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Welsh independence has long been something of a minority sport.

Indeed, to have spent most of my adult life – and perhaps even more surprisingly – a good chunk of my childhood – thinking about, dreaming about, writing about the independence of my country – is to mark me out as a little bit odd, let’s be frank.

However, I’ve often pondered the fact that in most other countries it would be the other way round: not believing in the independence of your country would be a strange position to take.

I guess that’s why the number of independent countries continues to rise at an accelerating pace: of the almost 200 sovereign states in the world today over half achieved their independence since World War II.

Being a stateless nation isn’t that much fun to be honest, and that’s why a good proportion of the 60 or so nations left in the ‘still-colonised club’ are queuing up to “yexit”. But not so far we Welsh? Why does the rest of the world view independence so differently from us? And could this change?

Well, to answer the last question I’d start by saying this. There’s a tendency for discussions on Welsh independence to divide along lines that seem to suggest either it will be easy or that it will be impossible.

Neither of these statements are true, of course, and they perhaps reflect that the issue often falls prey to closed-mind thinking and pre-determined conclusions. Honesty alert here. There are some really difficult, thorny issues that we will need to solve, both on our journey towards independence and in the years following. But though they are significant, and must not be underestimated, they should not be exaggerated either.

Let’s take one of them, the current fiscal deficit (according to the most detailed analysis to date) of around £15bn a year. Now that deficit is a serious issue and reflects Wales’ underlying lackluster economic performance in recent years (of which more in a second). But what that figure most decidedly is not is the fiscal balance of a post-independence Wales.

As analysis conducted by the respected Common Weal think tank in Scotland has argued, that deficit is slashed by billions when we take into account a whole series of factors which would apply in the case of an actually independent state.

This includes the fact that UK state pensions accumulated up to the point of independence would remain the responsibility of the successor Westminster state; that contribution to past debt repayments would be reduced by an agreement over the distribution of net assets; that expenditure on things like defence would be much lower etc.

This doesn’t eliminate the deficit but it brings it closer to levels comparable to that which the UK is itself currently funding as a percentage of national income: and no-one is arguing the UK can’t be independent, pre or post-Brexit.

The deficit argument is one example of a particularly Welsh complex: the inverted self-confidence of a nation that is convinced that it cannot be a success. This is so deeply ingrained that beliefs – that we are too small or too poor to be independent – appear to us self-evident facts even when contradicted by the world we see around us.

(Image: David Rawcliffe/Propaganda)

Of the top 20 richest countries in the world today, 14 of them are small countries. Far from being too poor to be independent, doesn’t the logic point in the opposite direction: it’s our very lack of independence – and the ability to be agile and innovative, using the full range of tools and policy levers that only the independent nation has at its disposal – that has condemned our people to inter-generational poverty.

And on certain indices – trade in goods, for example – it’s Britain that’s in massive deficit not us.

Beyond the raw data of the polls I detect that people are increasingly open to the idea of Welsh independence, perhaps at this stage just as a dream, an alternative reality like the imaginary independent Wales in the novels of Jasper Fforde or Malcolm Pryce.

Welcome to the world of the indy-curious, to quote a phrase of Wales’ most interesting political movement of the moment, Yes Cymru. To see if you belong in their ranks then conduct a quick thought experiment: imagine by some miracle of medical science you’re transported, mind and body intact, to Wales in the year 2050. (God knows, some of us reading this may actually get there.)

And imagine that this Wales is independent. Does your heart miss a beat with a mini throb of pride – bloody hell, we did it! – or a sense of sadness and loss?

And imagine that when you open your eyes you see a Wales that may not be the richest in the world – Singapore perhaps it’s not – but a country that’s wealthy in other ways: whose people have good jobs, with decent public services, where trust in democracy is high and a sense of community has been restored.

Small countries are, after all, pretty good at this wellbeing business, consistently topping the UN’s Human Development Index.

Aren’t you a little inspired, or at the very least intrigued?

Our nation’s destiny – our destination – is increasingly clear. UK 2.0 – not Empire 2.0 – is where we are headed as soon there will only be two countries left in this crumbling union. We don’t want to be the sad one at the end of the party that doesn’t know when to leave.

We need a plan that’s clear about the direction of travel, but – honesty alert number two – maybe recognises that we cannot do it all in one go. Wales needs an ante-room to independence. It’s not the Assembly, but it’s something like the Irish Free State 100 years ago, the Dominion status floated recently by Elystan Morgan within Labour and the “free association” suggested a decade ago within Plaid by Rhodri Glyn Thomas.

A Free Wales now, independence next could be an idea that gathered momentum. Whatever the speed of our progress, the alternative is not the status quo.

It is to be an impoverished and patronised peninsula in Greater England’s wake. For Wales, see Scotland or Cornwall? It’s we now too must choose.