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That light in the sky you saw was the moment two cabinet ministers lit the touchpaper and detonated a controversy with the potential to burn and burn.

Welsh Secretary Alun Cairns and Transport Secretary Chris Grayling told the world that the second Severn Crossing will be renamed the Prince of Wales Bridge and a fully-fledged furore is now alight.

The fascinating thing about the row is that it was entirely predictable. Vale of Glamorgan MP Mr Cairns will have gone to bed on Wednesday night knowing how Labour and Plaid Cymru politicians – not to mention the army of people who have signed an online petition in protest – would react.

This is an age of referendums and lengthy consultations. People expect to be asked their opinion before a decision is made.

In Scotland, people got to vote on the new name for the “Forth Replacement Crossing” road bridge which was christened the Queensferry Crossing.

But people in this nation woke up to hear that a bridge that has become known as a gateway to Wales is going to be named after royalty.

(Image: Mirrorpix)

Wales is not famed as a hotbed of seething republicanism. In all likelihood the Netflix drama The Crown is just as popular on this side of Offa’s Dyke as in England.

Plenty of people across Wales from different political tribes are delighted to accept MBEs, OBEs and other assorted honours each year, and charities and community groups gladly welcome visiting members of the royal family. The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge forged a connection with Anglesey when they lived there while Prince William worked as a search and rescue pilot.

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If there had been a public poll to choose a name for the bridge and a majority wanted to name it in celebration of the Queen or any of her descendants, republicans might have groaned but only the most radical anti-monarchists who try to overturn a democratic decision.

What has rankled so many people is the sense that this decision has been sprung on Wales. It looks like a fait accompli – a decision made behind closed doors by people who must have known just how much it would rile a slice of the population.

The controversy has a particular potency for a variety of reasons.

The Severn Crossing has long been a source of exasperation because of the tolls that have drained hauliers and households alike of cash. The moment this year when the charges will vanish cannot come soon enough for drivers who have no other option but to use the infrastructure to cross between Wales and England.

Frustration at the high cost of the toll – now £5.60 for cars – and the importance of the crossing to the Welsh economy has prompted periodic calls for responsibility of the crossings to be devolved to the Assembly.

Not only has this not happened, the toll today is administered by Highways England and the second of the bridges will have a name it is almost impossible to imagine the Assembly choosing.

The announcement also comes at a time when decision-makers should need no reminding about the sensitivity surrounding landmarks linked to royal history.

(Image: George King Architects)

Last year plans for an “iron ring” sculpture at Flint Castle which alluded to Edward I’s castle-building programme were scrapped after intense opposition. It should have come as no shock to Whitehall that Welsh nationalists and republicans would portray this renaming of the bridge as an attempt to reassert the authority of both the UK Government and the monarchy.

This comes right at the moment when Welsh and UK ministers are still locked in debate about the future of Brexit legislation that both Carwyn Jones and Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon initially denounced as a “naked power grab”.

There is real concern about Wales’ place in a post-Brexit United Kingdom. Questions about constitutional powers and the future of regional development funding remain unresolved.

For Plaid Cymru, Brexit has forced the party to engage in vexing thinking about its long-term strategy of achieving independence within Europe.

In such an atmosphere, the UK Government’s unilateral announcement that people will soon be driving across the Prince of Wales Bridge can be nothing less than inflammatory.

(Image: Ben Birchall/PA Wire)

This does not mean that the majority of Wales’ 3.1 million citizens are outraged by the change. But it is telling that right when Whitehall is supposedly striving to ensure that the Assembly will not refuse to grant consent to the EU Withdrawal Bill it is prepared to make a decision guaranteed to antagonise so many AMs.

It is interesting to speculate what Prince Charles will make of the controversy. In recent years the royal family gave every impression of working, with success, to avoid generating consternation – but now the heir to the throne finds himself dragged into a very political row.

With a royal wedding looming, this is probably the last thing the father of the groom needs.

If popular campaigns are launched to instead name this magnificent stretch of road and steel in honour of, say, Gareth Edwards, Aneurin Bevan, David Lloyd George or Tanni Grey-Thompson, the message would be implicitly sent out that the public would rather celebrate citizens who have achieved the extraordinary than venerate the monarchy. That is exactly the type of PR disaster the Queen has so expertly managed to dodge.

The fact that the Welsh Government did not oppose the renaming when it had the chance may stop this debacle reaching such a point. Welsh Secretary Mr Cairns wrote to the First Minister last year and no objections were raised.

Plaid will seek to extract every ounce of political capital out of this but Labour politicians now know that attacking the name change risks weakening the Welsh Government.

What will prove crucial is how wider public opinion, far beyond Cardiff Bay, evolves. If there is evidence that a giant swathe of the population really will not tolerate a Prince of Wales Bridge then Whitehall and Clarence House may ask if it might be worth thinking again.

If ministers and royalty alike want to strengthen the United Kingdom, this is not a time to inflame revolutionary passions.