Why the Welsh independence movement is worth millions to Wales’ economy
Ifan Morgan Jones
When the UK Government announced yesterday that £160m would be spent to develop wind farms off the coasts of Wales and Scotland the official reason given was that both countries had “deep waters”.
This didn’t really stack up as a good reason for singling out Wales and Scotland for investment – there are deep waters all around the coast of England, too.
The real reason was briefed to the Telegraph in this morning’s newspaper who revealed that the aim was to “help to strengthen the Union”, with waters off Wales and Scotland “pinpointed” for that reason.
In other words – the squeaky wheel gets the most oil. And Wales’ growing independence movement has made Wales’ wheel squeaks louder than ever before.
Wales’ independence movement has become a very effective tool for crowbarring tens of millions from the Treasury’s coffers.
This is likely to be an unpopular truth with both sides of the debate – Unionists because they don’t want to recognise that having an independence movement is an effective political tactic, and independence supporters because they are loath to recognise any UK Government largesse.
But the UK Government now have a clear tactic when it comes to saving the Union. Spend big, showy dollops of cash in Wales and Scotland and slap a Union Jack on the finished projects.
In the aftermath of the first independence referendum in Scotland, Wales’ former First Minister Rhodri Morgan called for Wales to be rewarded because “the country didn’t put the whole of the UK through the mincer via referendum or civil war” as Scotland had.
But politics doesn’t work that way. Docile Wales didn’t get anything. It was Scotland, the disobedient member of the UK, that was subsequently showered with attention.
Wales has now learnt that lesson. Threaten to leave and you will get better treatment. Top tip to Yorkshire which has just had its leg of HS2 cancelled – get yourself a separatist movement.
Lumps of cash
However, the UK Government’s new preparedness to splash some cash on Wales does not of course mean that the tactic will work as a means of saving the Union.
The best comparator here would be the EU, which spent some £800m on Wales in the last decade of membership but was ultimately rejected at the ballot box.
EU flags adorned buildings and bypasses up and down Wales and yet people seemed mostly oblivious to where the money came from – or didn’t care.
Hundreds of millions spent by the UK Government on new floating offshore wind farms for Wales are unlikely to have any impact, either. And not only just because the average voter won’t even know they are there.
The levelling up fund announcement as part of the Budget during the week was another good example of this. £121m of funding will go to 10 specific schemes in Wales as part of that fund.
The UK Government had ignited a huge political row with the Welsh Government just so that they could be seen to be the ones to bestow this money on Wales.
And for what? An aqueduct restored here, a new path dug there, some work on a canal. Big numbers in a press release but it will have a very small measurable impact on the lives of very few people.
The reality is that people would rather be given the opportunity to generate their own economic worth rather than simply being handed big, individual cheques and asked to be grateful.
Real levelling up will involve investing in the fundamentals holding back the Welsh economy, including terrible transport infrastructure – such as rail, where Wales has been underfunded over 10 years to the tune of £500m.
Announcing big multi-million pound projects won’t amount to much unless Westminster fixes the fundamental economic inequality between different parts of the UK.
The irony may be that despite triumphing in an independence referendum of their own over the EU, the Brexiteers may never have understood why the EU failed to connect with the people of the UK.
If throwing hundreds of millions at individual projects was enough, Wales would never have voted out.
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How will offshore wind farms benefit Wales?
Our seas are just another resource being exploited by Westminster.
Sounds honourable right? But the Tories are not doing it to make the UK a greener country or help in saving the world but to try and keep control of a disintegrating country. It’s all they care about.
That’s the practical side of the issue but not the motive. I’d love to think the Tories have suddenly gained a conscious and forgotten what makes them tick – money – but we all know they haven’t. How can they go from giving £400m subsides to North sea oil companies to green warriors over night. – They don’t. The motive is something else and that something is keeping control of the whole of the UK at all costs.
The only reason they want to keep the union is for nuke dick swinging purposes, so don’t want to lose base in Scotland and of course their permanent seat in the UN. Period
Money feeds the poorest
It isn’t all about the children who get taken to holiday home protests.
Boris type BS, anyway who gets the monetary benefit? You have guessed it, crown estate, Westminster
Yet the Scottish Crown Estate is devolved so Holyrood too. Only Wales doesn’t have a devolved Crown Estate
England doesn’t either. The money for that goes into the UK pot.
Which, at the end of the day is the English pot! England dominates the UK making up 85% of it and governs it from Westminster in the English capitol!
No it is UK money. It might be common opinion that English workers should enternally pay but it doesn’t help Wales chip on for their Barnett money.
Dale, the point is that these natural resources belong to Wales and Scotland NOT england and it should be Wales and Scotland who benefit economically from them NOT england. The current relationship between england on the one hand and Wales and Scotland on the other is that of a foreign colonial power (England) exploiting the resources of its colonies (Wales and Scotland). Most of the economic benefits will go to england with very little going to Wales and Scotland.
Scottish Crown Estate is devolved so Scotland benefits just not Wales
There’s quite a strong electoral will for change in both countries. Claiming otherwise doesn’t change the situation or convince anyone.
That aside, what’s the source for your 4k figure?
With Plaid Cymru losing vote share and at the last Senedd election?
I would like to know the source of your assertion! If its HM gov forget it… They massage that figure
Institute for Government.
Not greatly, other than jobs, until we get the Crown Estate devolved like Scotland has
I agree with the article, the Tories believe that by making it look like they are showering Wales with money it will show the Welsh how great the UK is. They are so colonialist in attitude, so blinkered as to what is happening on the ground in Wales they don’t realise that what they are doing is actually achieving what they want to prevent the breakup of the UK.
For now.
Oh UkLabour in wales will be coming to the conclusion, what is the point of being in the union?
All this money for one thing.
Nah. Your only hope is Plaid. Ooh no …maybe Gwald will be the next SNP.
They used to own India.
Yes. Cayo’s dad had a job teaching Indian kids British ways.
The pandemic is increasing.
In Wales yes.
Dale and Quornby… Overall, Wales is less healthy than the whole UK, with 600 new cases per 100 000 compared with 450 for the UK. The smoothed daily new case rate though, has been dropping in Wales, broadly in line with the UK, for about a fortnight. Whatever, it’s immaterial. We’ve had covid for almost two years. It’s not the cause of Westminster’s new apparent generosity. The increasing call for independence probably is. It’s a bit like an abusive partner turning fake-sweet when threatened with being dumped. Very little of the revenue from those turbines will remain in Wales and… Read more »
Those turbines are there to help prevent environmental catastrophe.
The whole world will be having them. The Netherlands had them for centuries.
Shame that the Welsh Nationalist movement is alone in hysterically elevating them to the severity of a concentration camp.
Some of the English Westminster Government excuses for choosing Wales and Scotland when it comes to wind farms and their reasoning farcical. Bit like how Wales is too hilly for a direct North South rail route where HS2 goes through the spine of England and that’s not exactly flat. It’s called bull*#’;@. Only Wales & Scotland’s Senedd & parliament should debate the merits and decide whether those coastal waters are indeed suitable not the unelected English dictocracy in London. I find also when the sly Tories announce those minor infrastructure builds in Wales & Scotland are compared to the English… Read more »
There are more windfarms on the East of England
Cos it’s flat like.
And they are welcome to build as many as they want or need there. Not here, though. They’ve built enough here already. It goes without saying that wind farms are greener than fossil fuels, after you’ve allowed for the necessary deforestation and road-building, but that’s self-evidently an issue for the Senedd to decide on, not Westminster, especially as there is little financial benefit to this country from wind farms built here.
So direct benefits form offshore farms, it is just another looting spree, just like our coal and steel and Scotland’s oil. If Cymru was independent we would be able to harness our own renewable energy for our own good and improve lives of residents in many ways. This will never happen while manacled to the greatest exploitation machine the world has ever know, Westminster.
But Gareth Wyn we “own” 5% of an aircraft carrier.
The £160 m was announced last December in the white paper! But the only one trying to get some for Holyhead is Rhun ap Iorwerth MS.
To my knowledge, this £160 m for the U.K. is already being dipped into, but the only port to benefit so far is Teeside and maybe Hull
According to National Grid, come 2050 50% of U.K. power will come from Wales and Scotland. England cannot get to net zero without our offshore wind capacity
Spend a billion on wind farms in Wales’ offshore zones and very little if any of it will trickle down to Wales to add to its people’s spending power. Most of it will go to a mix of globalist corporates and their offshore subcontractors and suppliers given that UK government has done a good job of stifling any hopes of indigenous manufacture and services. No doubt some fat slugs in the City will be doing alright and Boris & Co will sleep soundly.
What will happen after Independence. Will someone seize them?
You were asked a question by Defaid several hours ago, no answer yet.
Keep your hair on.
institute for Government.
defaid’s question has been culled along with 24/41 other comments and the truth is that I can no longer remember the conversation.
Dale makes me think, a bit like MR-R used to but without the hilarity… What did I ask and, Dale, why haven’t you answered?
Errm…’deep waters’ aren’t really a plus-point for offshore wind. It increases the cost of construction. Much better to build where there are shallow waters far off-shore – e.g. Dogger Bank etc in the North Sea. Deep waters will be good for tidal turbines!