The prospect of Nigel Farage becoming PM makes independence for Scotland and Wales imperative, says Nicola Sturgeon
Martin Shipton
The rise of Reform UK under its leader Nigel Farage poses an existential threat to both the Scottish Parliament and the Senedd – and the only guarantee against it is for the two countries to become independent, according to Nicola Sturgeon.
The former Scottish First Minister was on stage in Merthyr Tydfil’s Theatr Soar with ex Plaid Cymru leader Leanne Wood at an event on the evening of Friday May 23 organised by the pro-independence group Yes Cymru.
Hostile
Ms Sturgeon said: “If you’re an independent nation, you can’t be abolished. And I think that is a really important point because if I think back 10 or 15 years, some of my fellow Scottish nationalists would say: ‘Well, you know, the Tories will one day abolish the Scottish Parliament’, and I would always say: ‘No they won’t, that’s never going to happen’.
“Do you know what – now, would I sit here and say 100% that the existence of the Scottish Parliament will not come under threat? The Tories, I think, are very hostile now to devolution. And that’s before you factor in the possibility – and I’m not going to put it any stronger than that, although I think it potentially is stronger than that – that Nigel Farage will be in Number 10 after the next general election. Does anybody really believe that Farage wouldn’t come after the Scottish Parliament or the Senedd here? Because these are creatures of Westminster statutes: they can be abolished.
“That’s maybe something that people in Scotland and Wales should think about. If you value your democracy and you want your democracy to be protected from Westminster at all, then turning it from devolution into independence is actually the only way to properly protect it. I think what’s happening in the world right now and what’s happening in the UK strengthens the case for independence.
“I think it undoubtedly makes independence more necessary because these institutions that we all hold dear, the NHS on top of that list, are now under existential threat. And it’s ironic that these are, in many ways, the symbols of Britishness that those who oppose Scottish and Welsh independence hold up as the reasons to stay united. The UK is now posing a threat – the NHS and the welfare state are being dismantled before our very eyes. And that’s happened with a Tory government and – shame on them – it’s now happening with a Labour government. So these are the things that if we want to protect them for generations to come, then independence is more necessary and essential now than even it was in 2014 [the year Scotland voted in a referendum against independence].”
‘Rollback’
Ms Wood said: “For me the presence and the growth of the far right strengthens the case for us to be able to build up as much resilience as we possibly can in Wales, because if those actors do get power in Wales, we’ll see the end of Welsh democracy. We’ll see the end of the NHS. We’ll see the end of our Senedd, and it’ll be a rollback on so many of the things that we’ve fought for and won over time. So how can we protect ourselves against that? Well, through independence.
“If we’re an independent country, we’re very difficult to abolish. So for me, if we want to make a case for defending minorities, for standing up for the underdog like we always have, then we’ve got a really good chance of being able to do that, and protecting Welsh people against that if we’ve got a strong constitutional position.
“And I think the other thing as well is for independence as a vision from my perspective, it means everybody being included in all of our communities raising their levels. So the work that we can all do now, in this interim period if you like, is to get into our communities, work with people in our communities, build up and strengthen the resilience of those communities. Wales is a community of communities and if we’ve got strong communities, we’ve got a strong country.
“And if we’ve got people who believe and have that independent mindset, then anything becomes possible. So I think we need to see the threat of the far right as an opportunity. It is a threat, but if we play it right it can be a big opportunity for us as well.”
European Union
Ms Wood said it made sense for an independent Wales and an independent Scotland to be members of the European Union: “I think for us who want to see Wales as an independent nation and Scotland as an independent nation, being in the European Union makes sense, doesn’t it? Because there are so many other small countries thriving as independent nations within the European Union. So being outside makes that vision more difficult to paint and it makes the sense of it more difficult for people to see, I think.
“Our constitution in Plaid Cymru commits Wales to be an independent country within Europe. So we still have that vision for Wales playing its part with other European nations.
“And it could be in the future that we’re part of a different form of European alliance. Now wouldn’t it be amazing to think … I had this idea a few years ago of like a banana throughout Europe from Iceland through to Scandinavia, Denmark and then coming into the Celtic countries with the Basque Country and Catalonia, all working together as small, stateless nations, small nations that want to do society differently.
“There’s a lot of commonalities between those countries and so that could be a different form of alliance in the future, if the European Union doesn’t end up being an alliance that we want to go into. So there are other options and I certainly think aligning and working closer with countries like Scotland, Ireland, the Basque Country and Catalonia and the Scandinavian countries … We could do a lot with that because we’re all quite small. We’ve all got similar kinds of ways of looking at the world and I think that could be interesting, quirky, something a bit different and maybe it would be an alliance that would bring the people who voted for Brexit along with us as well.”
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Inspirational.
Should the prospect become reality it would make a Mount Rushmore of the Six Prime Ministers of Apocalypse, carved by the Spitting Image team, essential…
Ultimately it’s about people of different cultures and languages working together for the better of all. Parties, like Reform and the Conservatives don’t see it in that way. For them it’s about promoting and conserving the UK of the 19th century, strengthening Westminster control, colonialism and the use of English. However, that world is dying and they’re afraid. Independence will safeguard our countries and protect us from the far right’s backward way of thinking and promote (ironically for those that say otherwise) inclusion, peace and prosperity.
Steve, we have to address the elephant in the room. British Nationalists are the inheritors of the cultural sensibilities of British Imperialists. In fact, their problem is that they have a hiraeth for empire. It pervades all of their thinking. They have a streak of anglo-supremacism a mile wide. The UK is their baby. So long as it exists it sustains them. We will never be rid of that toxic thinking until we are rid of the UK. I don’t think Britain has ever really properly dealt with the legacy of empire, yet it drives so much of our current… Read more »
Are they really Anglos? Or are they Normans?
‘British Nationalists are the inheritors of the cultural sensibilities of British Imperialists.’ I’ve always felt that this is what drove the Brexit vote. Anyone not familiar with the episode might usefully do a net search for ‘the Don Pacifico incident’ and read Palmerston’s colourfully robust defence of British foreign policy in respect of this incident. Back in the mid-19th century Palmerston was reflecting reality in respect of the UK’s very real global clout. Now, that clout is a faint shadow of what it was then, but rather a lot of the British public still haven’t really grasped or accepted that… Read more »
History tells us that former empires need to go through a few years of fascism before the population finally accept their new diminutive status.
A depressing assessment, and one which, if you’re correct, has taken quite a while to sink into the British national psyche. Because the UK’s ‘new diminutive status’ only became irrefutably obvious and inescapable to me in the early autumn of 1956 in the context of the ‘Suez crisis’ when the British and the French conspired with Israel in order to invade Egypt with the purpose of reclaiming the previously jointly French- and British-owned Suez Canal which the Egyptian government had nationalized. Only for the Yanks to jerk European chains and remind us both that they were the masters now and… Read more »
Yes, surprisingly I’m old enough – just! – to remember 1956!
It’s two sides of the same coin. A population raised to look away when it comes to how the wealth and “greatness” was really achieved is ready to look away as increasingly desperate attempts are made to retain or regain that wealth and supposed greatness, until the consequences become impossible to ignore.
Inclined to agree with you there.
Simon Case (Fat Shank’s mate) says prepare for a period of nuclear war, he was central to the last five years of government planning…! Pulled a sickie at the end…
These sorts of events often become echo chambers, in fact, they’re quite reminiscent of the Labour-Corbyn years. If we want a functioning democracy, it’s essential to have someone present to counter some of the arguments raised at both the event andin this article, and even fact check what is said. Someone like Nicola Sturgeon should know that, under the Scotland Act of 2016, the Scottish Parliament cannot be abolished without the consent of the Scottish electorate via an election. It is also protected by the Sewel Convention.Devolution can’t be taht easily rewound by Westminister. Furthermore, it’s hard to take seriously… Read more »
The problem is Westminster is Sovereign and without a written constitution, Westminster could easily repeal the Scotland Act 2016 or the the Wales Act 2017. The Sewel Convention was already undermined with the Internal Market Act 2020. Populist leaders such as Boris Johnson, Donald Trump, and potentially Nigel Farage do not abide by conventional norms.
I agree that rejoining the EU will not be straightforward, but if the currently trajectory takes us towards an over-centralised London-orientated economy then I think Scotland will take the plunge with Wales joining afterwards.
Unlike Trump who is muzzled by the constitution, PM Farage will have unlimted power thanks to parliamentary sovereignty.
The time we spend protecting the little devolution we have – already partly rolled back – is time we should spend on preparing for independence. As Nicola Sturgeon implied, we may not have that much time. 2029 is not long from now, though I suspect that Reform’s bubble will burst before then. It may not however…we may have a very short window. The current thinking about independence seems to be ‘get independence then we can work out how we can set up our own country’. I think this is a serious strategic error and naïve. A referendum would be lost… Read more »
Multicultural, British pluralism. A Confederal Union built from the ground up. That should be the offer. A good starting point for a discussion here https://nation.cymru/opinion/political-accountability-and-popular-sovereignty/
Not with you on that British bit, Anianegwr. Just Welsh will do me. The Offer should have two parts – the Independence Framework (sovereignty, constitutional, governance/electoral, sustainability/wellbeing) and the Policy Framework. Initially, both would be canvassed in Citizens’ Assemblies. The first would then be passed over to a representative group with expert support to design the constitution and other state machinery. The second would then be refined into an attractive package – the Common Core of sensible and long-overdue efforts to reform the many unsatisfactory aspects of our society, especially income distribution and taxation. If a referendum then endorsed independence… Read more »
Sturgeons comments unhelpful within the Welsh context. Presenting Reform as some kind of existential threat and Independence as some kind of antidote risks framing the movement – and Plaid by extension – as incompatible with the concerns of Reform voters. Polling is giving them 25% of the vote.
If Plaid, Leanne etc. are serious about defeating them then they need to be engaging these voters not alienating them.
It’s a wider problem in the Welsh political sphere that few seem to understand their direct, ideological attacks on Reform do more to entrench their support than win it over.
Good point, I’ve never yet come across a sheepdog that talked its flock into a pen…
Time running out for Plaid to learn a new trick,
Where’s a Ryan Davies when you need a genius…
As Ryan Davies used to say “Never in Europe”.
That may be, but after listening to Reform voters on the doorstep, Farage seems to be a ‘cult’ figure, with no room for debate.
Doesn’t the UK normally bomb the living daylights out of places that threaten democracy?
Wales is keeping its own government, one country being ruled by a separate country is an outdated trend that needs to go to the history books, and its by no means democracy.