Why the Welsh national movement needs Brexit voters

flag needs scotch input, then would be fantastic

Very well written article which articulates many valid points My question would be, is Yes Cymru open to the arguments presented above? (The small 'c' issues which many in Wales support) My assumptions of Plaid and the independence movement have been that they are too far left for mine (and the the majority of the public's)

Hit the nail on the head there, bang on without the S E of Wales and Valleys there is no hope for Independence. Leanne and PC banging on about socialism is completely the wrong tack. Preach communitarianism rather than out of date socialism which puts off people as they think that the state is planning to take their hard earned money off them in higher taxes. People want to look after their communities and care for their fellow man/woman , so work on that not trendy lefty issues suited to Corbyn's Labour . Anyway how can PC be to the left of Corbyn? that's a nuts stance to take.

What is too far left exactly? Please explain chiefofwales.

You forgot what could be the radical stimulus for all this. Restoration of Welsh Law. The economic and social benefits it would bring, as excellently argued in the document below. http://sites.cardiff.ac.uk/wgc/files/2015/11/Publisher-version-of-Pamphletfinal.pdf

I agree, but it's full of conundrums that need to be solved - not least in terms of some of the Brexit issues that have been raised - trading relationships with the EU, currency (tieing to the Euro is the simplest option, but perhaps unpalatable for many), customs arrangements etc etc. Also, I personally could never compromise or cave in to the darker side of Brexit - hostility to ethic minorities and others etc. If we are going to throw sacred things out of the window, then this is a controversial, Devil's advocate sort of idea - Why don't we become more British than the English and strive for independence under Welsh and British banners?? I don't care much for the Union Jack, but only because of how I picture it historically, but maybe we should keep it???!!!. If I can be really controversial, then perhaps we should appropriate it and if that's too much to bear then maybe modify it to some degree?. (I do dislike the flag immensely and hard to write that one) This may sound a bit crazy, but I think it is possible to make it patriotically British to strive for Welsh independence - we can get back a Britain in the form of a part of Britain that Welsh people have always imagined and wanted? That flag is a problem, yes, but maybe part of the solution as well - it has been a well marketed symbol that has created an emotional bond with many in wales for generations. Also, many in Wales have very strong links to the armed forces etc and they have fought and died for Queen and Country under the banner of the Union Jack. We cannot disrespect that and have to address this issue and not simply reject it as un-Welsh, because I also suspect that we will never go anywhere until we do - it's not just the soldiers etc, it's their families, friends, teachers etc etc. I should point out, that I'm not someone who has links or emotional attachments to the British armed forces, but trying to be inclusive and pragmatic here and include others who I know and like and are just as much Welsh as I will ever be. We need to redefine what British means on our terms, for us here in Wales. The English will always remain British in an English way, but Welsh can be a very different sort of British (we are after all more entitled to the name than the English). At the end of the day, we can be independent, Welsh and British (our sense of British could be based on history obviously, but also with more modern elements for those that have no emotional attachments to the more distant history of these lands). I'm sure much of the above is flawed and trying to wonder if I could ever really get over a phobia of the Union Jack - maybe that's a step too far?

That flag is disgusting. Long Live the Republic!

The referendum gave us two choices: 1. no change, keep the status quo; 2. ignore the elites and their FUD and vote to shake up of the Establishment. The idea that those who voted in favour of the Establishment are more 'Welsh nationalist' in character is an illusion. Voting for no change is the very definition of a small 'c' conservative - yet you claim that "people most willing to change that rigged system" are the small 'c' conservatives. Are you deliberately trying to muddy the waters here or was that a typo? You write, "If the Welsh national movement doesn’t offer it to them [Leave voters], they will turn to the imperial nationalism of the Farages and Trumps of this world instead." In other words, people who voted Leave are 'low information' (stupid) people who will follow anyone. This is the exact line that anti-democratic elitists like Tony Blair espouses. Your characterisation of the Welsh national movement as "middle-class, mainly Welsh-speaking, socialist movement" is more of a characterisation of Plaid Cymru members and supporters. Republican Welsh nationalism and the desire for deep systemic change has always come from the south Wales valleys, whether Welsh speaking or not. You trot out the idea that Wales will be economically damaged after the UK leaves the EU in 2 to 5 years time as if it is an established fact. If it were fact, how is it that that Isle of Mann, (that has never been in the EU) is doing so much better than us economically than us?. Membership of the EU is not a recipe for a prosperous economy. If you look at what is happening on the continent, the opposite appears to be more likely. I have talked to a lot of people since the referendum, Leave and Remain voters. By and large, the less one knows about how the EU actually functions and its effects, the more likely one was to vote Remain. The same would probably hold true in a referendum for Leaving the UK. It would be the small 'c' Remainers that would have to be informed and convinced. Sorry Ifan, I know you want to explain and justify you and your friends' choice to vote for no change on June 23, but your argument makes no sense when examined carefully - apart for your last statement - suggesting a new Welsh political party. A new political movement in Wales is indeed needed if we are to direct the Welsh anti-establishment sensibilities towards and independent Wales. Leaving the EU was step 1. Leaving the UK is step 2.

Fair play Trailor Boy, whilst what you say does make me feel uncomfortable, it is this sort of thinking (outside the box) which will help to achieve our aims. Personally, I am fed up of seeing the same old ideas year after year never going anywhere

Carwyn Jones nonchalantly making the claim for independence in the 'Justice for Wales' document. Yes Carwyn, divergence should be seen as an opportunity. In 2009, the First Minister Carwyn Jones AM (then Counsel General), spoke of a ‘Devolution Dividend’ for the legal profession in Wales. Public and administrative law linked to devolution should be a ‘growth area of work’. Divergence should be seen as an opportunity: ‘The law of Wales will be different and firms can advise English clients in this.’ Welsh law and a legal system might mean that: ‘Economic and social advantages…flow from developing the legal profession in Wales and in the development of law that is suited to the particular situation in Wales.’ We agree.

Some sweeping assertions there Ifan - most notably the statement that "if Wales is to become independent (and it’s a big if) it’s more likely to do so via a small ‘c’ conservative movement than a left-wing, socialist one". It would have been nice to have seen some psephological evidence to back this claim up, as all existing evidence of political attitudes would seem to show the complete opposite of this. Conservative voters - big c or small c - tend to vote for conservative parties, and in wales this now means the tories and ukip - parties based on maintaining the 'union'. Hardly fertile territory for the welsh independence movement. Also not sure why you assert that wales is a 'socially conservative' country. Yes this may have been true of the wales which existed 50 or 60 years ago but looking at contemporary wales i see no evidence to support such a view. Where it's impossible to disagree with you however is when you say the welsh national movement needs brexit voters - with 52 percent in wales voting to leave the eu last year no serious political movement can ignore so many people in its own country if it wants to realise its objectives. As someone who was active in the referendum (like you i supported the remain side) my experience was people voted to leave the eu for a number of reasons. Many working class voters in particular wanted to give david cameron and george osborne a kick in after years of tory imposed austerity. Some people voted to leave as a result of concerns over what they saw as the undue influence of unelected commissioners in making decisions in the eu. Certainly it seemed a great many voted to leave because they felt immigration from the eu should be controlled and it seemed a significant number of those in wales who voted voted leave did so because they wanted to assert 'british sovereignty'. And therein lies a big problem for our campaign. How are we going to persuade those for whom british sovereignty is paramount to support welsh indy? Because if we get our way there will be no 'great britain' - the cherished 'union' will cease to exist , it's a conundrum those in the indy movement who supported brexit (yes there were a few) have never been able to satisfactorily answer when i have presented it to them.

The problem in your analysis is that Leavers were not the revolutionaries smashing the status quo you are painting them as. They voted for the emotional status quo. After decades of talk of the EU as something alien, many felt the referendum was a joining one. They voted for isolation because that's how they had always felt and were told to feel. So yes, conservatives voted Leave, and in order to uphold the status quo.

You have excelled yourself. This sentence alone encapsulates what is wrong with the self-elected left-green 'leadership of a non-national movement. (Movement!) "The contradiction at the heart of the Welsh national movement is that it’s a middle-class, mainly Welsh-speaking, socialist movement in a mostly working class, English-speaking, socially conservative country." But then, I would agree, seeing as I've been saying the same thing for decades. Here's a link to my post explaining why I voted for Brexit. http://jacothenorth.net/blog/eu-referendum-i-want/

Completely agree with everything you've said. The realisation we need Welsh "c"'s is a major stepping stone to making any kind of progress towards Independence. I do genuinely believe that the Welsh Leave vote was true to Welsh identity (I voted Remain, should say) - when the results were confirmed in those early hours and I just couldn't understand how so many people were sold on it. But then I thought "David Cameron was a Tory Prime Minister asking the people of Britain to remain" - and that is why I suspect many people voted leave. The most basic instinct in the valleys is "What the Tories want cannot be good for us". Its just one more case of Wales going against the establishment as we have always done - regardless of the consequences. It needs to be inclusive not exclusive. Saunders Lewis was a staunch "c" - and in the early days the Welsh movement was formed to conserve our identity - that was the founding principle of Welsh nationalism. But its not just needing the small conservatives now - its about us needing them in a post-Independence situation as well - because nations who are not nor have been ruled by Britain are still under threat from cultural Imperialism that the UK and USA exude. Everyone needs to stop trying to add all these labels to being Welsh. The only thing in this country the majority conform too (because we're all naturally non-conformists) is the label of being Welsh. Nothing more, nothing less. Thats where it needs to start... or be restarted too.

With output per head in the Welsh economy at only 72% of the U.K. average we are placed as the poorest part of the U.K. The GVA per head in Wales is rock bottom, owing to a lower participation rate in the workforce. This is the result of a massive elderly immigration. Also sick and disabled are being offloaded here to social housing from over the border. What do we need? Education and Taxation are Key. We need to spend at least as much on the education of our school children as they do in England, not much less as has been the case for some time. This is because the Welsh budget is having to share its resources between Health and Education. Health predominates because of the elderly immigrants etc. While we have a comparatively large number of school leavers with no qualification whatsoever. We need home grown, well educated, entrepreneurs and they need tax incentives. Control of Corporation Tax is a must. Ireland is so much wealthier than us in Wales, over twice as much. Ireland has a highly competitive Corporation Tax of 12.5% and one of the most highly educated work forces on Europe. Oh and it's independent.

Brexit was billed by Mr Farage as the UK’s independence day- an event, which would be a starting point for a new direction of travel. However, what we have is a process and a process which colours and will continue to colour (or cast its shadow if you prefer) over political debate for the foreseeable future;-devolution and the independence debate included. Dissatisfaction with the status quo may well have a reason why some people voted for the UK to leave the EU. It is certainly true that very many people in Wales and other parts of the UK have very good reasons to be dissatisfied with their lot. There have been many examples of movements being able to channel the discontents of the populace and the creation of the internet and our relationship with the virtual world has made it much easier to whip up support. The problem is, when you stir the depths, what comes to surface is often unpredictable. We release the flame bearers and the Id monsters of the internet into the real world at our peril. The independence debate must stress positive visions : a Wales with people and communities who are the economic or political dependency of no one, a country that doesn’t have to poach its healthcare staff from impoverished countries and regions; a country that supports the personal development of its people; a country that embraces and masters technological change; an internationalist Wales; a country punching above its weight in the solution of the problems that face the future of humanity; a country with pride, not in waving a flag, but listing the achievements of its people.

The idea that Brexit voters suddenly go to Welsh nationalists because of "infrastructure spending" or low taxes for small business is not sound. Also, I keep seeing (online mostly) wishful thinking from some Welsh nationalists who want to convert the Brexit vote into a Welsh nationalist one. It absolutely was not a vote to create a Welsh state. And in fact, the limited evidence I have seen online from Yes Cymru suggests that nominal support for Welsh independence is linked to somehow staying in the EU, or trying to stop having a Conservative majority UK Government.

From what Ive seen YesCymru leans towards the Left, which is a problem. I wish them the best of luck, honestly, no sarcasm, deapite some being hippies.

Some great points made in this article. I also concur with Glasiad's succinct summary: Step 1 Leave the EU. Step 2 Leave the UK. Step 2 could not happen without Step 1. In fact, Step 1 is the historical trigger point which the Welsh national movement has been waiting for. The genie is now truly out of the bottle. We are starting from scratch. Step 2 is the logical end game. I think we will look back in a few years time and marvel at how England's Independence Campaign( which is what leaving the EU is to all intents and purposes) proved to be one of the clearest examples of the Law of Unintended Consequences- as it inadvertently led to our own Independence. There's an old Welsh saying :" Os na fydd gryf, bydd gyfrwys"( if you can't be strong,be canny). Wales can now sit back and watch England's Independence Campaign unfolding in front of us. Our hands will be clean. In the meantime, we wait, we plan and we dream our own Independence into existence. England, being England, with its delusional sense of Exceptionalism will probably foul it up big-time and alienate the rest of Europe in the process. It will be a crash TV event: of that there can be no doubt at all. This can allow the new Welsh national movement to persuade Brexit voters and Remain voters alike that their economic, social and cultural interests will be best served by an Independent Wales. For the life of me, I cannot understand why so many nationalists in Wales cannot see this, and have bought into this Liberal/Metropolitan disaster narrative, underpinned by this belief that Brexit was down to racism, a lack of education and prejudice. It just reeks of condescension and arrogance. Don't disrespect our own people! These were not just right-wing media fodder: their leave vote was an expression of their own lived experiences in their own comnunities for many, many years.. I agree with Ifan that an independent Wales would need to avoid any big state socialist model and encourage the growth of the private sector, enterprise and personal initiative based on a strong sense of Welsh identity. Let's remember that the success of other small nations such as Iceland, Norway, Denmark, Estonia etc are not predicated on Socialism. Their success is down to a strong sense of national identity which has in turned led to a thriving society and economy, where all citizens feel they have a stake in their country. Small is Beautiful! Daw dydd y bydd mawr y rhai bychain!

Yes, independence needs the support of Brexit supporters. But where does the jump to current indy supporters are less likely to vote indy come from? Economic determinism is an overused explanation. Experience suggests people vote what they believe as much as they vote for their economic interests (brexit being a classic example). If I believe indy, I'm going to vote indy regardless of the damage it does to my public sector university job. Aside from brexit voters, indy also requires a new economics. I for one am prepared to lose my professional salary and work towards new models of further and higher education and other parts of the public sector. The only thing holding us back from recreating those models along communitarian and peer-to-peer lines are a lack of imagination. It is not a question of whether we need left-wing supporters or small c conservative supporters: we need both. But the only way to bring them together will be through imaginative solutions.

The command economy experiment (Russia etc) has failed. Would we want someone or government controlling all aspects of our economy. Our first minister said, recently, through the 'Office of the First minister' (Prime minister in Welsh) that "there are almost 800,000 people aged 60 and over in Wales, over a quarter of the population, and,in the next twenty years, this is expected to exceed one million people. The fact that Wales is a nation of older people should be seen as something positive". We are older because elderly English retirees, which add a minimum of 50% to our own elderly population, make us the oldest country. This deprives our young people and diminishes our economic prospects. For some reason Aneurin Bevan comes to mind when he said "if the Prime minister is sincere in what he is saying, and he may be, he may be, then if he is sincere in what he is saying he is too stupid to be prime minister". So beware if you want those above us to control the economy in all its aspects. Home grown entrepreneurs sounds better.

It's great to see a consensus forming that a new Welsh national movement is now essential in what is an existential crisis for Wales. I have high hopes for Yes Cymru in this respect but i very much hope that they don't turn out to be another lefty/socialist echo chamber. Please put the Welsh national interest first! What Wales needs is a strong culture, society and economy based on a strong sense of national identity. A new national movement needs the old socialist shibboleths like a hole in the head.

"Argue that while immigration of skilled workers is a positive, free movement in and of itself can damage the cultural fabric of communities (English as well as Welsh speaking) if not controlled." If this is the kind of Wales you want, you can count me out. The ‘threat’ of immigration has been built up over decades out of pretty much nothing. It is a colossal lie that distracts people from the things that are really important in life, particularly in Wales which has such incredibly low levels of non-UK inward migration. Follow this narrative and it only leads one way – to hatred, discord and scapegoating. More to the point, evidence suggests that fear of immigration is largely concentrated among baby-boomers and the over-65s. If the cause of Wales becomes associated with parochial xenophobia, legions of young Welsh people will want nothing more than to leave it all behind. As a second point, I really don’t buy the idea that the Welsh political middle class has too much to lose from independence. If anything, our civil service would need to be much larger to make an independent Wales viable. Independence offers a world of opportunity for those people. Wales’ problem – which has been a problem for centuries – is that our middle class is nowhere near big enough. A middle class is made up of many things, including intellectuals, businesspeople and civil servants. To try and build up one aspect by undermining another will not create the engine for political change, it will just lead to the concentration of economic power in the hands of a rentier class who care nothing for politics or culture or the nation. Finally, the idea of 'spending less on the public sector' as a means to achieving independence is hugely problematic. It won't hurt civil servants anywhere near as much as it will hurt the working class people who rely on public services the most - particularly the elderly and people living in the valleys. By all means, the low-tax Celtic Tiger model might provide a blueprint for post-independence economic development, but independence will be a hard sell if it is associated with a decrease in living standards and the closing of schools and doctors surgeries.

One of the most cogent and sensible articles on the subject I've read in a long time. I was a Plaid Cymru member during the Dafydd Wigley era, and would describe myself as a right-of-centre Welsh Nationalist. Not a single one of the Welsh 'mainstream' parties represent me, so I vote UKIP: enthusiastically in 2015, reluctantly this year, and of course in between the two general elections I voted Leave. I cannot think of a single argument for Brexit which is not also just as good an argument for Welsh independence, and vice versa; I want the one for the same reasons as I want the other, namely to get Wales out from under a massive bureaucracy run by people who don't care a jot about us, and to be able to trade with the world on our own terms. Naturally I think we have the best chance of doing so successfully, and so increase the country's prosperity across the board, if a future independent Welsh government followed right-of-centre policies with low taxes, low regulation, minimal government interference in the economy and a small state. Therefore I've been in despair at the direction that Plaid Cymru in particular, and the Nationalist movement in general, has been taking since Dafydd Wigley stepped down. This article has given me a glimmer of hope.

The issues that motivate Brexit supporters and those that motivate Welsh nationalists are not mutually contradictory. Some overlap, e.g. the desire to protect Welsh culture and the Welsh language from the threat of massive demographic change emanating from both England and the EU and promoted by their respective rulers. Brexit supporters were, as far as I can see, voting for Britain but equally for Wales. They will be far less of a problem to hopes of Welsh sovereignty than those like the liberal elite who work to promote a globalist agenda.

I was a Plaid member and voted Brexit. No longer. My MP revealed himself as a virtue-signalling anti-democrat when he voted in Parliament for a second referendum. Wales has been sucking off the tit of Europe for too long and it has got us nowhere. When we have no-one else to blame, and begin to restore pride based on our abilities, rather than our "grudge" identity as "not English", then we will make progress. Until then, let's talk about about anything other than the real issues and go to the Eisteddfod for a bit of nostalgia.