Welsh independence campaign turns Brexit rhetoric against England The Europe referendum and its aftermath have helped to fuel the cause

The wall is not a big one, nor a beautiful one, nor does it keep anything in, nor out. But it is a sacred one. Situated in a lay-by on the a487, just north of Llanrhystud, about half-way up the west coast of Wales, its importance derives from two words graffitied on it by Meic Stephens, a journalist and activist, in the 1960s: Cofiwch Dryweryn. Remember Tryweryn.

In 1965 Liverpool City Council flooded the Tryweryn valley to provide water for the English city. Welsh authorities were not consulted. “The fact that the hamlet of Capel Celyn stood in the middle of the site did not deter them: nor did the fact that it was one of the very Welshest parts of all Wales,” writes Jan Morris in her book about what she describes as “the oldest of the English colonies”.

Some credit the creation of the reservoir with instilling a stronger sense of Welshness in the Welsh. Demands for bilingual signs, a television channel and a Welsh assembly all started to gain support after the flooding.

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Which is why, when the graffiti was painted over with the word “elvis” in February, locals were outraged. Two months later someone tried to demolish the wall, taking a chunk off the top, which inflamed things further. Dyfed-Powys police labelled the incident a hate crime.

Brexit rhetoric

Since then, Cofiwch Dryweryn graffiti has popped up across the country. S4C, a Welsh-language broadcaster, commissioned a documentary about the wall, its imitators and its meaning. The original graffiti has been repainted, and a charity set up to protect it. At the National Eisteddfod, an annual festival of Welsh culture that took place outside Llanrwst earlier this month, canny businesses sold mugs, bumper stickers and cushions emblazoned with the slogan.

The result has been a swelling of Welsh pride – and some anti-English sentiment – as a new generation learns about the flooding of Tryweryn. Coupled with growing frustration at Westminster’s handling of Brexit, it has got a small but noisy minority talking louder about independence, something that Wales has historically been far less interested in than other members of the United Kingdom.

At the Eisteddfod, a sign at a pavilion run by the Welsh Assembly asked visitors to jot down their hopes for Wales over the next 20 years. Most responses said annibyniaeth, or independence. In May more than 1,000 people joined a pro-independence rally in Cardiff, organised by All Under One Banner, a campaign group modelled on its Scottish namesake. A second rally in July attracted 5,000-8,000. A third will take place in September.

More than a dozen town councils, mostly in north Wales, have come out in favour of independence this year. The share of the Welsh public that agrees is still very small: a YouGov poll in May put it at 11 per cent. But it has grown from just 6 per cent in September 2017. A further 26 per cent want more powers for the Welsh Assembly, which is a feeble thing compared with its Scottish or Northern Irish counterparts.

Welsh independence

“We used to talk about independence being a long-term goal, which has a certain elasticity to it. That’s gone, certainly in the language we use,” says Adam Price, leader of the nationalist Plaid Cymru, which holds 10 seats in the 60-member Assembly. Brexit, he says, was the “booster rocket”.

Unlike Scotland and Northern Ireland, Wales voted to leave the European Union (by 53 per cent to 47 per cent). But the vote expressed a feeling of neglect, says Mr Price: it was the “wrong answer to the right question” of how to deal with Wales’s economic stagnation. Suzy Davies, a Tory assemblywoman who backs the union, says there is a “genuine political conversation” around independence in the political bubble. “But I don’t believe it’s on the doorstep. I’m not hearing it in my social media.”

Independence is most popular among Europhiles. Some 16 per cent of Remainers in Wales support it, compared with only 6 per cent of Leavers. Yet there are echoes of the Brexit campaign in their arguments.

A handbook produced by YesCymru, a pro-independence group, reads like a Brexit manifesto, arguing that the constitutional set-up of the union is undemocratic and that a Wales unshackled would be richer and able to do its own trade deals.

‘Diverse and inclusive’

An independent Wales, insists Mr Price, would be open, diverse, international and inclusive. It would work closely with England, but in a partnership of equals rather than as a rule-taker. It is a way of “taking back control”, says one participant at the Eisteddfod.

Sion Jobbins of YesCymru says it is important to lay the groundwork now, “so that we are ready when Scotland leaves and Northern Ireland reunites. The alternative is incorporation.” He worries that Westminster would dissolve the Welsh Assembly and absorb Wales into a unitary state. “They sent troops for rocks in the Falklands. They will never give up Wales,” he says. Such excitable talk is not uncommon among campaigners.

That gets to the heart of the incipient independence movement. Like Brexit and the nationalist campaigns in Scotland and Northern Ireland, the argument is less about economics or politics than identity. And that is what makes it worth watching. Recent years have shown how quickly identity movements can take off. The Cofiwch Dryweryn wall went from neglected graffiti to national treasure in six months.

Yet the risk with identity movements is that it can be hard to know when to stop. At the Eisteddfod, across the way from YesCymru’s stall, a group of artists had set up a “passport office” issuing travel documents for the nation of Llanrwst, a town of about 3,300, which in 1276 was declared independent by the then (Welsh) Prince of Wales. It was a bit of fun, and elicited no more than good-natured chuckles. Until recently, so did the notion of Welsh independence.

© 2019 THE ECONOMIST