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UK Government to tell staff to stop referring to Wales as its own country

06 Jun 2021 2 minute read
Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Picture by Chatham House (CC BY 2.0)

The UK Government plans to tell staff to stop referring to Wales as its own country, under plans being drawn up to strengthen the union.

Diplomats will be told to change the way they speak about the UK, referring to it as one country rather than talking about “the four nations of the UK,” according to the Sunday Times.

The Prime Minister hosted a meeting on Thursday with the leaders of Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland in a bid to attempt to cement the links between different parts of the UK.

According to the Sunday Times, the plan includes investing more money in transport links between England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

It comes as Whitehall officials have been told to stop ignoring the Union and put its preservation at the heart of policymaking.

‘Irreparably divided’

Also part of the plans is the Turing university exchange scheme, which replaces the EU Erasmus scheme, which will offer exchanges for students between parts of the UK as well as with foreign universities.

The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge will also spend more time in Scotland in an attempt to boost affinity for the bonds holding Scotland and England together – although there is no indication yet whether this plan extends to Wales.

“The feeling is that successive governments have let this drift and that the politicians are irreparably divided,” a source told the Sunday Times.

A source close to the Royal Household told the newspaper that the Royals “think of it as their Union. It was originally a union of crowns.”

This is true in Scotland although in Wales the ruling Prince was executed and Wales annexed.

Buckingham Palace declined to comment on the plan.


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Mab Meirion
Mab Meirion
3 years ago

I wonder what the Prince of Wales thinks of that pronouncement?

Enough of this nonsense!

Mab Meirion
Mab Meirion
3 years ago
Reply to  Mab Meirion

Fat Shanks Johnson thy middle name is Death!

Mab Meirion
Mab Meirion
3 years ago
Reply to  Mab Meirion

Any one know why this site was linked to two Russian social media sites?

Mandi A
Mandi A
3 years ago
Reply to  Mab Meirion

Yes I saw that, never seen it anywhere else, disturbing. Not sure how robust the data protection on this site is, no privacy notice and no indication of the creators of the website at the bottom of the page. But someone is changing the algorithms all the time. Seems to have been taken over by Reach plc if the crap adverts at the bottom of the page are anything to go by. Be careful what you click.

Stephen Owen
Stephen Owen
3 years ago
Reply to  Mab Meirion

Who cares what he thinks? Nothing to do with him, he is not the real prince of Wales anyway.

Mab Meirion
Mab Meirion
3 years ago
Reply to  Stephen Owen

I know that, I went to Coleg Harlech and read Hanes Cymru at Aber, I was being ironic !

Mab Meirion
Mab Meirion
3 years ago
Reply to  Mab Meirion

Don’t dig too deep…all mongrels just like Boris…the aristocracy, half born out of wedlock, always sell out…it is how they stay one step ahead.

Marianne Hancock
Marianne Hancock
3 years ago
Reply to  Mab Meirion

I think Wales is a country, and I don’t have any time for Boris, but it’s his job to insult ‘ill raised, aggressive illegitimate children’. We don’t have to come down to his level.This is an ancient prejudice introduced into Wales at the time of the treachery of the blue books, and it didn’t do us any good.

As for mongrels, the best gift you can give your children is a wide gene pool. It’s the opposite of incest.

Quornby
Quornby
3 years ago

In the so-called Indo China the French made uttering the word “Vietnam” illegal. It didn’t work out well for them. These jackasses in Westminster are sowing the seeds of their own destruction. Annibyniaeth brothers and sisters we are better than them.

Mab Meirion
Mab Meirion
3 years ago

D-Day…A thought for all our countrymen who perished this day for the freedom of others!

Now we must look to our own!

Mandi A
Mandi A
3 years ago

The journalism on this site is as sleepy as a chapel Sunday. Where is the reply from the leader of Plaid Cymru embedded into the article? Something like “We’ll fight them on the beaches” might work. Quite so, we can do better than this.

hdavies15
hdavies15
3 years ago
Reply to  Mandi A

No comment from Plaid Cymru leadership group as they are all too focussed on how to continue and enrich their careers. They may pipe up after the event when it’s too late but that would give them another few years of bleating in Opposition. They are not showing any shape when it comes to creating a sustained programme of criticism and even harassment of daft and hostile central government. As things stand even Drakeford, a declared Unionist, is more likely to lead any response.

Mandi A
Mandi A
3 years ago
Reply to  hdavies15

I think I wrote on here before that I was writing to my MP in January 2020 as soon as the Internal Market Bill and the Operation Yellowhammer document came out. The intention to override the devolved governments was clearly written into law there. Where is Liz Savile Roberts? What’s the point of any of them? As soon as Raab gave away that he didn’t know how much freight went through Dover, we were sunk.

Erisian
Erisian
3 years ago

Boris newspeak! Double plus ungood.
His pathetic attempt to re-inforce the so-called ‘union’ will hasten its demise. Bring it on!

Wrexhamian
Wrexhamian
3 years ago

He can call us what he likes, it’ll make no difference to how the Welsh and Scots perceive themselves. Of greater worry is what he does in practical terms,e.g. this new plan to strengthen road communications between Wales and England, with no mention of north-south links within Wales itself. There is a real danger that Johnson is going to win this war.

Mandi A
Mandi A
3 years ago
Reply to  Wrexhamian

Not road links, a tunnel under the Celtic Sea with a roundabout under the Isle of Man. Don’t expect they have asked the Manx people or Crown Estates for permission. Just a few more billions into their friends’ pockets.

Steve Duggan
Steve Duggan
3 years ago
Reply to  Wrexhamian

Typical Westminster tactics – divide and conquer (further). So what should we do ? Stengthen our north/south links – too late ? Far from it.

Michael Rieveley
Michael Rieveley
3 years ago

Is a similar edict being adopted for England no longer being recognised as a nation?
Boris Johnson is either a bigot or a simpleton, either way he is unfit to be Prime Minister of the UK if he puts forward such arrant nonsense.

hdavies15
hdavies15
3 years ago

Great Britain will be re badged Greatest England ! After all rebadging is what all failed politicians do when they need to “refresh”. Like that recent farce from Shapps with the railways. Tory government is full of bungling buffoons but lurking behind them are the real dangerous people and organisations.

Mike
Mike
3 years ago

They probably don’t see the need – United Kingdom, Great Britain and England are just three names for the same thing in their flag-waving utopia

Morgan
Morgan
3 years ago

He is and was always unfit and inept as an mp 120, 000 + dead, remember!

Mawkernewek
Mawkernewek
3 years ago

I’m disappointed to see a block of “Promoted Links by Taboola” here on nation.cymru. I don’t have objection to unobtrusive banner adverts, but for me, there goes its exemption from AdBlock.

Kerry Davies
Kerry Davies
3 years ago

“That the United Kingdom will collapse is a foregone conclusion. Sooner or later, all states do collapse, and ramshackle, asymmetric dynastic amalgamations are more vulnerable than cohesive nation-states. Only the “how” and the “when” are the mysteries of the future.”
Norman Davies, Vanished Kingdoms, 2011.
One just hopes the royal family don’t get conned into supporting his centrist autocratic petulance otherwise they will go the way of their disunited kingdom.

Mab Meirion
Mab Meirion
3 years ago
Reply to  Kerry Davies

He holds the Joker over them…or was it an Ace?

Mab Meirion
Mab Meirion
3 years ago
Reply to  Mab Meirion

Or was it the hangman from the Tarot? Anyway Ms Patel is in charge of the rendition flights…

David Barnes
David Barnes
3 years ago

The next Six Nations to be referred to as the Three Nations with Three Participating Devolved Administrations, perhaps? The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a state, not a nation, and a relatively recent one, a hundred years next year. The nations that make up Britain and Ireland are far older, of course. The Irish team in the Six Nations competition represents the whole island of Ireland and is supported north and south. Politicians meddle with maps of the heart at their peril!

j humphrys
j humphrys
3 years ago

Reject provincial cozyness. We are stuck in a narrative of “UK” or “EU”, when the world dynamic is now “Belt and Road” or even “Eurasia”. Don’t wait for Westminster’s next move to unease us? Chat about these in communications, linked Milford Haven, etc.

Stephen Owen
Stephen Owen
3 years ago
Reply to  j humphrys

What does this mean?

j humphrys
j humphrys
3 years ago
Reply to  Stephen Owen

Tactic of Johnson is to destabilize using intimidation in various forms. We can do the same to them by talking of foreign investment, etc. In fact, acting as though we already have independence.

j humphrys
j humphrys
3 years ago
Reply to  Stephen Owen

If you return here, just look at that Transport For Wales crap. Political through and through. Look to China! They could do it in one year!

Stephen Owen
Stephen Owen
3 years ago

This is a terrible and outrageous idea, the sooner we have independence the better. A massive step backwards.

Hannergylch
Hannergylch
3 years ago

The article oversimplifies the origins of the England–Wales political union. Sure, the Welsh cause wasn’t helped by Dafydd ap Gruffydd’s execution in 1283 and the subsequent consolidation of the marcher lordships, but 202 years later, Harri Tudur seized England, fighting under the banner of Y Ddraig Goch at the Battle of Bosworth Field. Harri was more Welsh than English: his family had supported Owain Glyndŵr a few decades before, and he probably learned the language from his nanny, even if he didn’t have much use for it in exile. He named his firstborn son Arthur to assert his links to… Read more »

Gaynor
Gaynor
3 years ago
Reply to  Hannergylch

Harri Tudur was the original Dic Sion Dafydd

Owen Glyndwr
Owen Glyndwr
3 years ago

About time we started the move to leaving the Dis-United Kingdom and let england stew in the mess it’s made.

defaid
defaid
3 years ago

So it really was nothing more than a box-ticking PR exercise. That lie didn’t last long.

Didn’t get his way, threw his toys out of the pram, resorted to further domestic abuse.

The moron is single-handedly driving the relationship between us and the English back to what it was in the sixties, seventies and eighties.

CJPh
CJPh
3 years ago
Reply to  defaid

Perhaps it is a response to the reasonable approach to national emancipation Scotland, and subsequently Cymru, have taken. The SNP seem like a measured, viable political party. The YesCymru campaign push for indy on rational, non-partisan grounds. The independence movements look intelligent, forward thinking and hopeful. What better way to smear these proposals than to engender a frothing, anti-English response from some adherents, thus allowing for a “look at these guys, how dreadful!” response. Worked before, will work this time. If we focus on the nation Cymru could be, and not the current arrangement, we’ll win hearts and minds. If… Read more »

Mandi A
Mandi A
3 years ago
Reply to  CJPh

What did you think of the Independence Commission’s report? Would it make the basis for a Constitution? After all that work Mr Price promised to think about having a referendum on maybe having a referendum.

CJPh
CJPh
3 years ago
Reply to  Mandi A

It reminded me of why I love Joe’s Ice Cream so much (as a Jack, how could I not). When one enters any other ice cream parlour, you’re faced with a multitude of flavours, but no guarantee of quality. I like rum and raisin, but only when done well. With Joe’s, despite some sundaes being better than others, the ice cream is always Joe’s. The commission seemed to be like a generic ice cream parlour – loads of options, no guarantee of concordance, viability and all before reaching a critical mass of support (lest we forget, Scotland failed in her… Read more »

Paul Jones
Paul Jones
3 years ago

Do one Johnson wales will always be a country 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿

Gareth Bowen
Gareth Bowen
3 years ago

Maybe they will also have rename the 6 Nations also…

Steve Duggan
Steve Duggan
3 years ago

This Tory government will now try anything to keep control. However, our young will see independence – they are more savvy to the bulls”t peddled.

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