Wales must stop asking for help and demand the tools to help ourselves

It wont make any difference come march 2019. Rural wales will be more stuffed than any other part of the uk.

Bron a bod 'na. At last, some tan yn y bol! Llongyfarchiadau oddi wrth y Jonathan Edwards arall, gynt o Gaerfyrddin a Chaerdydd. It should be much better understood that Wales can be self-sufficient if we keep some or all of our own taxes, At last a politician is saying this. We just need more. (That I should have to prod the other Plaid Cymru MPs and AMs in this way shows part of the problem.) We ask, they will not give. So Namesake MP says we must "demand". Yes indeed. This is the other part of the problem. We in Wales must find a better way of "demanding" because what ever we're doing now ain't working. How do we demand? Ask Labour nicely to do it for us? Bit of civil disobedience, Gandhi-style, like blocking the tolls on the Severn Bridge for a shocking 10 minutes? Historically, take North Carolina for example, this is how they did it in 1770s. Public meeting after public meeting. Then area meetings then State-wide meetings which were more like Conventions. Then actual Conventions. Took a while but then the British gave up. They also fought some pitched battles but I don't think the English will take it that far. Meeting-wise I think Wales can do it in the same way, except that now we have the internet. The key thing is tan yn y bol, and a Movement nationwide. Keep this up Jonathan Edwards MP. PS - just a word about tourism. Having left Carmarthen and Cardiff, my base in Wales is in N.Pembrokeshire back in the family patch. Please, please don't cut VAT just for tourism. It is not the answer. Please put any spare money into an industry with a higher return. Anything's better than tourism, low wage, part time, seasonal just for starters. How about an Air Wales (again) or a Wales Shipping line, Welsh Retail bank network? Anything but hoovering and cutting hedges and frying chips and pulling pints brewed in Wolverhampton..

A good article. I guess it's in the interests of British unionists (and others) to keep Wales relatively poor lest we get ideas above our station. Scotland has been able to demand a better devolution settlement and until we organise similarly ,and with an independence agenda at the forefront, then we will continue to be ignored (or at best thrown a few crumbs). I don't agree with cutting vat on tourism (although we should be able to keep any revenue arising in Wales). A separate (additional?) Wales tourism tax would perhaps be a good with all revenues used in the local communities where the money is raised. Communities that are impacted by ever increasing visitor numbers with all the negatives that can bring (traffic, pollution, noise, second homers, low paid and temporary jobs etc, etc). There are some positives of course but I feel visitors would generally be happy to pay to offset some of the inevitable negative consequences of their visits and local communities would get some sort of compensation by way of infrastructure improvement, repairs etc. Surely this would be more sustainable tourism (PC could perhaps see this as a potential vote winner and maybe consult with locals on this). Should we ever get wider fiscal powers then perhaps cutting corporation taxes in Wales would help attract businesses and jobs here (with incentives to set up in most deprived areas). Diolch.

At last a leading Plaid representative shows a willingness to shed the old begging bowl posture and sow some seeds of financial independence. Da iawn. I sincerely hope that this is catching among other leading Plaid representatives who have struck a pretty persistent bleating note for too long about not enough in the handout envelopes. Financial independence will put a stop eventually to the flow of revenues out of Wales. Not just the assorted taxes but the "free issue" water and energy services that leave here at cost and get sold back to us at full whack - nice work if you can get it, but it should be within our powers to put a stop to that nonsense.

"What will the Chancellor do, for example to deal with the 35% gulf between what workers are paid in Wales and what they are paid in London? What will he do to make sure businesses are attracted to Wales so that not only are there more jobs created, but better paid jobs are created? And what will he do to honour those promises made to the people of Wales during the Brexit campaign – that we would continue to receive every penny of existing EU funding after we leave?" Well, the short answer is nothing and the long answer is make it all worse. Devolution only works if it is an ongoing process, bringing more and more areas of our lives into the decision making capacity of the Assembly and the Welsh Government. But at some point we do have to address the point of where the money comes from and how it is distributed. Unless I am thoroughly wrong the money raised in taxes from Wales of all sorts goes to Westminster and is then distributed around the UK, some to Wales' Scotland and Northern Ireland's governments, some to local authorities, some for distribution via Westminster Ministries and most to Westminster. If this continues then we are bound to a system that relies on us begging for money from the centre. What we need in the UK is a settlement that the money follows the "no taxation without representation" model and flows from the people of Wales to our Assembly and from there to the UK. So that we as a nation can subscribe to the UK (or not) and choose what we are willing to pay for. That means and end to the "precious, precious union". Quite how it is so precious escapes me, unless of course they mean "valuable income stream from a deliberately crippled subject population". So my question is this. How can we achieve this in Wales? We certainly can't fight a revolutionary war of independence. Which means we have to negotiate. Can we work to give us an organisation that we can negotiate with given that Corbyn and May lead statist, unionist organisations?

Erthygl gweddol: the thing is how to get the buggers to listen to us. J Edwards, just a touch of proofreading required; a change of tack perhaps . . .!

Can anyone justify historically just WHY we have such a rubbishy half hearted devo settlement compared to Scotland in the first place?

I know why - Welsh Labour.

Tax raising powers would be a good start. As mentioned that tax should stay in Wales. Wales badly needs investment, especially now EU funding is due to stop.

Striking isn't it. Two things stand out from this discussion. Hard power not soft power. Welsh legal jurisdiction. And a Welsh Treasury keeping Welsh taxes. Neither of these are a stretch because the bureaucracies are there. These are not pipe-dreams. But we all hold back. Because Labour says "No"? As I said "How (exactly) will Wales DEMAND?"

All fine except the proposed VAT reduction on tourism. We need cleverer taxation to benefit businesses which ate registered locally and where the majority of shareholders live within a reasonable distance of the trading address and registered office. Deliberately disadvantage the likes of Tesco, large accountancy firms and large holiday enterprises like Haven holiday parks, where the profits and tax receipts go elsewhere over businesses that actually benefit the local area and the owners have a real stake in the local area.

To really prosper, Wales needs its own national bank and money supply. That would really cut the purse strings that bind us to London. We already have the powers. The only thing holding us back is our lack of vision and courage. Plaid Cymru included.

“We could also then finally implement Plaid Cymru’s policy of cutting VAT for the tourism sector, boosting the economy and boosting jobs across all parts of Wales.” If Jonathan Edwards, or his party, believe that a successful economy can be built on low skill, low pay, often seasonal, tourism, then anything else they say can be disregarded. If he, or his party, are blind to the damage caused by tourism, then they do not have the best interests of Wales at heart.

I don't think Jonathan is suggesting that our whole economy will be built on tourism, only that the tourism sector should be supported (I presume he highlights tourism because of the recent tourism tax attacks from the Tories). This article is just about taking our own future into our own hands, to outline Plaid's route towards prosperity would require another article (or 50).

The most pertinent and pressing question is made not by the author of this article but rather by his namesake. It is impossible to answer the question without coming to the conclusion that our political institutions and our political representation is deficient in demanding anything. In fact if anything the vast majority of mp's voted in by the people of Wales are not voting in the interest of the Welsh people, economy, and democracy. The Wales bill which limited the powers of the devolved Senedd in many respects meaning we need permission for power projects such as the tidal lagoon, which embarrassingly we now have to beg and petition for. Until we as a electorate stop voting for a party or parties that do not protect our interests any other campaigns, protest campaigns, movements will be lacking in legitimacy. Labour in Wales is the problem, the stumbling block, they either by some miracle have an epiphany and unify mp's and AM's alike behind the cause of Wales or they are destroyed as a force in Welsh politics.