Welsh Government rubbishes Daily Mail ‘woke wars’ story

Martin Shipton

The Welsh Government has rubbished a story in the Daily Mail which alleged it was planning to rename roads and buildings honouring Winston Churchill and Horatio Nelson.

According to the Conservative-supporting newspaper, which historically backed Hitler’s Nazi regime in the 1930s, the UK Government is “drawing fresh battle lines in the woke wars by passing laws to stop British heroes being removed from street names”.

The Mail’s story stated: “It comes as the Labour administration in Wales plans to rename roads and buildings honouring Winston Churchill and Horatio Nelson.

“An ‘anti-racist Wales action plan’ published by First Minister Mark Drakeford, which pledges to ‘review and decolonise our public spaces’, has raised the possibility of changing addresses such as Caerphilly’s Churchill Park and Nelson Street in Chepstow.

“An ‘audit of commemoration’, part of the anti-racism plan, identified 204 ‘persons of interest’, 57 monuments, 93 public buildings and 442 street names with ‘red-amber-green colour-coding’ for ‘distinctions of certainty and/or culpability’.

“Nelson has 31 commemorations, there are 47 for the Duke of Wellington and Churchill has 15.

“The audit says the Second World War leader was ‘widely hated in South Wales mining communities for his actions as Home Secretary during the Tonypandy riots’.

“It adds he ‘expressed a belief in the superiority of the Anglo-Saxon race and was opposed to dismantling the British Empire, taking a romanticised view of its achievements’.”

Trafalgar

The Mail story added: “Meanwhile Nelson, hero of the Battle of Trafalgar, wrote to his wife saying he would ‘die a firm friend of our colonial system’.

“Explorer Christopher Columbus is under threat ‘for having initiated the modern era of contact and colonisation through four trans-Atlantic voyages … among the profound consequences were the devastation of the native populations of the Americas, European colonialism and the trans-Atlantic slave trade’.

“Even Gandhi, the anti-colonial leader of the Indian independence movement, is under scrutiny for a speech in 1896 saying whites were degrading Hindus and Muslims ‘to a level of Kaffir’ – a highly insulting term for black Africans.

“Other figures singled out include ex-Prime Minister William Gladstone and explorer Sir Francis Drake.”

The Mail added that provisions in The Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill, now passing through Parliament, will ensure a street in England cannot be renamed without two-thirds of residents agreeing to it.

It quoted the Welsh audit report, which said: “The terms of reference for this project separate the audit stage from issues arising, which might form the basis for a second stage. The present document seeks to capture information, not provide a set of answers.”

Nonsense

A source in the Westminster Government is quoted by the Mail as saying: “This is exactly the sort of woke nonsense which would apply across the country [sic] if Labour managed to control more than just Wales. That is why we are giving people the power to stop it in England. Apart from anything else, it is extremely disruptive to change postal addresses.”

However, in Wales the renaming streets would be within the powers of local authorities rather than the Welsh Government, while there are no powers to force the owners of buildings to change their names.

A Welsh Government spokesman said: “There is no truth to these claims. The audit was first published in 2020, identifying public monuments, street and building names associated with the slave trade and the British Empire. This, and the guidance that is in preparation, has the purpose of helping public bodies reach well-informed decisions about existing and future commemorations.

“The guidance makes no specific recommendations about what decisions to make or what action to take. All decisions should be developed through public consultation.”