An independent Wales: The 'only viable option' or a 'disaster' waiting to happen?

Growing up in Wales, Dr Trystan Gruffyd didn’t think much about whether or not his country should be independent.

“I’d maybe pondered it, but it was something in the distance, not something you’d really discuss in the mainstream,” he said.

The doctor’s experience is the norm. But the conclusions of a new independent commission’s report into the constitutional future of Wales have changed that. “I certainly think it’s become more realistic now,” he said. “People have started discussing the potential realistic routes and different politics that might come out of it.”

The report said independence was a “viable” option and even went so far as to claim it could be the best way to ensure Wales thrives in the future.

Unsurprisingly, the report has opened up a Pandora’s box and raised far more questions than it answered. Here, Express.co.uk speaks to those at the heart of Welsh politics working for and against a break with the Union, who all believe they know what is best for the country’s future.

The independent commission was set up by the Welsh government in 2021 off the back end of a Labour Senedd election manifesto pledge. It is co-chaired by Professor Laura McAllister and former Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams and includes a panel of figures from the four main parties in Wales.

Plaid Cymru is the only mainstream party in Wales that openly supports independence, and currently works in a co-operation agreement in the Senedd with Welsh Labour.

For the party’s leader, Rhun ap Iorwerth, the report’s findings were welcome. “It’s groundbreaking,” he said. “It now gives us different contexts for the debate, that Wales can be a nation which moulds its priorities better.”

The report said independence would help Wales unlock its economic potential and break free of a “business as usual” model.

Yet, this would, it said, mean “hard choices in the short to medium term,” especially on economic policy.

Mr ap Iorwerth pointed out that these “hard choices” were also present in the other options put forth — enhanced devolution and a federal UK — “and at its clearest, it describes the choices an independent Wales could make about the economy as being the strongest tool for future economic growth”.

While the Welsh government controls areas like health and social care, housing, local transport, education and local government, the likes of foreign affairs, defence, most taxation, the bulk of benefits, and economic policy are in the hands of the UK Government in Westminster.

It is hard to imagine what those aspects of government would look like in Wales, for the country has never had control over them. But Mr ap Iorwerth has a vision.

“People say these economic issues make independence unviable, but the UK isn’t able to pay for itself, the UK has debt, so we would go into a period where a newly independent Wales would, too, have debt,” he said. “We would work through that using the economic levers we’d now have at our disposal, and I think the best way to do that would be to have our own currency. It’s one of our biggest problems in Wales: we don’t have a treasury.”

This week after a lobbying campaign, councils in England were able to secure a £600million support package from the Government. Councils in Wales cannot do the same lobbying with the Welsh government because it doesn’t have its own treasury. It is, Mr ap Iorwerth argues, just one example of how Wales is undermined in the Union.

“Having that treasury and having our own currency would give us more flexibility in growing the economy,” he said. “It would give us powers to create jobs, to tackle poverty.”

From this, he said, a whole host of opportunities would present themselves and enable Wales to overcome the initial adversity independence would create.

It would also enable Wales the power to control domestic events, like the fallout from the Tata Steel site in Port Talbot. “The UK Government was at the heart of this failure. While the devolved government had an important role to play, the scale of strategic investment for it lay with Westminster,” he said.

The people of Wales vote in their droves not for Plaid but for Labour. It is a Labour country, having picked the party at every UK general election since 1922, and every Assembly and Senedd election since 1999. It is the clearest sign yet that Welsh people want to be a part of the UK considering Labour’s official line has always been a Unionist one.

In 2021 the first open signs of a divergence in opinion appeared. That year, Labour for an Independent Wales launched, a pressure group inside the party that is trying to attract Welsh Labour MS’ to the side of independence.

The group’s chair, Bria de la Mare, acknowledges the challenges but said things are moving in a favourable direction. “If you look at the makeup of the people who support independence in polling, a large amount of them are Labour voters,” she said. “It’s our job to spark that conversation both in public and in the party, and there is a huge shift in Welsh Labour about it happening right now.”

She said members of the group are now having conversations about independence with Labour MS’ and there is no longer “that huge kind of dismissal” that came before. For her, it is a matter of when, not if, Wales becomes independent.

Even so, there are currently no Welsh Labour politicians who have openly expressed support for a break with the Union. Added to this is the possibility that their calls would fall on deaf ears when it comes to the wider UK party.

“Keir Starmer won’t welcome any talk of independence,” said Steven Fielding, an academic who specialises in Labour. “That’s because it starts to raise all kinds of questions about the union and Labour in the union.”

Sir Keir is, however, expected to hand more powers to the Senedd through further devolution. Last year, in his keynote speech delivered in Llandudno, North Wales, the Labour leader said it was time to use the spirit of devolution to “transform Britain, give the communities and great nations of this country the powers they need to control their destiny”.

He added: “Here in Wales, it’s fair to say you know the difference Labour can make better than other parts of Britain.”

It will have been welcomed by the likes of Plaid and Ms de la Mare, but those in opposition say it is a red herring.

Andrew RT Davies, leader of the Welsh Conservatives, described the commission’s report as “naval gazing” in a time when Wales was the worst-off nation in the UK, with the highest concentration of poverty, the longest NHS waiting times, a disparate housing situation, and other entrenched failures.

“Independence isn’t a viable option,” he said. “Ultimately, the report clearly says there are economic consequences. Why would you want to take a course of action that will be economically damaging? It would be disastrous.”

In the eyes of Mr Davies and his supporters, Wales already has a “comprehensive devolution settlement” that is enough.

He said: “When you look at the last 25 years since devolution came into being, what the nationalists and their Labour bedfellows have done is try to concentrate power in Cardiff rather than push it out into regions that might benefit from it.

“Instead of constantly looking to get more powers in Cardiff, why on earth these people don’t accept the settlement we have at the moment, use the levers we have in health, education, the economy, transport, and the environment, I don’t know.

“Wales is yearning to see improvements not because of a lack of power but because of policies by Labour supported by Plaid which have led to poor outcomes for the people of Wales. Instead of constitutional naval gazing, they should get on with the job of delivering for people.”

The division in the Senedd over the question of Wales’ future appears to be slowly seeping into public discourse. Since 2020, polling for those in favour of independence has remained at the mid-20 percent level, a minute figure compared to Scotland but one that wouldn’t have been imagined 10 years ago. There is a clear and growing portion of the country that believes Wales’ best interests lie outside Westminster.

If Labour wins the next UK general election as almost all polls say it will, things will change in Wales. Sir Keir has promised to “return power over its economic destiny to Wales,” and give a “decision-making role for the Welsh government on structural funds, will be restored. It’s time for Wales to take back control.” What that might look like is yet to be revealed.

But the further devolution goes, the more the lines blur between it and independence. At what point does so much devolution become independence by proxy?

“It’s a really interesting question,” said Mr ap Iorwerth. “Independence is of course different by nature, but the reality is that the more devolution you have, the more you see what you could do if you had the incumbent powers.

“You get a more tantalising glimpse of how things could be. Further devolution is a means to tease the possibilities of independence even further.”