‘Wales should be independent because UK will be a failed state’ says Guardian columnist

Wales should become independent because the UK will be a “failed state” according to a Guardian columnist.

Writer and political activist George Monbiot, accused Boris Johnson of “gross misrule” and of “corrupt, incestuous, chaotic, authoritarian politics”, and said that becoming independent would offer Wales the “best protection against ongoing disaster.”

Mr Monbiot, who wrote Captive State: The Corporate Takeover of Britain, charged Labour with being “remarkably quiet and passive” and said it wasn’t grasping the opportunity to be “much bolder and more radical.”

He said: “The crisis makes a much bolder and more radical Opposition response necessary. It also provides an opportunity for a new politics, that wasn’t there before. Why isn’t Labour grasping it?

“If Labour doesn’t articulate a new vision, if it doesn’t signal a clear break from Boris Johnson’s corrupt, incestuous, chaotic, authoritarian politics, if it doesn’t first frighten Johnson into changing course, then evict him at election, state failure becomes a likelihood.

“I’m told that Starmer is playing a long game. In my view, playing a long game in a national emergency represents the triumph of strategy over success.

“In the meantime, it is surely now clear that the best protection against ongoing disaster for the people of Wales and Scotland is independence, and for the people of Northern Ireland, reunification.

“I know that would leave England in an even bigger mess. But we have to sort out our deep problems, rather than relying on princes over the border to rescue us.”

‘Failed state’

He added: “A few more years of this and we’ll be a failed state. It is hard to imagine a radically different future for the country in which you live.

“But plenty of nations have flipped from prosperity into political and economic collapse, often through gross misrule. Gross misrule is the UK’s other pandemic. And there’s currently no vaccine.

“The usual treatment is effective opposition. But, given the scale of the crises we now face, Labour is being remarkably quiet and passive. It should be mobilising its base in protest, while articulating a fresh and exciting political vision.

“A crucial aspect of this vision is political reform: Proportional representation, so the many can never again be dominated by the few.

“Get the money out of politics. Cut Murdoch and the other media barons down to size. Build a new, more participatory democracy.”