Being in thrall to London will never allow Wales to realise its potential for its people. It doesn’t matter which government we get in Westminster, something Wales has very little say in, because the British state will always favour the elite classes of London. Britain is about as entrenched, corrupted and manipulated by the larger corporate ruling class as any nation can be.

We will always bail out the biggest companies in the UK, we will always prioritise the wealth of the few over the welfare of the many, and we will always suffer from one of the most unequal systems of land ownerships on the planet. Given that the entrenched power structure of the UK has existed for much of 1000 years, I don’t think anyone reading this piece can have high hopes of radical change coming to fruition in their lifetime.

The nation of Britain is built upon the fundamental inequality that has been perpetuated for a millenia. Much as I’d like to believe it, no government in Whitehall is going to have any real lasting, meaningful effect on that. It’s not a cynical position, in my opinion, it’s realising it’s a doomed relationship, that has gone on for long enough, and we now need to move on to something different, and hopefully better.

I’m not naive enough to think that Wales hasn’t benefitted from being a part of the UK and the British Empire. It has. I’m not naive enough to think that Wales didn’t participate willingly in the Empire’s expansionist, colonial project. It did. But what is hard to argue with today is whether Wales continues to benefit from being a part of the UK. Take whatever marker you like Wales isn’t doing well or delivering prosperity and security to enough of its people.

Decades of under-investment and the continual drain of young people across the border leaves Wales in a precarious position, at a pivotal point in global history. Recognising that and saying ‘enough is enough’ seems a healthy thought. It’s irrelevant whether you believe that being a part of the UK for a few hundred years was of worth to Wales, when after the last few decades it’s clear we’re struggling as a group of people.

What are the hopeful future prospects we have by remaining in the UK? The very best I can think of is “it’s not great, but it could be worse.” I can quite clearly see First Minister Carwyn Jones running under such a slogan; that is Welsh Labour’s position. “They may be scraps, but what else should we expect, we’re Welsh.” We’re a nation that’s lost self-esteem and self-respect. It happens when you’ve been in an abusive relationship. It doesn’t mean it was always bad, or that there weren’t good times, because if there wasn’t any you’d probably find it easier to leave. But at some point you hopefully realise that enough is enough, that you deserve better.

There’s nothing anti-English, or even anti-British, in this message. I don’t care where you’re from, not at all. If you want to make Wales your home, and be committed to its community then you have as much right to call this place home as I. The Welsh heritage, ancestry and history is as much yours as mine. Equally so, Wales will always be a part of Britain, and for myself I will always carry a duel-nationality. Even outside of the UK Wales and Scotland will remain British. It’s an island with ancient roots, and the idea of a British identity is as old as the grassland that surrounds me. There was an underlying mythical premise for why Wales willingly joined Britiain, and myths don’t die just because someone proclaims them to be dead.

Just because there are some xenophobes and racists within the Welsh nationalist movement, doesn’t mean that they’re more than a minority. I understand why English friends of mine can be put off by these members of the movement. They put me off and make me question it at times. There are without doubt people within the Welsh nationalist movement, and quite vocal ones, that have no vision for a better Wales and have a simplistic notion of what it means to be Welsh. But that shouldn’t put the rest of us off that have vision and ideas for Wales to be a prosperous nation where equality is one of our founding principles. Clearly the UK is wealthy, but too much of the wealth is concentrated in too few hands. Wales can turn that on its head and develop as nation based on fairness and equal distribution of wealth, resources and opportunities. I’m not presenting a Utopia, it will most certainly be imperfect, there will still be injustice, greed and corruption like in any country, but we can put in place principles and policy that guard against this. As opposed to the British system which tends to exacerbate and encourage this. As a smaller nation we’ll be freer to try new ideas.

I’ve said it before but I would say the same if I lived in Somerset, Shropshire or Scotland. I have no idea to isolate ourselves from the rest of Britain, Europe or the world. For me it’s less about nationalism and more about localism. The mythology of nationhood doesn’t appeal strongly to me, whereas the mythology of the local does. It just happens that Wales is the perfect size for a modern nation of the future and has a collective culture and history from which to draw upon.

From there I would have devolved local power to regions like Dyfed, and city-state regions like Swansea, and so on across the country. That level of organisation makes sense when looking at the future we face, and it helps prevent the type of centralisation that exists in the UK today, whilst not avoiding the need for interconnected regions that depend on some larger structure for its infrastructure, services and trade. We don’t want Cardiff Bay to become the new Westminster.

There’s no reason why the whole of Britain can’t exist like this. An island of nested self-resilient regions all inter-linked without becoming entirely dependent. Independence with interdependence but not co-dependency. It’s much harder for an authoritative or abusive regime to emerge out of self-resilient regions where true democracy is able to exist. Each place can pursue what it thinks is best and will suit the needs of its people. Given the major changes we face this century — be that moving away from oil, coping with climate change, or the need to rebuild economies in a post-growth world — different regions, and nations, could try different strategies, with each being able to learn from the other.

The failed tidal lagoon project in Swansea, the dumping of radioactive sludge in Cardiff Bay, the failure to invest in the electrification of the Welsh railways (whilst HS2 goes ahead), the lack of an adequate North-South transport link, the lack of the Welsh voice in Brexit talks, the continual rise of child poverty, the lack of available jobs in the post-industrial mining regions, the absence of a strong Welsh media, the exodus of Welsh graduates, the building of super-prisons and so on. This is the vision of Westminster. They’re all symptoms of being a part of a toxic UK state. We keep falling for this idea that the next government might do something different. After a few good years, a few bad years will always wipe out the gains and make Wales worse than it was before. This is the globalist system of wealth extraction that the UK has always been a leading proponent of. Welsh resources powered this colonial project, and whilst many I’m sure did benefit, many did not, and do not.

Wales is the perfect size for a modern nation, with an abundance of renewable energy resources, water and the potential to radically re-localise food production. Being smaller is to be beautiful; and gives us the potential to adapt to the future in a way a large state like the UK can’t, given the vested interests of those that wish to condemn us all to oblivion for the sake of their parasitic profits. There are exciting people in Wales with a vision for its prosperity, but they need a supportive environment and investment. Smaller prosperous nations like Denmark, Iceland, New Zealand, and Ireland, is where Wales’ future belongs, if we dare to realise it. Ambition, creativity, community, vision, equality, sustainability and fairness. These are all principles that can underlie an Independent Wales.