A Tale of Two Marches

Ben Wildsmith

Yesterday’s Yes Cymru march in Aberystwyth saw thousands participating in the companionable way that is usual for pro-indy events in Cymru.

Outside of permanently triggered weirdos on X, nobody was personally upset by the event and there was no trouble nor police intervention of any kind.

Speeches focussed on the need to build support for a process towards independence, rather than demands for it in the short term.

It was, in other words, a civilised event, something people took their children to and an expression of the political culture that pro-indy folk believe sets Wales apart.

Objections to it have been muted with the general line being that the First Minister should have been focussing on practical matters instead of attending. Even reliable outrage merchants Joe Martin and Andrew RT Davies couldn’t work up much of a head of steam which underlines how inconvenient the civility of this campaign is to its opponents.

Earlier in the week, Martin was reprimanded by the Llywydd, Huw Irranca-Davies, for his remarks in the Siambr about the Welsh Gender Service. Calling for doctors to be ‘imprisoned’, Martin went on to describe them as ‘butchers’ and ‘liars’ who had performed surgery on children. He also claimed to be seeking justice for ‘what’s left of the young people who have had surgery performed.’

Whether Martin was unaware that the WGS doesn’t offer services to children, or misrepresented the situation is unknown. It’s also irrelevant. This sneering nonentity has routinely abused the privilege of his position as an MS to degrade debates in the Senedd, seemingly content to cause offence rather than advance any serious argument.

Previous remarks about the ‘inevitability’ of attacks from Sudanese asylum seekers and Welsh students being unable to read sit in the ill-defined space between contempt and joyless humour where unprincipled lightweights imagine they are allowed to shrug away accusations of bigotry.

If a slap on the back from the lads is his highest ambition, then Mr Martin’s political career has been a success. From coming fourth in the Grangetown council elections to being reprimanded two months into his Senedd tenure, he’s certainly earned the self-regarding smirk he carries with him in place of a grasp of the facts. And if Nigel Farage remembers his name one day, he’ll have cemented his achievements forever.

Performing politics with the intention of provoking a response from others is a reality TV simulacrum of the real thing. Martin’s defenders were quick to champion his right to free speech without reflecting on the chilling effect that his artless provocations have on substantive debate.

Accurate and neutral language is the material with which we are able to examine the rights and wrongs of sensitive topics. To approach a subject as charged as gender therapies with juvenile, ill-informed rhetoric is to make that process impossible.

The substantive topic becomes obscured by reaction to the language, and nothing can be achieved.

In practice, and Mr Martin would do well to remember this, it leaves his own side of the argument betrayed by a representative who chose to play to the gallery instead of advancing the case seriously.

Performative politics

On the other side of the Irish Sea, there is turmoil over a march that epitomises the futility of performative politics. Yes Cymru’s event was for the people participating in it. It affirmed their values and acted as a guide to how many people are keen to express them.

The Orange Order’s legal success in gaining permission to march down the Nationalist Garvaghy Road in Portadown for the first time since 1998 is the opposite of that.

Unionists in Aberystwyth yesterday went about their day without fear or concern because the people marching had no interest in their reaction. In Portadown, the routing of the march down the Garvaghy Road is desired solely to perform a political statement to people who have been physically intimidated by it in the past.

The march could easily move between the starting and ending points without disturbing those residents at all, so we can surmise that disturbing them is, in fact, the purpose of it.

Status quo

These are serious times. We could soon be discussing war in urgent terms; the climate crisis seems to be upon us sooner than most expected; the UK constitution is tearing under the contending forces it is supposed to protect.

Those who are attached to the status quo should reflect upon the damage being done to their cause by the inadequate posturing of their representatives, whether in turquoise ties or orange sashes.

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