Welsh Agenda raises an excellent point that is almost never discussed in Welsh politics but that cuts to the heart of the idea that Wales could ever be an independent state.
There are two aspects to this issue. One is the elephant in the room- the large amounts of older people moving into Wales from other parts of the state, across the open border we share with England.
The other side of the coin is that Wales is providing the English economy with a stream of young, productive graduates whose education has in the vast majority of cases been paid for by the Welsh state. This is a double whammy- we are taking in people who have increased public service needs (through no fault of their own, just by being elderly), and swapping for them people that would usually be working and paying taxes.
In mainstream Welsh nationalism I have only ever seen the idea of Welsh independence being discussed in a way that includes an open border with England, the free movement of people and the free movement of goods, in line with the (quite flawed) liberal doctrines prevalent in modern Europe.
This is obviously realistic- you're never going to get people to sign up to the idea of putting up border posts between Wales and England.
But it also has serious implications for the viabiliy of Wales as a potential state. Mainly the following-
* We could probably never have a different VAT rate or excise duty to England because it would lead to smuggling across the open border (imagine paying different VAT in Chester than you would in Wrecsam). Using a different currency to England would also encounter problems, and both governments on either side of the open border would be dependent on each other when it comes to these matters.
* Public services will continue to cost even more than usual to provide in Wales because we already have a higher ratio of older, retired people (without even going into the issue of ill or injured former industrial workers in Wales, poverty, obesity, and so on).
* And at the same time, less economic production to create the wealth to pay for those public services takes place in Wales, as the profile of the Welsh population becomes older. Welsh Agenda notes the cosy idea that Wales "is a nice country to come and live in" with beautiful scenery etc, but this also reflects the fact that very little economic activity is taking place in much of our country.
In Scotland these are manageable problems, because either side of their open border with England is sparsely populated. They could witness some limited issues with people going to somewhere like Berwick to buy goods that are taxed under an English policy if a divergence happened (or vice versa) or if products and fuel were priced radically differently, but nothing that doesn't already happen in similar European countries. The major cities and conurbations in Scotland are far enough away from England to ensure that people couldn't move en masse from one state to the other if a significant divergence in tax policy took place.
As ever, Wales is simply not the same as Scotland, because the north-east and south-east of our country (the most economically dynamic regions) have huge cross-border flows including people commuting to work in different countries, and doing shopping etc. In Ireland these kind of flows provide an impetus to reunite the country. In Wales they logically have the same effect- but to keep us united with England.
So while nationalists are now more open than usual about articulating independence, and such a thing is achievable, to be remotely popular any such case will inevitably be wrapped up in liberalism, accepting globalisation, and "normalising" independence to make it as un-controversial as possible. The problem is that accepting all of those comfortable caveats potentially makes actual independence either impossible or meaningless. These issues will all come to light when Plaid Cymru undertakes further work on this subject- there might well be ways around it through sharing services and negotiating agreements as equal partners and so on.
At the same time this isn't a nationalist or constitutional obsession. Even if Wales does not become an independent state, the net in-migration of retirees into Wales stores up a demographic problem for future Welsh Governments. We will still have to fund services for many of these people from within the block grant, because devolution is now here to stay and in fact the people of Wales want more independence. It follows that for as long as Wales is within the union we also need to be funded on a needs-basis. Otherwise Wales as a country will not be able to afford the various requirements of these people that are moving in (and also Welsh-domiciled people who are ill or in poverty and need assistance). And with every year that we aren't fairly funded, any future viability or closing of the wealth gap becomes more difficult as services become more expensive.
The Welsh Government's response to these issues is complacent, stating only that "we welcome the fact that people want to come and live and work in Wales". They are welcoming the fact that skilled professionals are leaving Wales and the Welsh Government bills for social services and health will be going up. Clearly this is not just an issue for independence but an obstacle to financing a devolved Wales as well. It is not just Plaid Cymru that needs to resolve this but the unionist parties- in fact it could be argued that there is more of an onus on unionism to defend the current arrangements.
What is clear to me is that free trade zones are not always ideal for the development of a country and shouldn't really be celebrated or promoted as a great thing. Even whilst accepting that the current arrangements are here to stay, there needs to be a recognition that free trade zones, open borders and the easy movement of capital tends to promote migration and driving down wages and making the relocation of jobs easier. We have already seen this in Wales having lost the jobs subsidised by the WDA to the cheaper eastern European and Asian economies. Policies to mitigate this must be the way forward, based on training up people from Wales rather than bribing the footloose multi-nationals to come here. This is why the report by MPs last week is not really useful from a long-term perspective.
In debating the relationship between Wales and England in the future it also now needs to be clarified that Wales is in fact subsidising England to a significant degree by taking on many of their elderly people and sending them many of our skilled young people.
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25 comments:
When Rhodri Glyn Thomas pointed out the benefits of interdependence he was slated by other Plaid bloggers.
I wasn't one of those people. It's true that "interdependence" will be part of any independence for Wales though, as my post shows. I am confident this agenda will develop over the next eighteen months especially as a more independent Wales is already a popular idea.
Thanks for the reply. Plaid Cymru has never clarified indepenedence and for much of the time didn't want independence in the same way scotland does, they wanted dominion status or regional status in the EU and other strange things. Now they want independence, but it is not possible to replicate the same process as Scotland in Wales from what you are saying. What then is the point in pursuing something that is impossible and unpopular?
"Protectionism was the first economic policy implemented by the United States government. Under the argument and guidance of George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and James Monroe, protectionism was implemented as a national economic policy. Realizing that the benefits of union with the United Kingdom had been severed as a result of independence while the economic ties remained in favor of the British Empire, the early American leadership saw that a new national economic policy was required. Accordingly, protectionism was viewed as a means to protect the less developed American industrial and agricultural economy from more efficient British goods whilst also gaining additional revenue for the Federal government. In time, tariffs were increased, subsidies apportioned, and infrastructure developed which allowed the expansion of the American made goods and their replacement of British made goods within the domestic economy. Thus, protectionism finally broke most of the economic bonds that had tied the American colonies with the British Empire thereby enabling the United States to establish itself as an independent major power."
Wales will never be independent but 'Gwynedd & Deheubarth' might stand a chance. A low-tax, conservative, Welsh-speaking (not bilingual) nation of around 400,000 people aided by the migration of Welsh speakers from the Valleys/Cardiff.
Our capital? A Welsh 'Brasilia' rear the mouth of the river Mawddach ;)
The notion that Wales is being deluged by elderly incomers from England is a myth.
Although these latest figures don't break down the figures by age group, early years do. In the last year for which data are available (2009-10) marginally (70) more over 65s left Wales than entered. The year before that there was a net inflow of 30, and the year before that it was 490.
In other words since 2007 the total net increase in Wales's pensioner population as a result of migration is 450 people - out of a pensioner population of nearly 600,000.
"What then is the point of pursuing something that is impossible and unpopular?"
All sorts of good things we now take for granted were once considered 'impossible and unpopular'. The key is to first start talking about the practicalities and then to take them step by step.
This is an interesting post and probably deserves a fuller answer, but I would like to pick up on a few things:
On VAT, I don't see what the concern is. It is no real problem to have different VAT rates. For example, the rate in the Netherlands is 19% but in Belgium is 21%. The border is every bit as porous as the border between Wales and England, and they even speak the same language on both sides of the border and often send their children to schools on the other side of the border. In Luxembourg the rate is a very low 15% compared with all its neighbours (Belgium 21%, France soon to be 21.2%, and Germany 19%). Again, the borders are very porous and there is also a high degree of commuter traffic into Luxembourg for work. As another example, I spent a few years living in Connecticut, very close to the New York state border. When I first got there I kept asking why people didn't go across to NY state to shop, because sales tax was lower. But no-one did and no-one considered it an issue. So I think you're overestimating the extent of "smuggling".
Holtham considered the issue of the closeness of major population centres in both Wales and England to the border as a problem, but I don't see why it should be. It is something that we could in fact use to our advantage. For example, if we set fuel (petrol and diesel) taxes lower than England (for motorists are one group which is more likely to shop around) we would get a lot more people coming into Wales for cheaper fuel than we would lose in tax receipts. We would be net winners. England would not be able to "compete" the other way because it would lose tax revenue from all the other parts of England that are too far away to tempt anyone to cross the border to buy fuel and would therefore be net losers.
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Currency is obviously a much bigger issue, but Europe managed OK with different currencies for a long time before the Euro, and I don't think it's a particularly big issue between the six counties of Ireland and the other 29. My guess is that an independent Wales would use the same currency as England, especially if an independent Scotland does too. So currency is not an impediment to independence. Who knows, in five or ten years the Eurozone's problems might have been solved and even England might join it.
The demographic issues are more serious. However I would say that we can still have the open borders without suffering from the problems you mention. To take one example, no-one would want to prevent our young people studying at universities in England or in any other country in the world ... but that does not mean an independent Wales has to pay the same tuition fees to our students who study outside Wales as we do to those who study in Wales. We could also make the Welsh government contribution to payment of fees conditional on students remaining in Wales for a period after they graduate, thus providing two economic incentives for remaining in Wales and helping to stem the flow of young people from Wales.
At the other end of the age scale, I certainly wouldn't want to stop any individual from another country coming to retire in Wales, but that doesn't have to mean that the Welsh state has to pay for their pensions. If from England, then England would pay their state pension if they lived in Wales in the same way as the UK pays state pensions to those who've contributed in the UK but have retired to Spain.
However at a non-individual level, there's no reason why we should make it easy to do so by, for example, building the sort of housing developments that are more likely to attract immigrants than to suit genuine local needs.
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Health and social care is more problematic, though, especially if these remain free at the point of need and based on residency rather than citizenship as is the case with the UK now. There is no reason why this shouldn't be properly reflected in a needs-based block grant while we remain in the UK, but it becomes a bigger problem if we are independent. Of course there is no reason why a formula should not be negotiated between an independent Wales and the RUK for health and social care to RUK nationals who've retired to Wales ... but it would be tricky.
At present we have a chicken and egg situation: the outflow of young people helping to create the vacuum that makes Wales a relatively inexpensive place to retire; while the prices retired people pay for housing in Wales make it harder for young local people to afford a house in Wales so that they have to move away. If we can deal with the outflow of students (as I mentioned before) and at the same time make Wales more economically vibrant so that people can afford to stay we will over a period of decades reach a more stable and sustainable position. I don't think it's out of the question for a newly independent Wales to seek some sort of transitional payments from the RUK on a reducing scale over say twenty, thirty or forty years.
MH- I'm just saying it because our opponents will use those points against us. Carwyn Jones is on record in the Assembly as saying a different excise rate in Scotland (as the SNP wants) "would lead to smuggling". Obviously he is not an authority on these matters but it's still a point that will be used. Glad you have an answer.
On VAT Alun Pugh recently wrote in a Daily Post article using the example of shopping in Chester. Again what i'm doing is anticipating the Labour lines.
On currency it isn't a big issue in Ireland but clearly the impetus is towards harmonisation between the two states that exist on the island, and currency is playing a significant role in that.
What I was really getting at though is the issue you address in your final paragraph, about how resources are distributed across this island and how that could be reconfigured in the event of several independent states existing on this island. What I want to know is whether they would be literally not dependent on each other at all, or whether there would be some kind of partnership. For starters the SNP envisages Scotland being in a monetary union with the rUK now that the Eurozone looks unattractive. As soon as you have a monetary union you have to look at what policy levers will be shared and what scope there is for fiscal transfers. It's determining what independence in the Welsh context actually would be, that is important.
The simple fact of the matter is that if present demographic change continues then the majority of people in Wales will not consider themselves Welsh in the very near future. And why should they? This renders any desire for "independence" totally unrealistic.
"The simple fact of the matter is that if present demographic change continues then the majority of people in Wales will not consider themselves Welsh in the very near future. And why should they? This renders any desire for "independence" totally unrealistic."
Obviously this is completely unfounded. Despite demographic changes the amount of people considering themselves only Welsh or primarily Welsh appears to be generally increasing. So it would be inaccurate to point too pessimistic a picture. Identity could and does change but the idea that in the "near future" we would have a majority not considering themselves Welsh is simply impossible.
I do understand why concerns like this are emerging though and especially the major issue in linguistic Welsh communities, which needs to be addressed.
Anon and WR both address the issue of 'Welshness' whereas I would suggest it boils down to what one means by 'Welsh'.
I regard myself as Welsh because I was born in Wales to Welsh parents who were also born to Welsh parents. I therefore belong to a nation separate to the English and I want independence.
Yet I know many in the area where I live for whom 'Welshness' is simply a geographic thing, and any mention of independence fills them with dread. (One of my neighbours even had a letter in the Cambrian News last week in which he described himself, and others like him, as 'Welsh by immigration'!)
Recognising and understanding this distinction could make both Anon and WR correct.
"I do understand why concerns like this are emerging though and especially the major issue in linguistic Welsh communities, which needs to be addressed."
How do you suggest they are addressed?
Outside of Gwynedd there are only a handful of primary schools with a majority of native Welsh speakers.
Have you been to Ceredigion recently?
The opposition to any expression of "Welshness" is staggering.
I have actually been told to "speak properly" when requesting a newspaper (Times)in Welsh and this in one of the most Welsh speaking villages in the county.
Anon 12:19- I don't have all of the solutions myself but I would probably advocate actions around housing, job creation and so on. Adam Price's suggestion for some kind of spending agency to encourage business and investment in those areas also sounds promising. We would probably have to recognise that those areas are mostly peripheral and rural and a market economy does not necessarily work there without incentivisation. Ultimately politicians have to front these solutions.
it may surprise people to know that while Walas has indeed often suffered from a economic problem of its young people having to leave wales in search of work....wales has also always been able to absorb a fair number of people without the idea of wales as a nation disappearing off the face of the earth! In the 19th century ....a period of massive world migration...only two nations actually witnesses a rise in immigration as opposed to emigration.
One of them was not surprisingly the united states.....the other was.... Wales.
Yet over 100 years later we are stil here...and i would argue...closer than we have been to establishing ourselves in the world as anation in out own right.
Leigh Richards
swansea
An interesting and thought-provoking comment.
I think MH has the right approach.
If Leanne or Elin is elected then it seems that the case for independence will be examined in detail for the first time and the arguments for (and against) considered.
It should not be a small or shallow exercise, and will require considerable research by those possessing the necessary expertise.
If we are to campaign on a platform of sovereignty for our nation, then we must have the facts and figures at our fingertips with which to demolish the age-old myths which have dogged the issue. Some of the latter are raised here.
Fair point from Leigh Richards 1:58:00 Indeed, both my grandfathers came to live in Wales in the early years of the 20th century. One moved into the mining valleys, became a miner, married a local woman and became part of the Welsh community. The demographic change taking place in Wales today cannot, however, be seen in that context. There is simple no need for present migrants from England to become part of their new communities and, in most cases, very little desire. The numbers involved, which in many areas mean that these new residents are in a majority, plus the all-powerful British media means the formation of communities completely removed from the indigenous population. Pay a visit to villages like New Castle Emlyn and see what I mean. I am not for a moment suggesting that this process is good or bad but perhaps "inevitable" as one of the more recent arrivals to Newcastle Emlyn recently described it to me. For me this simply means that Wales should forget about ideas like independence.
Brilliant post from Ramblings drawing on some key points. With VAT the issue of independence is that you could have a different VAT in Wales to England, but both governments would be setting their VAT in the context of what each other was doing. It could differ, but not wildly. Any other posts about independence would do well to recognise we are in a changing EU. We already are part of Europe and people often forget that. Europe is going through some substantial changes, some good but many of them bad for small nations. This needs to be looked at.
"Pay a visit to villages like New Castle Emlyn and see what I mean"
Not just the rural west but all over Wales. This has been happening everywhere in the last decade, even the Glamorgan/Gwent valleys have seen an influx.
It's not just the Welsh language - our accents, mannerisms and idiosyncrasies that seperate us from the English are dying off.
What is the point of a Welsh nation that is no different to the English?
We can't ignore the direction which history is indicating we're moving towards.
GB, the UK, has only existed since 1801, and the Union with Scotland only from 1707.
The union with Ireland was broken in 1922, following a period of growth in the demand for home rule for all three Celtic nations.
The interwar period was an interlude. Since 1945 the trend has continued and has resulted in the transitional phase that we are living in today.
Ron Davies commented that 'devolution is a process not an event'. That process reflects the unsatisfactory nature of the UK, both politically and constitutionally.
This nation state, as presently constituted cannot last for ever, indeed, not even for much longer. If the Scots don't leave in or around 2014, then it's only a matter of time before they do, even if there is an intervening transitional federal phase, which I think most unlikely.
Wales couldn't possibly remain in a rump-UK as presently constituted, governed from an unreformed Westminster. Even Carwyn Jones has woken up to that fact.
So we may wonder about this or that, how many migrants may come or go, how weak or poor we are, or how will we manage, but like it or not fundamental change is on its way.
With the rise of national sentiment across the border, we may not even have much say in the matter.
Personally, I'd rather we were prepared and in the driving seat as opposed to having to react to external events.
Plaid needs to be ready for these eventualities by electing a leader with clear aims and objectives, and the charisma and personality to gather popular support for the national movement. There isn't a lot of time in which to do it.
Anon 3:00, actually there is 'a need' for today's immigration, if you look at it this way:
Rural Wales is econonomically neglected. This results in many young people leaving. Ordinarily this would result in a falling population, always bad news for politicians.
But if you attract or allow immigration then this disguises the economic problems and can even be used to argue that, 'things can't be that bad, otherwise people wouldn't be moving here'.
But the original problem remains. So the majority of those moving in have to be either retired or the kinds of non-working types so favoured by our housing associations and private landlords.
This may help disguise the original problem but creates other problems: Fewer people paying tax, national insurance, council tax. Greater demands on everything from care for the elderly to the police and the judicial system. But even this can be turned to advantage. More needed from an ever-reducing pot.
Further, the more of such immigrants that can be attracted then the poorer it makes Wales look, strengthening the 'Wales couldn't pay its way' argument.
So from our enemies' point of view it's a win-win situation: Wales is both anglicised and impoverished; both of which, for different reasons, make independence less achievable.
The only solution - as I have elsewhere argued - is for us to have more control over who moves to Wales. With decisions to be taken on what any potential immigrant has to offer.
No nation should be ruled by another in today’s society, Cymru is a nation and our quest towards independence should not be questioned.
Yes, there will be problems and mistakes will be made along the way but the final objective will be worth it.
excellent thought provoking article from WR, followed by a range of interesting and insightful comments. The irony is we are having this discussion...with some posters warning of a dire fate for the future existence of the welsh nation....at a time when wales claims to full nation hood are stronger and on firmer foundation than they have probably been at any time in hundreds of years.
If you’d said to anyone in wales on march 2nd 1979 that in 3 decades time the welsh would not only vote yes to the establishment of devolved government for wales but would then later also vote...by a large majority...for devolved government with legislative powers for wales...you would have been considered certifiable.
Consequently a generation of our young people have grown up with devolved government as a fact of life in wales.
For many young people in wales the welsh government is not an ‘extra tier of government’...that hateful and deliberately misleading phrase so beloved by the wales haters like true wales. For many of our young people devolved government is the form of government that matters...it is their government. To them...and remember these people are our nation’s future...it is the british government at westminister that is distant, out of touch and irrelevant...and which is the ‘extra and unnecessary tier of government’. Thus poll after poll shows that it is among this age group that support for further devolution for wales...and full self government even is strongest.
And while this excellent article and this discussion clearly raises some real problems that could arise as a result of any large scale inward migration of elderly people from england into wales - principally the adverse impact on welsh speaking communities and on the impact on public services in parts of wales experiencing such inward migration ...problems which clearly should not be ignored and which will clearly have to addressed by a future welsh government...though it will of course need considerably more powers than it has at present to do so.
I would nevertheless argue that there has never been a better time to be welsh than now....nor has there been a time when the future of the welsh nation looked as healthy and as assured as it does now.....just that that future welsh nation may not be the kind of welsh nation some posters here would necessarily like.....
But there really is no need for the gloom and doom coming from some people. Yes wales is changing...and in many ways is a very different nation from the wales that existed 50 years ago for example. But what nation doesnt evolve?
No nation on the earth stays the same or fails to be significantly affected under the impact of economic, social and cultural changes. Does anyone seriously imagine that england hasnt changed in the last 60 years....it has markedly...and a good thing too...and so has wales....markedly....and a good thing too.
The clock cannot be turned back. The wales of 50 years ago has gone forever but there is no question that wales is moving along the right path and that it will one day be able to take its place among the sovereign nations of the world. And this assertion is not based upon any kind of wild ‘arthurian’ style romanticism....the solid foundations of a future Wales that is sovereign and self governing are all around us..
Leigh Richards
Thanks for the range of comments. This was a debate worth having. There are two streams of thought going on. One is very optimistic about Wales, saying that we have already moved forward constitutionally and that actually the hurdles in the way of independence can be dealt with. The other stream of thought is pessimistic and says that Wales is on the verge of disappearing or not being Welsh.
I haven't got time to write what I want to say about this but I think the pessimism is linked to the way nationalists outside of Plaid (who tend to be more hardline and just out for independence without any interest in day to day politics, and usually not being leftists either) think devolution is a bad thing or is part of the British state and makes independence less likely etc.
I think devolution should now be criticised more openly- but I still think it is part of the solution rather than part of the problem. That's why I would side with MH rather than Jac o the North. It's an interesting debate within Welsh nationalism but I think the likes of MH have won it a long time ago. Politics isn't just "independence" or "not independence" there are also lots of other things going on parallel to that process that are also important, like economics and what kind of state we want to live in, climate change etc. And I say all this because I confidently support independence for Wales.
With all that said there are issues going on with regards to Welsh communities that have simply never been tackled or discussed openly, and that will need an answer when the next census is published for example. Questions will need to be asked about globalisation and markets in that respect and the effect they're having on our language.
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