist run a mile screaming and he has managed to get away with telling truths that no indigenous member of the national movement would ever be allowed to get away with. And for the hard of thinking, Mike Parker was more bemoaning the decline of liberalism, not the LibDems who, in Wales at least, had inherited the radical, liberal politics as espoused by that party for most of the 19th century. Mike Parker is no more influenced by Marxism than any of the rest of us.

And there's me thinking we'd taken down that washed-out blue rag, and put our traditional Union Flag back up. It's quite colourful - you can't miss it - - - Unless you shut your eyes and pretend it isn't there.

And there's me thinking we'd just rescued Britain from becoming no more than an increasingly marginalised Region of the EU bloc, and put ourselves on the road to being once more an independent participant in global affairs. Its that scledrotic entity in Brussels that 's looking increasingly parochial and irrelevant with it's small-minded and petty bureaucracy. No doubt you will tell me now that I can't be Welsh unless I kow-tow to that manipulative and sinister club in Brussels? And no doubt your coup-de-grace will be to dismiss me as an anti-European deplorable - though I've never objected to the Continent of Europe, nor to the great heritage and worldwide influence of the countries and the shared Western culture of that vast and various continent. But if you think the Sais are bad neighbours, well you should really look at the political attitude throughout history of all the different bigger European countries towards their smaller nations and regions - right up to today. Do you really think that Wales would be better off depending on a Brussels that (for instance) backed Spain's politically recidivist Francoism in it's savage recent response to the Catalonian movement for national identity? And in Brittany, France still suppresses the Basque language: no language Act there to establish legal parity, as there is in Wales. By contrast, even the descendants of the transported poor in Australia still recognise the British Crown as a member of the British Commonwealth of Nations - and it certainly hasn't done their modern development or robust sense of national pride any harm! But in Wales we seem hell-bent on following the Irish model of eternal friction and bitterness. That is a recipe for violence - a bit of an aphrodisiac for some politicians, I know. And really, calling England a 'foreign power' and believing Wales could stand alongside her great neighbours as an international equal is the kind of thinking that had it's last chance of success during the age that gave rise to the great Owen Glyndwr. If you won't grant even an United Britain the possibility of such independence today, how on earth do you justify little Wales chancing it? And if you propose that membership in the EU apart from the UK would be (a) possible or (b) even amount to anything resembling independence, then you are deluding yourself. Our old resentments in Wales are understandable: the ancient scars still give us occasional twinges; and there is always going to be ignorant provocation from the worst sort of English thickoes; but sinking to the level of that sort of gutter politics of hatred against a country we have essential links with would actually be suicide for this small Nation. The romantic memory of Glyndwr's brief swashbuckling glory is one of the glorious might-have-been's of history, but today's more prosaic demands must be met. And with a real measure of independence in our Senedd surely we can achieve what is more important than even power, which is prosperity, along with the love and respect and prestige for her people and distinct culture that Wales continues to win from all over the world - governed under the Crown but certainly not grovelling to England! The long and the short of it is I intensely dislike the tone of Nation Cymru, which reminds me too much of ranting student politics. So don't bother voting me down - I'm off out of this nauseous little clique of mutually admiring backscratchers.

What an odd series of comments from Mr Davies. It amounts to the mid 80s head patting 'I know it hurts but when you grow up you will understand' patronising with ever so slightly more ground given to our cause (glyndwrs noble aims etc). Good to see the usual divide and conquer tactic of politicising support for independence though (leftism, plaid, nazis, plaid), but nothing new or very interesting here. No sense of introspection at being a brexit supporter who does not support further separation for Wales DESPITE admitting several times that we have a distinct identity. Time for us to poke some holes instead of constantly justifying our position. We have an extraordinary claim and have been providing decades worth of extraordinary evidence. Your turn, and please, show your work for extra credit.

Centre-right myself, I dislike the far left just as I dislike the populists as they have come to be known, whatever it says in your dictionary.

Indeed. But that was just one instance of a whole sequence of serial ineptitudes.