I went to the St David's Day parade on Sunday, joining the Yes Caerdydd group. There were lots of different people taking part and celebrating all things Cymru.
We started by City Hall, walked down to Caroline Street and back up to the castle, where there was a stage, some short speeches and a performance by Nia Tyler, who was recently on Y Llais on S4C.
I took loads of photos, including with a celebrity supporter of Welsh independence.
Everyone, meet Darwin. He's a giant tortoise.
I met Darwin on one of my best work days ever, filming behind the scenes at Cotswold Wildlife Park.
In the same week I visited Warrington to help support team members doing some filming there. The office is very near the Warrington Wolves rugby league stadium. (I took a pic but it's mainly of the car park so I'll spare you.)
Warrington wasn't my only northerly trip this month. Cathy and I went to see comedian Taylor Tomlinson in Manchester. We also had a look round the National Football Museum and met up with Connor.
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| No photos allowed during the show |
Another "giant" step, at least it feels like it for me, was joining a political party for the first time. I've blogged about becoming a member of Plaid Cymru and am enjoying getting stuck in. I also attended a Yes Cymru protest at the Senedd that was asking for the Crown Estate land in Wales to be devolved to the Welsh Government, to match the situation in Scotland where the Scottish Government has responsibility for it.
In between protests and political canvassing, I also got out on the Keep Grangetown Tidy litter pick (where a couple of lost footballs made it into my latest post about Lost Footballs) and went to the Penarth Model Railway show.
Speaking of footballs... I enjoyed watching the Women's Euros and England's gutsy underdog win. The new football season is starting up and I went to four games, including two trips across the border to see Barry play friendlies in England, Penybont's UEFA Conference League qualifier against Kauno Zalgiris, and Cardiff Draconians' first game in the Cymru South (the Welsh second tier).
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| Futbology badge! |
The Dracs have had to make some improvements to their ground and now have a new "supporter's entrance".
I've also invested in a Dracs season ticket, so you can expect to hear them mentioned quite a few times as the season goes on.
Back in 2020 I joined Yes Cymru, the independent movement for an Independent Wales. I'm still a member although the organisation has been through the mill and lost its edge a bit. However, I had yet to join in a March for Independence, so when I heard one was being organised for Barry I knew this was my chance to go along and take part.
My friends Sara and Leanne have been to a few of these marches, with their kids, and they took me under their wing for the day. We started out in the Indy Market looking at the various Annibyniaeth swag produced by a few different organisations. There were stalls from Plaid Cymru and the Green Party of Wales, as well as some social actions groups, the Felin Drafod think tank, face-painting for the kids, Barry Round Table selling hot dogs and burgers, other food vans and so on.
I ended up buying a t-shirt and a cap and collecting lots of free stickers and a couple of badges. I also got given a Flemish flag by one of the members of the Flemish independence movement. There was a sizeable group of them there in an overall crowd that was estimated (by the police) at 5,000-7,000 people.
After marching in a loop of Barry town centre, led by a large dragon puppet operated by someone inside it, we gathered in King Square for some short speeches. It got a bit warm on the march as the weather had turned surprisingly sunny (and I had a child on my shoulders for some of it!)
It being 'All Under One Banner' there were speeches from a couple of the political parties who were represented. But my favourite speaker was Anna Arque i Solsona, an independence campaigner from Catalonia.
Anna made the point that there are millions of people in the regions across Europe that are seeking greater autonomy and independence, it's not just a few people in Cymru seeking annibyniaeth. I was also impressed by how willing she was to have a go at saying a few sentences in Cymraeg. There was also a video shown with people from independence movements across Europe - from Sardinia to the different regions in Spain to South Tyrol and one or two I wasn't able to place geographically - and I found that very inspiring.
I've had several conversations with people over the past few years and the big question I get asked is 'Can Wales really survive on it's own'. But the way things are going in the UK, I'm not sure Wales can survive in the status quo. A couple of speakers referred to the UK as a failed state, and although that might be overstating it, it definitely feels like a failing state. The challenge is to generate enough hope that change can come and it will be change for the better.
While enjoying a trip to North Wales, I've noticed several pro-indy stickers. This one was well positioned near the entrance to Castell Caernarfon.
Yes Cymru stickers are common enough. However on a signpost in Llanberis there was a nice collection of stickers. Not sure what the Manchester City one was about, mind.
I'm interpreting that to mean even God has got behind the Indy movement.
Another review post, of yet another year that's been interesting politically...
In January the UK officially left the European Union. This
was Boris Johnson’s promise that won his party a majority in the 2019 General
Election – that he would “Get Brexit Done”. Except, of course, it wasn’t as
simple as that. There is a general reluctance to honestly assess the
problems the UK is facing as a result of Brexit. Instead the government line
seems to be that everything is going fine and if it’s not going fine, that’s
the fault of those pesky Europeans.
But there are loads of things that aren’t going fine.
Earlier this year there was a lot of coverage about the shortage of lorry
drivers, due to Brexit. There has been a steady stream of different businesses
that have been badly affected by new import and export barriers. More recently,
a trade deal with Australia looks like it is going to be a disaster for Welsh
farmers. We still don’t know what is going to happen with regards to Northern
Ireland where the peace agreements signed in the mid-90s are dependent on open
borders with the Republic. It’s all a mess and the people who are meant to be
sorting it out keep quitting.
Throughout the year there have also been revelations of
government sleaze and corruption at an unparalleled level. From Boris Johnson
purloining funds to pay for expensive flat furnishings, to preferential
treatment for political donors when emergency contracts related to the pandemic
were awarded, through to the media breaking story after story of government
ministers and advisors flouting covid restrictions and partying while the rest
of the country suffered, it seems to have been a non-stop train of grubbiness,
pilfering and backhanders.
This has led to an interesting phenomenon of a succession of
Tory ministers going out onto the interview circuit to peddle the official lie (sic) to try and mitigate public anger, only for new evidence to be presented, which
then prompts an admission that, yes, they have been naughty. The Prime Minister
doesn’t seem to care that he is making his loyal acolytes look like chumps time
after time. And yet he still seems to have a ready list of people willing to go
out and lie for him and then be exposed as liars themselves. Clearly they
aren’t that smart, that they keep doing it.
In comparison to the never-ending corruption circus in Westminster, the Welsh Government looks stable and boring, even. We had a Senedd election this year and everybody was surprised that Labour did as well as they did, retaining governmental power again.
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| Senedd election leaflets |
The Conservatives made gains too, at the expense of the various warring factions that used to be UKIP. I interpret that as evidence that the Tories are now very right wing, because they seem to have hoovered up those votes and hollowed out their opponents to the right.
Plaid Cymru didn’t make any gains in the Senedd, which was disappointing for people with a preference for Welsh Independence. It feels like much of the energy has been lost from the Independence movement. That may be due to lockdowns and living through the pandemic perma-crisis, but there has also been a lot of nastiness within the big independence organisation, Yes Cymru.
As the UK Government lurched from embarrassment to
embarrassment in 2020, Yes Cymru membership grew to 17,000. However, it had dropped to
less than 9,000 by the time of the vote on the future of the
organisation in early December 2021. There have been some long-running toxic rows
on Twitter. None of these rows are about the big questions of independence;
instead they have almost all been focused on trans rights and opinions held by
some people within the movement.
This seems to have completely derailed Yes Cymru as an organisation. I have heard some mutterings that the whole trans rights issue blew up after the UK Government formed a ‘Union Task Force’ to look at countering the growing independence movement. I feel it’s an overreach to claim the trans rights issue was a false flag used to splinter a progressive movement. Similar debates have taken place in the Green Party and in other movements, so it’s not unique to Yes Cymru. But it has damaged the organisation, taking away impetus and causing it to stagnate. Back in March I was planning to start blogging more on issues related to Independence, but the toxicity in the movement kind of put me off. I’m still a member of Yes Cymru, although I’m not really sure why.
So it has been an interesting year, politically. One more outcome of the Senedd election is a change of health minister, which in turn seems to have delayed work starting on some behind the scenes changes that will have an impact on my job. It’s one of those rare occasions when a politics news story has an effect on me personally. Or at least an effect I notice.
Last year I joined Yes Cymru, the independent movement for Welsh Independence. I outlined some of my reasons in my first blog post of 2020.
Since then, the support for independence keeps rising. Last week, a record 39% of people polled said they would vote for independence (qualifier - if you exclude the people who said 'Don't know'). When I joined Yes Cymru my membership number was 2,920. Their current membership has rocketed to over 17,000.
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| My Yes Cymru membership pack |
Recently, I have been thinking a lot about what an independent Wales could look like if an independent Welsh Government could make decisions on things that matter to Wales. And the possibilities for progressive changes in culture, infrastructure and society. For example, on St David's Day I mentioned what a national holiday could look like.
Today I jokingly referred to this as Cymrutopia. And the moment I said that, I liked the sound of it. Cymrutopia - the ideal Wales that could yet be. The hiraeth home we both mourn and search for.
My plan is to blog a few ideas here in among the usual posts about science fiction shows, football and my Snack of the Month. This post is both a warning and chance to lay claim to the word Cymrutopia. Although I don't mind if other people start posting their own ideas of what an independent Wales could look like. We need to build an array of hopeful options for the future republic.
Despite being interested in politics, I had never joined a political group before 2020. In May, I joined Yes Cymru - the campaign for Welsh independence.
There were a number of reasons behind my decision, but the main one is feeling that Wales should be in control of its own destiny as a nation. Nothing in the subsequent six months of the year has convinced me otherwise. Frankly the way the UK Government has handled the pandemic and the Brexit negotiations has been negligent and the country is in a parlous state as a result.
I don't think an Independent Welsh Government could have done a worse job than the Westminster Government, which looks like a case study in decision-making by procrastination until an eleventh hour choice is forced. The Welsh Government overall did pretty well in controlling the first wave of Covid, despite being gazumped on PPE for NHS staff by Westminster. Restrictions were tighter in Wales and fewer people died here than in England on a per head basis.
But time and again in the Autumn, the Welsh Government's efforts to protect the people of Wales were undermined by Westminster. The UK Government refused to extend the furlough scheme to support people who could not go to work during a mandatory 'Fire Break' in Wales, but then just two weeks later did extend the furlough scheme when England had to go into lockdown. This was after Jacob Rees-Mogg mocked Wales by saying the fire break was the sort of thing you got when you elect socialists. He thankfully shut up when England had to have a lockdown that was twice as long as the Welsh one.
There was a lot of anger about that and Yes Cymru membership surged as a result. When I joined my membership number was below 3,000. There are now over 15,000 members. That feels like a groundswell of support for independence that reflects a change in attitude.
We will see how the Brexit deal pans out in 2021. I predict it won't be great. It will apply even greater pressure to the Union. Scotland already has a nationalist government and are pushing for another referendum - which is only fair as EU membership was one of the key arguments of staying in the Union back in 2014. Now the UK has finally stumbled out of the EU. Scotland voted overwhelmingly to stay in, so one of the main arguments against independence has gone. If there's a second referendum, the result will probably swing to independence.
And if Scotland goes, then what for Wales? Already there are plans to reduce the number of Welsh seats in the House of Commons. Should we just sit here and become ever more marginalised, made ever more poor by the mismanagement of a government that doesn't seem to care what happens here? We have already had it made clear to us what we can't have - the electrification of the mainline railways were cancelled, as was the tidal barrage in Swansea Bay. Instead, we were told we would have a prison hulk floating off Port Talbot, and radioactive mud dumped along the South Wales coast.
I believe Wales can be more than a convenient place to dump toxic waste.
It's the fashion to leave unions of countries at the moment. Other countries that are smaller and poorer than Wales have thrown off the shackles of distant parliaments and forged their own new identities.
Europe is full of newly minted nations.
Wales could be the next.
