The Crossroads

Alun Smith

On the 7th of May this year, the UK will go to the polls again. We’re going to hold some ‘local’ elections in England and national elections in Wales.

For any Americans looking in, these are England’s mid-terms. The results won’t see a change of government in England, but they are an indicator of the state of the chessboard.

They tell us what people are feeling about their respective governments and give the powers that be a chance to bed-in or change course.

I suspect the incumbent administration, in England at least, will be, not so much changing course, as veering dramatically leftward in the coming year. They’re going to have to if they want to stick around.

Great if you’re a left-winger, but as ever, frustrating for all of us, that they have to make such devastating, avoidable mistakes, to see the light.

Since the Government of Wales Act in 1998/9, and certainly since the Act of 2006, when ‘The Welsh Assembly’ became ‘The Welsh Assembly Government’,(widely referred to as The Welsh Government -operating out of the Senedd in Cardiff), Wales has been somewhat insulated from events in Westminster.

A cursory glance at the Covid files will bear testament to that.

We don’t have the powers we’d like, and often, it feels like trying to fly with one wing strapped to a hungry belly.

The Labour Party in Wales has been a constant, never out of power since the late 1990’s, but never not in hock to the whims of whoever’s running the show in London.

When a government has been in power for that long, and particularly one forced to constantly ask it’s big brother which lever of power it can manipulate, and to what extent, it becomes weary, it runs out of ideas, will and impetus and it ultimately lets it’s people down.

It becomes vapid, deflated and fails. That, I believe, is what’s happened in Wales and to Welsh Labour.

They’ve overseen ‘managed decline’ at the behest of the boys in the big smoke.

That, coupled with the indisputable fact that whilst Labour have been at the helm in Wales, Westminster, under first the Tories and then an ever-rightward leaning UK Labour, have considered Wales, Welsh politics and the Welsh people an afterthought at best and an unwanted annoyance at worst.

You only have to read up on the HS2 debacle to see that.

If we’re honest, and why wouldn’t we be, hasn’t it always been thus? Isn’t the Prime Minister of England just another King of England when it comes to Wales?

For goodness sake, we didn’t have a capital city until 1955. We didn’t get a flag until Elizabeth II decreed it in 1959. Tom ‘the voice’ Jones was 19 by then.

So I don’t blame the Welsh electorate for being fed up. They want change. They want to matter, to feel as if their lives matter, that there’s meaning in their work, in their struggles.

They want to feel that they have a government who will listen to their dreams and their needs. To their children’s dreams and needs. Not like some omnipotent being that doles out wishes on a breeze, or denies passage through the storm, based merely on it’s temper that cycle.

No, I mean a partner in the future, a government that offers opportunity and support, for all, regardless of age, gender, ability, location, ethnicity.

They want a Wales that loves them as they love Wales.

Always second best

I was born in 1970. I’ve seen politics through a Welsh lens for a long time. Thatcher and the pin-striped 80’s. The strikes and the bloodied donkey jackets.

Always second best, always the poor relations of a political class in England that didn’t and doesn’t care.

And eventually, finally, the hope of the 90’s. At last, we’d won ourselves a ship of our own. Still not the captain, not even the quartermaster in real terms, but it’s our ship and we get to decide where she sails.

What does Yma O Hyd mean to you? I don’t mean the words, they simply mean ‘still here’. No, I mean, what emotion does Dafydd’s song invoke in you?

For me, it means I belong. I belong to something special. I’m Cymro, and I stand with Cymru. I stand with my people, a people who have faced all the worst hardships a people can face and have faced them down.

Every time a question has been asked of us, we’ve answered it, in full throat, with happy heart and indomitable spirit, we’ve answered it.

The influence of Welsh culture upon the world at large is not to be underestimated. Our bards have entertained, our sportsmen and women have thrilled.

Our philosophers, our actors, our engineers, scientists, mathematicians, authors and artists have shaped the world, quietly, without fear or favour, sometimes without fanfare or reward. Because, we know, to be Welsh is it’s own reward. We’ve earned it and we wear it.

Well, now we are being questioned again. Now we are being asked seminal questions in a seminal election.

Crossroads

We are at a crossroads. What type of nation do you want to be Wales? Do you want to be a nation? Who are you?

The choice is stark. One path, on the right, leads East, to Reform, to Nigel Farage, to reduced women’s rights and workers rights. It leads to the dilution of the Welsh language, to the end of healthcare free at the point of use.

It leads to integrated sports teams, no Welsh rugby team, no Welsh football team. It leads to higher council tax and energy bills. It leads to the abandonment of our history, our culture and our soul.

The left path leads somewhere new. It leads to freedom. Freedom to choose our own identity and our own destiny. Freedom to choose our own journey, navigate the seas as we see fit in a ship that we captain, we control.

It’s entirely plausible that by late 2029 we’re going to be in a situation where England has a progressive Lab/Green coalition government and Wales will be feeling the effects of a two year old Reform government. That should make you shudder.

Testing ground

My beloved Wales, please choose wisely. Please don’t allow your country to become a testing ground for the worst of our politics, for the worst of our humanity.

I beg of you, when you walk to the chapel on the hill to cast your vote, do it slowly. Take in the exquisite scenery, talk to your community, play your favourite Welsh song and think of the many successes of your Welsh heroes.

If you’re a rugby fan think of Gareth, Barry, JPR and Shane. If you’re football, think of 2016 and what that tournament revealed about us.

You are the descendants of the men of the black rock and the women who held their hearts. Please Wales, please don’t give those hearts away.