Welsh independence
Encyclopedia
Welsh independence is a political ideal advocated by some people in Wales
that would see Wales secede from the United Kingdom
and become an independent sovereign state
. This ideology is promoted mainly by the Welsh nationalist
party, Plaid Cymru
.
Wales became distinct culturally and politically from other Brythonic
groups during the Early Middle Ages
. Following the Norman conquest of England
in 1066, the Normans
penetrated into Wales and gradually established control over parts of the region. The death of Llywelyn the Last
in 1282 led to the conquest of the last independent Welsh kingdom by Edward I of England
. The Welsh revolted against English rule several times over the next years, with the last significant attempt being the Glyndŵr Rising
of 1400–15. In the 16th century Henry VIII
, himself of Welsh extraction, passed the Laws in Wales Acts aiming to incorporate Wales fully into the Kingdom of England
. For centuries, the union was considered to be an advantage to Wales, and it offered new opportunities to the Welsh gentry
who could now become justices of the peace and members of Parliament at Westminster.
According to the Encyclopedia of Wales, the belief that Wales should form an independent nation state originated in the mid 19th century (the first recorded use of the Welsh
word for nationalism
, cenedlaetholdeb, is from 1858). The Sunday Closing Act
of 1881 was the first legislation to acknowledge that Wales had a separate politico-legal character from the rest of the English state. In 1886 Joseph Chamberlain
proposed "Home Rule
All Round" the United Kingdom, and in the same year the Cymru Fydd
(Young Wales) movement was founded to further the cause. However, the goal they envisaged was a devolved assembly
rather than a fully independent state, and the movement collapsed in 1896 amid personal rivalries and rifts between representatives from the North
and South
, East
and West Wales
.
There was little mainstream political interest in Home Rule following the First World War. The focus of Welsh nationalist
politics moved to the newly-founded Plaid Cymru
from 1925, although it took until the late 1960s for Plaid to make its first electoral breakthroughs. In 1956 a 250,000-name petition calling for a parliament
for Wales produced few results, but the declaration of Cardiff
as the capital of Wales in 1955, Labour's
1959 commitment to appoint a Secretary of State for Wales
, the creation of the Welsh Office
in 1965, and the repeal of the Wales and Berwick Act 1746
two years later seemed to demonstrate a growing nationalist impetus. However, the heavy defeat for a proposed Welsh Assembly
offered by Labour
in the 1979 devolution referendum "suggested that the vast majority of the inhabitants of Wales had no desire to see their country having a national future".
In the 1980s, economic restructuring
and Thatcherite market reforms brought social dislocation to parts of Wales, which had formerly been described as having "the largest public sector west of the Iron Curtain
". A succession of non-Welsh Conservative
Secretaries of State
after 1987 was portrayed by opponents as 'colonial' and indicative of a 'democratic deficit'. In the early 1990s the Labour Party became committed to devolution to both Scotland
and Wales, and in 1997 it was elected with a manifesto commitment to hold referendums on a Scottish Parliament
and a Welsh Assembly.
The proposed assembly won a narrow majority in the 1997 referendum. The political climate was very different to 1979, with a new generation of Welsh MPs in Westminster and a broad consensus on the previously divisive issue of the Welsh language
. However, political commentator Denis Balsom notes public sentiment that devolution may have been "unnecessary" following the election of a 'progressive' Labour Government. These conflicting sentiments were reflected in the relatively low turnout at the referendum and the narrowness of the victory for devolution campaigners. Since 1997, there is evidence of increased support for, and trust in, the Assembly and greater support for it to receive enhanced powers., as evidenced by the 63.49% "Yes" vote in the 2011 referendum.
found that 11% of people polled favoured independence. A 2007 survey by the Institute of Welsh Politics at the University of Wales
found that 12% of those questioned supported independence, down slightly from 14% in 1997. A poll taken by BBC Wales
Newsnight in 2007 found that 20% of Welsh questioned favoured independence. A 2006 poll taken by Wales on Sunday found the number to be as high as 52%, although the poll mostly interviewed people in North Wales where support for independence is strongest.
Wales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...
that would see Wales secede from the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
and become an independent sovereign state
Sovereign state
A sovereign state, or simply, state, is a state with a defined territory on which it exercises internal and external sovereignty, a permanent population, a government, and the capacity to enter into relations with other sovereign states. It is also normally understood to be a state which is neither...
. This ideology is promoted mainly by the Welsh nationalist
Welsh nationalism
Welsh nationalism emphasises the distinctiveness of Welsh language, culture, and history, and calls for more self-determination for Wales, which may include more Devolved powers for the Welsh Assembly or full independence from the United Kingdom.-Conquest:...
party, Plaid Cymru
Plaid Cymru
' is a political party in Wales. It advocates the establishment of an independent Welsh state within the European Union. was formed in 1925 and won its first seat in 1966...
.
History
Britons (historical)
The Britons were the Celtic people culturally dominating Great Britain from the Iron Age through the Early Middle Ages. They spoke the Insular Celtic language known as British or Brythonic...
groups during the Early Middle Ages
Early Middle Ages
The Early Middle Ages was the period of European history lasting from the 5th century to approximately 1000. The Early Middle Ages followed the decline of the Western Roman Empire and preceded the High Middle Ages...
. Following the Norman conquest of England
Norman conquest of England
The Norman conquest of England began on 28 September 1066 with the invasion of England by William, Duke of Normandy. William became known as William the Conqueror after his victory at the Battle of Hastings on 14 October 1066, defeating King Harold II of England...
in 1066, the Normans
Normans
The Normans were the people who gave their name to Normandy, a region in northern France. They were descended from Norse Viking conquerors of the territory and the native population of Frankish and Gallo-Roman stock...
penetrated into Wales and gradually established control over parts of the region. The death of Llywelyn the Last
Llywelyn the Last
Llywelyn ap Gruffydd or Llywelyn Ein Llyw Olaf , sometimes rendered as Llywelyn II, was the last prince of an independent Wales before its conquest by Edward I of England....
in 1282 led to the conquest of the last independent Welsh kingdom by Edward I of England
Edward I of England
Edward I , also known as Edward Longshanks and the Hammer of the Scots, was King of England from 1272 to 1307. The first son of Henry III, Edward was involved early in the political intrigues of his father's reign, which included an outright rebellion by the English barons...
. The Welsh revolted against English rule several times over the next years, with the last significant attempt being the Glyndŵr Rising
Glyndwr Rising
The Glyndŵr Rising, Welsh Revolt or Last War of Independence was an uprising of the Welsh, led by Owain Glyndŵr, against England. It was the last major manifestation of a Welsh independence movement before the incorporation of Wales into England by the Laws in Wales Acts 1535–1542.- The Fall of...
of 1400–15. In the 16th century Henry VIII
Henry VIII of England
Henry VIII was King of England from 21 April 1509 until his death. He was Lord, and later King, of Ireland, as well as continuing the nominal claim by the English monarchs to the Kingdom of France...
, himself of Welsh extraction, passed the Laws in Wales Acts aiming to incorporate Wales fully into the Kingdom of England
Kingdom of England
The Kingdom of England was, from 927 to 1707, a sovereign state to the northwest of continental Europe. At its height, the Kingdom of England spanned the southern two-thirds of the island of Great Britain and several smaller outlying islands; what today comprises the legal jurisdiction of England...
. For centuries, the union was considered to be an advantage to Wales, and it offered new opportunities to the Welsh gentry
Gentry
Gentry denotes "well-born and well-bred people" of high social class, especially in the past....
who could now become justices of the peace and members of Parliament at Westminster.
According to the Encyclopedia of Wales, the belief that Wales should form an independent nation state originated in the mid 19th century (the first recorded use of the Welsh
Welsh language
Welsh is a member of the Brythonic branch of the Celtic languages spoken natively in Wales, by some along the Welsh border in England, and in Y Wladfa...
word for nationalism
Nationalism
Nationalism is a political ideology that involves a strong identification of a group of individuals with a political entity defined in national terms, i.e. a nation. In the 'modernist' image of the nation, it is nationalism that creates national identity. There are various definitions for what...
, cenedlaetholdeb, is from 1858). The Sunday Closing Act
Sunday Closing (Wales) Act 1881
The Sunday Closing Act 1881 was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It required the closure of all public houses in Wales on Sundays. The Act had considerable political importance as a formal acknowledgement of the separate character of Wales, setting a precedent for future...
of 1881 was the first legislation to acknowledge that Wales had a separate politico-legal character from the rest of the English state. In 1886 Joseph Chamberlain
Joseph Chamberlain
Joseph Chamberlain was an influential British politician and statesman. Unlike most major politicians of the time, he was a self-made businessman and had not attended Oxford or Cambridge University....
proposed "Home Rule
Home rule
Home rule is the power of a constituent part of a state to exercise such of the state's powers of governance within its own administrative area that have been devolved to it by the central government....
All Round" the United Kingdom, and in the same year the Cymru Fydd
Cymru Fydd
The Cymru Fydd movement was founded in 1886 by some of the London Welsh, including J. E. Lloyd, O. M. Edwards, T. E. Ellis , Beriah Gwynfe Evans and Alfred Thomas. Initially it was a purely London-based society, later expanding to cities in England with a large Welsh population...
(Young Wales) movement was founded to further the cause. However, the goal they envisaged was a devolved assembly
Devolution
Devolution is the statutory granting of powers from the central government of a sovereign state to government at a subnational level, such as a regional, local, or state level. Devolution can be mainly financial, e.g. giving areas a budget which was formerly administered by central government...
rather than a fully independent state, and the movement collapsed in 1896 amid personal rivalries and rifts between representatives from the North
North Wales
North Wales is the northernmost unofficial region of Wales. It is bordered to the south by the counties of Ceredigion and Powys in Mid Wales and to the east by the counties of Shropshire in the West Midlands and Cheshire in North West England...
and South
South Wales
South Wales is an area of Wales bordered by England and the Bristol Channel to the east and south, and Mid Wales and West Wales to the north and west. The most densely populated region in the south-west of the United Kingdom, it is home to around 2.1 million people and includes the capital city of...
, East
East Wales
East Wales is a term sometimes used to refer to the easternmost part of Wales. Like the other regions of Wales, it has no official status and definitions of its actual area vary....
and West Wales
West Wales
West Wales is the western area of Wales.Some definitions of West Wales include only Pembrokeshire, Ceredigion and Carmarthenshire, an area which historically comprised the Welsh principality of Deheubarth., an area called "South West Wales" in the Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics....
.
There was little mainstream political interest in Home Rule following the First World War. The focus of Welsh nationalist
Welsh nationalism
Welsh nationalism emphasises the distinctiveness of Welsh language, culture, and history, and calls for more self-determination for Wales, which may include more Devolved powers for the Welsh Assembly or full independence from the United Kingdom.-Conquest:...
politics moved to the newly-founded Plaid Cymru
Plaid Cymru
' is a political party in Wales. It advocates the establishment of an independent Welsh state within the European Union. was formed in 1925 and won its first seat in 1966...
from 1925, although it took until the late 1960s for Plaid to make its first electoral breakthroughs. In 1956 a 250,000-name petition calling for a parliament
Parliament
A parliament is a legislature, especially in those countries whose system of government is based on the Westminster system modeled after that of the United Kingdom. The name is derived from the French , the action of parler : a parlement is a discussion. The term came to mean a meeting at which...
for Wales produced few results, but the declaration of Cardiff
Cardiff
Cardiff is the capital, largest city and most populous county of Wales and the 10th largest city in the United Kingdom. The city is Wales' chief commercial centre, the base for most national cultural and sporting institutions, the Welsh national media, and the seat of the National Assembly for...
as the capital of Wales in 1955, Labour's
Labour Party (UK)
The Labour Party is a centre-left democratic socialist party in the United Kingdom. It surpassed the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929-1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after...
1959 commitment to appoint a Secretary of State for Wales
Secretary of State for Wales
The Secretary of State for Wales is the head of the Wales Office within the British cabinet. He or she is responsible for ensuring Welsh interests are taken into account by the government, representing the government within Wales and overseeing the passing of legislation which is only for Wales...
, the creation of the Welsh Office
Welsh Office
The Welsh Office was a department in the Government of the United Kingdom with responsibilities for Wales. It was established in April 1965 to execute government policy in Wales, and was headed by the Secretary of State for Wales, a post which had been created in October 1964...
in 1965, and the repeal of the Wales and Berwick Act 1746
Wales and Berwick Act 1746
The Wales and Berwick Act 1746 was an Act of the Parliament of Great Britain which created a statutory definition of "England" as including England, Wales and Berwick-upon-Tweed. This definition applied to all acts passed before and after the Act's coming into force, unless a given Act provided an...
two years later seemed to demonstrate a growing nationalist impetus. However, the heavy defeat for a proposed Welsh Assembly
National Assembly for Wales
The National Assembly for Wales is a devolved assembly with power to make legislation in Wales. The Assembly comprises 60 members, who are known as Assembly Members, or AMs...
offered by Labour
Labour Party (UK)
The Labour Party is a centre-left democratic socialist party in the United Kingdom. It surpassed the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929-1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after...
in the 1979 devolution referendum "suggested that the vast majority of the inhabitants of Wales had no desire to see their country having a national future".
In the 1980s, economic restructuring
Economy of Wales
The Economy of Wales. In 2010, according to ONS provisional data, headline gross value added in Wales was £44,517m, making the Welsh economy the tenth largest of the UK's twelve regions ahead of only Northern Ireland and the North East of England...
and Thatcherite market reforms brought social dislocation to parts of Wales, which had formerly been described as having "the largest public sector west of the Iron Curtain
Iron Curtain
The concept of the Iron Curtain symbolized the ideological fighting and physical boundary dividing Europe into two separate areas from the end of World War II in 1945 until the end of the Cold War in 1989...
". A succession of non-Welsh Conservative
Conservative Party (UK)
The Conservative Party, formally the Conservative and Unionist Party, is a centre-right political party in the United Kingdom that adheres to the philosophies of conservatism and British unionism. It is the largest political party in the UK, and is currently the largest single party in the House...
Secretaries of State
Secretary of State for Wales
The Secretary of State for Wales is the head of the Wales Office within the British cabinet. He or she is responsible for ensuring Welsh interests are taken into account by the government, representing the government within Wales and overseeing the passing of legislation which is only for Wales...
after 1987 was portrayed by opponents as 'colonial' and indicative of a 'democratic deficit'. In the early 1990s the Labour Party became committed to devolution to both Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
and Wales, and in 1997 it was elected with a manifesto commitment to hold referendums on a Scottish Parliament
Scottish Parliament
The Scottish Parliament is the devolved national, unicameral legislature of Scotland, located in the Holyrood area of the capital, Edinburgh. The Parliament, informally referred to as "Holyrood", is a democratically elected body comprising 129 members known as Members of the Scottish Parliament...
and a Welsh Assembly.
The proposed assembly won a narrow majority in the 1997 referendum. The political climate was very different to 1979, with a new generation of Welsh MPs in Westminster and a broad consensus on the previously divisive issue of the Welsh language
Welsh language
Welsh is a member of the Brythonic branch of the Celtic languages spoken natively in Wales, by some along the Welsh border in England, and in Y Wladfa...
. However, political commentator Denis Balsom notes public sentiment that devolution may have been "unnecessary" following the election of a 'progressive' Labour Government. These conflicting sentiments were reflected in the relatively low turnout at the referendum and the narrowness of the victory for devolution campaigners. Since 1997, there is evidence of increased support for, and trust in, the Assembly and greater support for it to receive enhanced powers., as evidenced by the 63.49% "Yes" vote in the 2011 referendum.
Support
Surveys regarding support for independence have yielded different results, though they often find that between 10 and 15% of Welsh desire independence from the United Kingdom. A 2001 survey for the Institute of Welsh AffairsInstitute of Welsh Affairs
The Institute of Welsh Affairs is an independent, membership-based think-tank based in the capital of Wales, Cardiff, owing no allegiance to any political or economic interest group...
found that 11% of people polled favoured independence. A 2007 survey by the Institute of Welsh Politics at the University of Wales
University of Wales
The University of Wales was a confederal university founded in 1893. It had accredited institutions throughout Wales, and formerly accredited courses in Britain and abroad, with over 100,000 students, but in October 2011, after a number of scandals, it withdrew all accreditation, and it was...
found that 12% of those questioned supported independence, down slightly from 14% in 1997. A poll taken by BBC Wales
BBC Wales
BBC Cymru Wales is a division of the British Broadcasting Corporation for Wales. Based at Broadcasting House in the Llandaff area of Cardiff, it directly employs over 1200 people, and produces a broad range of television, radio and online services in both the Welsh and English languages.Outside...
Newsnight in 2007 found that 20% of Welsh questioned favoured independence. A 2006 poll taken by Wales on Sunday found the number to be as high as 52%, although the poll mostly interviewed people in North Wales where support for independence is strongest.
See also
- History of WalesHistory of WalesThe history of Wales begins with the arrival of human beings in the region thousands of years ago. Neanderthals lived in what is now Wales, or Cymru in Welsh, at least 230,000 years ago, while Homo sapiens arrived by about 29,000 years ago...
- Meibion GlyndŵrMeibion GlyndwrMeibion Glyndŵr was a Welsh nationalist movement violently opposed to the loss of Welsh culture and language. They were formed in response to the housing crisis precipitated by large numbers of houses being bought by wealthy English people for use as holiday homes, pushing up house prices beyond...
- Politics of WalesPolitics of WalesPolitics in Wales forms a distinctive polity in the wider politics of the United Kingdom, with Wales as one of the four constituent countries of the United Kingdom....
- Welsh uprising of 1211Welsh uprising of 1211The Welsh uprising of 1211 was a rebellion by the people residing in Wales against King John of England. Although technically defeated, this uprising resulted in increased independence from England for the Welsh.-Background:...