Wylfagasm! What does it tell us about Cymru?

Robat Idris

The announcement

Some of the most unpopular politicians in the UK and Cymru, led by Starmer, rolled up to Ynys Môn on 13^th November to announce that three Small Modular Reactors (SMR’s), to be designed by Rolls-Royce SMR are to be built at Wylfa by publicly owned Great British Nuclear, backed by £2.5 billion of public money.

Following the deferred gratification as the Hitachi project collapsed in 2019, the consequent media ballyhoo was euphoric, with the announcement being seen as at last confirming that nuclear is back on Ynys Môn, with up to 3,000 jobs expected during construction, and up to 900 jobs required to run the plant.  The politicians of the UK, Cymru and Ynys Môn of almost all political colours welcomed the news.  Starmer also announced that Cymru was to be an Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) zone, with 3,500 jobs to be created.

What’s not to like about nuclear at Wylfa?

A great deal, as I know from too many years of campaigning with PAWB (People Against Wylfa B)!  Let’s be brief, though several volumes are needed to do justice to the objections.

The main argument used to justify nuclear by local politicians can be summarised in one word: JOBS!  Jobs for Ynys Môn, which has haemorrhaged jobs for years, thus giving youngsters an opportunity to stay on the Island.  Yes, Ynys Môn, like other economically bereft areas of Cymru, needs jobs to retain youngsters who have been drifting away in search of opportunities.  But this has been a running sore for decades, and the chief focus on Ynys Môn has been to concentrate on the economic silver bullet of Wylfa since Blair’s Energy Review in 2006.  So our youngsters have been let down for two decades, during which time a reliable job creation strategy could have been devised and implemented.  The result is that jobs of any sort are accepted with very little robust questioning.

Poverty induces gratitude for a poisoned chalice.

Why is the chalice poisoned?  The arguments against nuclear have been listed so many times that it is frankly staggering that mainstream politicians largely ignore them.

• No solution to the problem of radioactive waste which must be safe for millennia.
• Spiralling costs of every nuclear project, at the taxpayer’s expense.
• Too little, too late to mitigate climate change.
• The myth that nuclear is low carbon and safe.
• Huge long term environmental damage where uranium is mined.
• Risk of catastrophe as at Chernobyl, Fukushima, Windscale, Three Mile Island.
• Risk of malicious attacks by cyberwarfare or direct military attack in a dangerous world.
• Risk of nuclear proliferation.
• Intrinsic link to military nuclear – the first Wylfa was built to produce plutonium.

Other issues can be added.

• More expensive electricity.
• Effect on existing industries; agriculture, tourism.
• Threat to Cymraeg and culture from an overwhelming number of workers.
• No guarantee that most workers will be local.
• Pressure on an already malfunctioning housing sector.
• Local environmental vandalism on the 700 acre Wylfa site.

What’s even worse about Rolls-Royce’s role?

• Rolls-Royce are completely immersed in the UK’s nuclear arms programme. They produce the nuclear-powered engines for the submarines which carry the US made nuclear warheads.  The moral issue of involving our youngsters on Ynys Môn in this apocalyptic threat to humanity has not even been discussed by politicians at any level.
• Rolls-Royce’s SMR is still at the design stage and needs many approvals before any building starts. Preparation of the site in advance of approvals being granted would be premature and environmentally destructive.
• The SMR concept depends on a factory being built to manufacture components which would the be moved to Wylfa. No such factory exists.
• There is an ambition to roll out a further five SMR’s adjacent to the first three. What a great inducement to walk the Coastal Path, the jewel in the crown of tourism here!
• As a “first of its kind”, there has to be a suspicion that the roll-out will face delay after delay, during which time the UK’s nuclear workforce will have developed sufficiently that there will be capacity to ensure the expertise required for the nuclear arms renewal programme. This means the design of the Dreadnought submarine to replace the current Vanguard submarines.  Both are or will be powered by nuclear reactors, and both do or will carry nuclear warheads.  In January 2025 Rolls-Royce was awarded a contract worth £9 billion over an 8 year period by the Ministry of Defence to research, design, manufacture and support all nuclear reactors in Royal Navy submarines.

What about A.I. and Data Centres?

Starmer’s growth agenda have these as a Holy Grail.  Details have yet to emerge regarding specific locations, but it is significant that the Anglesey Freeport has both nuclear power and data centres as drivers for growth.  Is it far-fetched to suggest that electricity from Wylfa could supply these data centres?  Several nuclear companies are listed on the Freeport website as backers.

There are more than a few industry watchers who are sceptical of the A.I. sector, and some suggest that the bubble will burst.  Data Centres require large amounts of water to cool them down – can we really welcome this in a time when we regularly see summer droughts?  Ireland has backed Data Centres, especially in the Dublin area, and electricity consumption by these is already over 20% of the country’s production, with predictions approaching 30% over the next few years.  And this in an area where water shortages are a worry.

Data is power, and the companies interested in developing data centres will have an increasing degree of control over all of us.  Beware of Techno-billionaires!

Surely a Freeport must be a good thing?

Yes, if you are a corporation seeking huge tax breaks, ability to avoid paying National Insurance, and are expert at opaque financial arrangements.  The Anglesey Freeport website expressly promotes the nuclear industry – hasn’t this cash-hungry behemoth had enough public money already?  The Freeport is a partnership between Ynys Môn County Council and Stena Line, but many knowledgeable experts warn against the dangers of Freeports, saying that they can be self-contained fiefdoms with their own set of rules.  We can but hope that the partnership is alive to these dangers but given the power of multinational corporations there must be a significant element of doubt.  The volume “Crack-up Capitalism” by Quinn Slobodian, provides several salutary warnings, not least the threat to democracy.

What does this tell us about Cymru’s politics?

In short, our politicians are in thrall to Westminster, which is itself in thrall to the US, which is itself an empire run by corporations, especially the military-industrial complex, and is itself increasingly dominated by billionaires.

It is high time that we all woke up to this sobering reality.

Across the globe, poor communities are becoming poorer, wealth is concentrated in fewer and fewer hands, all at a time when environmental disaster and genocidal warfare have been normalised.  We are not immune from these trends on Ynys Môn and in Cymru.

Our youngsters on Ynys Môn deserve better than to be used as a photo-opportunity by politicians; need to be inspired to work in industries which are beneficial to the planet and mankind; be given a life of dignity in their own communities.  They and the generations before them have been systematically marginalised, so that the desperation for any kind of work leads to acceptance – whether grudging or without question.

Ynys Môn is becoming a casebook study in the militarisation of civil society so desired by Starmer, whether indirectly with Rolls-Royce at Wylfa, or more obviously at RAF Valley, the island’s second largest employer.

It should be no surprise that BAE Systems, the UK’s largest so-called “defence” company, are present at RAF Valley, and are also building the Dreadnought submarine.  Not so well known is the fact that Elbit Systems, Israel’s biggest arms company, is training RAF pilots at Valley, via a company called Affinity (a partnership with KBR Inc of the US). There is therefore a link between Ynys Môn and the genocide in Gaza.  Not to mention that both Starmer and Sunak’s Governments facilitated surveillance of Gaza by planes from RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus.  It is certain that the good people of the island will be saddened at this.

It may well be that ignoring such realities is convenient politically, though the increasing bellicosity of the UK state apparatus may soon normalise these horrors and they become a matter of pride and boastfulness.  However, for those of us who are aware of Cymru’s tradition of Peace and Reconciliation, this is a tragic state of affairs.

Investing in nuclear and the military are political decisions to commit public money to create jobs for a specific purpose.  The billions of public money spent so far on these could have been spent on industries which benefit humanity and the planet.

That money could have been spent years ago.  It is a failure of the political classes which has led to our cap-in hand malaise.

We could not only have built up a thriving energy and other green industries here by now, but we could also have set up systems by which ownership of these assets are ours.  This means boosting the local economy by its own efforts rather than being reliant on the occasional largesse of exploiting companies and faraway governments, both of which can be withdrawn very suddenly.

For those politicians who sincerely believe in the future of Wales, look at yourselves and ask what sort of tomorrow we are giving our successors.  Politics is about a few years of an electoral cycle.  Statesmanship is about a vision of a just society, of a sustainable planet, and of a sharing of the earth’s bounty.  The nuclear industry and its bedfellows give us none of these.

Robat Idris is a native of Ynys Môn.  He is a campaigner with PAWB (People Against Wylfa B); current chair of Cymdeithas y Cymod (Fellowship of Reconciliation); and a former chair of Cymdeithas yr Iaith (Welsh Language Society).  He is still pondering whether to be a cynical optimist, or an optimistic cynic.