Sunday 19 March 2017

I don't think Dominion Status for Wales is the answer.

I am not sure about Plaid's Adam Price t that “Wales needs an ante-room to independence”.
Describing what this could look like, he said: 
“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 gathers momentum.”
Not withstanding that the Free State "solution in Ireland  was followed bu a civil war that led to more deaths than the War of Independence it seems a cop out
I don'r reject the idea right out and his argument that Wales needs a “
plan”and must not end up as “the sad one at the end of the party who doesn’t know when to leave”.
Is spot on  but when we order the Taxi I think we should intend to go straight home

He attacked “a particularly Welsh complex – the inverted self-confidence of a nation that is convinced that it cannot be a success”.
he former MP said:
 “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.”
In his essay, Mr Price rejects the arguments that Welsh independence will be “easy”, but also dismisses claims it is “impossible”.
He said: “[There] are some really difficult, thorny issues which we will need to solve, both on our journey towards independence and in the years following. But although they are significant, and must not be underestimated, they should not be exaggerated either.”
Adamant that small countries can thrive, he said:
 “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.”
He pointed out 
“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.”
If a conversation in the pub after yesterdays  match is anything to go on its even more depressing. One person not only pushed the too small too poor and worriedly seem more than happy to accept it.

Indeed it seemed that this was a majority  opinion of those around me it reminded me of an abuse victim who has lost all self esteem and seem to accept their abuse even believing it  is their fault .

Perhaps Plaid should send someone to Scotland to observe the changing attitude there among particularly those who believed the  small or too poor to be independent scenario and shared the sad acceptance of this.

I for one do not want Dominion Status or Independence with one of the Windsors as head of state.

I want full Independence in Europe. some would argue that we should not be part of the EU but we can still for now move forward together.

One of my very firs Blogs was to compare Devolution with the Old Trans Cambria Bus root here and commented that not every may want to go the entire distance of the journey but they can share the Bus for a while.

I just hope most will join me on the journey all the way.

1 comment:

Leigh Richards said...

To be fair to Adam Price looks to me as if he was raising some sort of 'dominion status' as a signpost on the way to wales achieving full independence. The only problem is so called dominion status is a concept which had its day decades ago. I think when plaid cymru was formed this was their aim, and gwynfor evans used to mention it in the 1960s.

But with the emergence in the post war era of the UN and the EU it's difficult to see why Wales should settle for a status which would still mean all foreign policy matters being controlled by westminster and which would still leave us as subjects of the british crown. So we could still find ourselves dragged in to more illegal and unjust military actions and we'd still be lumbered with a member of the house of windsor as our head of state. Put frankly 'dominion status' would hardly be much of an advance on what wales has now and youre right to say it should be a non starter glyn.