‘Union Highways’ into Wales among plans to ‘extinguish dangerous flame’ of Welsh independence

Building ‘Union Highways’ into Wales are among the measures proposed by Welsh Conservative leader Andrew RT Davies in order to “extinguish the dangerous flame” of the Welsh independence movement.

In an article for ConserativeHome he recommends “large scale projects” to “unblock” the M4, A40 and A55 east-west routes into Wales and tie the country closer to the rest of the UK.

“The patriotic fightback has started and, as the leader of the Welsh Conservatives, these are some of the steps I want to see us take to extinguish the dangerous flame of separatism,” he writes.

Later he adds: “It’s important UK government spending is effectively targeted and given the PM’s ambition for large-scale projects, I’d like to see the designation of ‘Union Highways’ that would unblock Wales’s arterial routes on the M4, A40 and A55 and boost important cross-border growth.”

‘Project fear’

In an interview yesterday with ITV’s Adrian Masters on the New Normal podcast Andrew RT Davies said he had “never been anti-devolution”.

However, he said here that devolution had “undermined the Union’s sense of ‘permanence’ – both from an ideological and an institutional perspective”.

He warned that to win Unionists had to drop ‘Project Fear’ and win on the basis of emotional arguments.

“As Unionists, we can often be guilty of basing arguments in process or economics,” he said.

“All very valid, and all incredibly important, but we need to own the emotive, patriotic argument – remembering and learning the valuable lessons from the victorious Brexit campaign many of us were part of.

“We need to put “Project Fear” on ice and champion the pride of Britain.”