According to Wales Online ,Cymru leader Leanne Wood,has told a group of sixth formers that Wales is not yet economically ready for independence.
Though the Wasting Mule Online (for that is what it largely is) does not seem to have Leanne actually using these words
They say
Speaking to around 100 school students at Ysgol Dinas Bran, Llangollen, Ms Wood spoke about the huge engagement she had witnessed while campaigning for a Yes vote in last month’s referendum on Scottish independence.She said: “Scotland has always had a separate justice system and doesn’t, for example, have probation officers, the job I used to do before becoming a politician.
“Instead the work is done by social workers.
“Since 1978 Scotland has had funding on a much greater scale than we have had, enabling it to become a successful economy.
“Plaid Cymru believes all our efforts should be geared towards improving the Welsh economy so that Wales can stand on its own two feet.
“We are absolutely determined to do that, but we’re not there yet.”
She added: “There’s absolutely no reason why Wales can’t become a prosperous independent country in due course. There’s nothing wrong or inferior about us that means we couldn’t run all of our own affairs in an independent country.”
However her use of "in due course"is a bit worrying.
Plaid should be arguing that it be impossible to become a strong economy without Independence and it will be that very thing that will galvanise the economy.
Talk of "reforming the Barnett formula means that we will still be going "Cap in Hand" to Westminster only with a bigger cap in the expectation we will get more.
Theo's nothing wrong in fighting within the current system particularly for social justice for example.
But we need a positive vision of an Independent Wales and we need to make this imperative.
We could wait for decades or ever for the economic conditions to make Wales ready for Independence.
Instead lets argue that it will be Independence itself that will create the conditions.
4 comments:
Absolutely
this is a dilemna for leanne and plaid - and indeed is for all of us who want to see wales having much greater say in its own affairs. on the one hand the polls consistently show support for independence for wales hovering down at around tne 10 percent area - we can safely dismiss the much hyped '3 percent' poll that recently had welsh labour toadies crowing - yet on the other hand the polls are consistently showing that there's growing support for further devolved powers for wales ie 60 percent of people in wales want to see policing and welfare devolved for example.
we suspect the above quote from leanne shows that plaid strategists are trying to negotiate a path between both these positions.
Those who want Welsh Independence need to leave the politics of the begging bowl and grievance to Labour and Lib Dems (the Tories don’t care either way). It’s embarrassing to hear a Plaid Cymru leader say how much Wales (or rather the very wealthy often English in Wales) paid in to the UK during the Industrial Revolution and because of that we should get a better deal – leave it to Cawryn Jones and Labour to sound grovelling and pathetic.
Plaid need to remember that when Ireland was fighting for it’s independence either Eamon De Valera or Michael Collins said that Ireland may be worse off initially, but they’d be free to make their own decisions and that was a price worth paying for Irish freedom, that’s the sort of message Plaid Cymru’s leaders need to start making to transform the debate about Welsh independence.
Wales’s GDP is a little over 70% of the UK’s and here’s a quote about the Irish economy before independence to prove that it’s possible.
'And while post-independence Ireland was relatively poor, stagnant and emigration high, the previous 120 years of London rule had returned the same outcomes (except in north-east Ulster). In 1913, according to Maddison, Ireland’s GDP was 57% that of Great Britain. Surely Ireland is an example of both Dublin and London misrule.'
regarding the fact that wales gdp is only 70 percent of the uk's the former plaid chair john dixon makes the point on his borthlas blog that even this figure would still mean an independent wales would rank among the top 30 economies in the world - certainly food for thought.
http://borthlas.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/half-full-or-half-empty.html
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