‘People think the Tories run the NHS here’: Welsh hunger striker wants to take back the media Elfed Wyn Jones is already more than a day into his week-long hunger strike when he speaks to i by […]

Elfed Wyn Jones is already more than a day into his week-long hunger strike when he speaks to i by phone. “I’m alright,” he says, by way of reassurance.

The 20-year-old farmer and student’s cause is not one that most people outside of Wales will have given much thought to: he wants control over broadcasting devolved to Wales. But to Wyn Jones, it’s vitally important.

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“We need a Welsh perspective to make democracy more transparent between the people of Wales and the Senedd,” he says. “For example, 50 per cent of the people of Wales think the NHS is run by London when it’s a fully devolved matter.

“That’s because of the confusion the media causes. People still think the Tories run the NHS here.”

Wales is conspicuously behind other parts of the UK when it comes to media, with only one national newspaper (mainly sold in the south) compared to Northern Ireland, which has three despite having only 60 per cent of the population.

Future direction

S4C, the Welsh-language version of Channel 4, is run out of Cardiff, but its budget is still set in London, and it has been cut by £50m between 2011 and 2018. A review announced last year is expected to be published soon – making it a key moment for its future direction.

Westminster’s Department for Media Culture and Sport told the Daily Post that “it is right that the UK government retains responsibility for the sector”, so the prospect of a vast, devolutionary overhaul seems remote.

“I believe we needed something to jolt it back into the media,” says Wyn Jones.

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Wyn Jones’ is not the first hunger strike in the history of Welsh nationalism. Gwynfor Evans, a major figure in Plaid Cymru for decades, threatened his own if Margaret Thatcher reneged on a plan to set up S4C in the first place.

Other students have mounted one-day strikes for the current cause, while Plaid’s Hywel Williams even launched his own one-day version to mark a hundred years of women’s suffrage earlier this month.

But it’s not the resonance – either with Welsh history or Ireland or further afield – that inspired Wyn Jones.

‘Kind of shocking’

“It was not because of historical reasons,” he said. “It’s purely practical, fast and kind of shocking too.”

It’s an interesting juncture for Welsh nationalism at the moment, with Brexit closing down the “independence-in-Europe” option previously favoured by Plaid Cymru, and with arguments over whether Westminster or Cardiff get the powers repatriated from Brussels.

“Especially with Brexit and the democratic processes between Westminster and the Senedd, this was the crucial time for us to have our own media so we can assess how all these political programmes will affect us here in Wales,” says Wyn Jones.

“The only way we’ll do that is through our own media. I thought that by doing this protest, it will be a start.”

For inspiration, he looks not to Scotland, with its more established media but weaker language programme, but to Catalonia and the Basque country, where regional languages have held their own against Castilian Spanish.

Catalans and Basques

“It’s an inspiration what’s happened there since the 1980s when they had just one channel, like Wales,” he says. “If you look at Catalonia, they’ve got six TV channels and four radio stations in Catalan. It’s to do with every aspect, there’s something for everybody within that range of channels, for different age groups and different people within their society.

“The Basque country also has six television channels. You’ve got two Basque channels, one for young people and one for everyone else, and then you’ve got a range of bilingual channels which introduce people to the Basque language. Those channels also give different perspectives and show the democratic processes clearly within those countries.”

‘Another country’

Plaid Cymru, which has four MPs and 10 Assembly members, acknowledged the hunger strike and the issue behind it in a press release.

“With broadcasting policy and funding all decided in Westminster, Welsh citizens are forced to watch domestic news that is almost solely focused on the domestic affairs of another country, and denied the public service for which they are paying,” said Liz Saville Roberts, the party’s Westminster leader.

Plaid Cymru’s goal is independence, but Wyn Jones himself denies that his own action is part of a plan that eventually leads to Welsh independence.

“At the moment, it’s just to get better democracy to Wales,” he says.

“We don’t want to think too far ahead. It’s better just to concentrate on devolution of Welsh broadcasting so we can get a clear understanding of our politics.”

He also has the support of Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg (the Welsh Language Society), which has been taking part in direct action since the 1960s, when it ripped down English-only road signs and delivered them to the authorities. It has been described as the largest protest group since the Suffragettes in terms of numbers sent to prison.

Sparking the mind

It in the far right side on the end. pic.twitter.com/dZBcCKjOY4 — Rhys Davies (@RhysDaviesGlyn) February 15, 2018

Wyn Jones saw the Welsh flag at the United Nations in the latest Marvel superhero film Black Panther – and he was a fan.

“It puts a smile on every Welsh person’s face to see Y Draig Goch, the Red Dragon, in something like that,” he says.

“I like things like that, because it puts things into perspective and makes people think more about the future of Wales within the United Kingdom and the role it plays in the world.

“Although some people say it’s insignificant, it does spark the mind a little bit to think deeply about things.”

Wyn Jones will be hoping his own surprise for Wales will help focus minds on broadcasting.