GB News criticised over claim petition seeks to ‘ban’ Wales
Nation.Cymru Staff
A petition calling for Wales to be known officially as Cymru has been wrongly described by GB News as seeking to “ban” the name Wales.
The article, ‘by Peter Stevens, was published to the GB News website on 3 July. It states that “calls to ban ‘Wales’ as the country’s name are rising.”
However, claims that the petition, created by John Price, seeks to “ban” the name Wales are not reflected in the petition itself, which instead calls for the country to adopt Cymru as its official name to “reset, rebrand and renew our nation”.
The petition’s description reads: “With an outward looking Government, now is the time for us to assert our own intention for how we are seen across the world, in the language of our nation using the name chosen by our nation…”
“Hardly anyone has heard of Cymru or realises that we have our own unique language and culture which is totally different from the other countries within the United Kingdom.”
It follows an earlier petition, which secured the 10,000 signatures needed for Senedd debate consideration, but was not taken forward by the previous Welsh Labour government.
The petition also calls for only the Welsh-language versions of place names to be used. Or as GB News put it, “for cities, towns and villages in Wales to ditch their English names.”
Stevens also writes that the petition “accuses England of ‘imposing’ the name Wales on Wales.”
Etymologically, ‘Wales’ is understood to derive from ‘Wēalas’, an Old English word used by the Anglo-Saxons to describe the Britons and, more generally, foreign peoples.
As the petition explains: “Wales is not the name of our nation – meaning ‘foreigners’ it was imposed on us, and poorly reflects who we as a people are.”
While it does call for a replacement of the official name Wales with Cymru, the petition does not seek that people be prohibited from saying or writing ‘Wales’, or that using ‘Wales’ become illegal.
It points to countries such as Türkiye and Czechia, which have adopted different official names in English, as examples Wales might follow.
In neither of those countries were the previous names banned from public use, with the change relating instead to names used officially by governments and international bodies such as the UN and UEFA.
John Price told Nation Cymru: “No one is calling to ‘ban’ the term Wales. Just as we can call Norway ‘Norway’ and not Norge as the Norwegians do, or Spanish people call their land España.
“England can continue to do as they wish, but the petition importantly calls for us to use our self-designated term.
“All the petition asks is that Wales confidently uses an endonym (the native name used by locals to describe their own place, language, or group) rather than an exonym (an external, translated, or borrowed name used by outsiders).
“Quite frankly, GB News needn’t worry about what Welsh people decide for our nation’s future.”
The GB News article also details an incident which took place in June, when activists from Mudiad Eryr Wen, a “grassroots youth movement for an independent Cymru”, removed a Union Jack, the St George Cross and an Ulster loyalist flag from lampposts in Wrecsam.
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Members of the group told Daily Post: “It is an absolute embarrassment and a stain on the town to have [the flags] on display, especially just up the road from the Cae Ras.”
Linking to the GB News article in a social media post, Reform MS Iain McIntosh wrote: “There is no place for this in our society, our country’s identity should be protected.
“I have therefore just asked the First Minister for Wales: “Following recent reports of Union Flags being removed in Wales and calls to replace the name “Wales”, will the First Minister condemn such actions and confirm that the Welsh Government supports the continued use of Wales’ established national identity.”
“I hope to receive a response soon.”
There is no place for this in our society, our country’s identity should be protected.
I have therefore just asked the First Minister for Wales;
“Following recent reports of Union Flags being removed in Wales and calls to replace the name “Wales”, will the First Minister… https://t.co/FRfL6VlBKt
— Iain McIntosh MS (@IainCMcIntosh) July 3, 2026
View the Senedd petition calling to ‘use Cymru not Wales as the official name for our nation, and one name only for our place names’ here.
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The name of my country is Cymru in Cymraeg and Wales in English. And the etymology of “Wales” is much older, richer and more interesting than this silly petition suggests. I would urge anyone interested to look it up. Wales shares an etymology with various peoples throughout Europe. Vlachs, Walloons, Welsch … all thought to derive from the name of an ancient people known to the Romans as the Volcae. Their name is thought to derive from the word for a hawk, itself cognate with the Welsh word “gwalch”. Please shun this silly and needlessly devisive petition which serves only… Read more »
More ignorant cack-handed journalism from GB News.
Need a petition to drop the superfluous “Great” in GB which was only added by the French to distinguish the big island from Little Britain, the area in France populated by Britons fleeing the Germanic invasion.