A Forgotten Nation

Recently, YouGov conducted a poll of Conservative members about their care for the United Kingdom in relation to their care for the delivery of Brexit. They were asked whether they minded certain scenarios playing out as long as Brexit was delivered. These questions included the loss of Scotland from the UK, economic damage, the death of the Conservative party and Northern Ireland leaving the UK. All these scenarios were voted in favour of as long as Brexit was delivered.

Usually my gripe would end there. It should end there, at the fact that the governing party that has (at last check in 2018) only 124,000 members and the majority seem to not care about the future of this country as long as they get what they want. British politics is being held hostage by Old Etonians, but that is not where my anger shall lie today.

My anger today is at YouGov, it’s at the ECB, and it’s at anyone who denies Cymru our identity as a nation, a people, and a community. It is at anyone who thinks that we are just another part of England but with accents that you can laugh at.

My issue with YouGov is that they did not even care to poll whether or not it mattered to the Conservative party members that Cymru could leave if Brexit goes on. Yes, Welsh independence is not the primary concern for the majority of the British Public and we are not at the forefront of British political discourse. Despite this we are still our own people; a people with a culture and a history that, whilst being intertwined with that of the English, is separate and distinctive from that of English history.

In 2018, Ireland’s Cricket Team received full membership of the ICC which now allows them to play Test cricket at the highest standard against the likes of Australia, India, and the West Indies. Scotland have had limited membership to the ICC since the governing organisation’s inception but this membership still allows them to play ODI cricket against the top teams and provides them with the opportunity to enter the Cricket World Cup. Cymru on the other hand has Glamorgan County Cricket Club. No international team, just an archaic and defunct county to represent the whole nation in the County cricket championship and in the Big Bash League. Instead we are part of the England and Wales Cricket Team, a team sanctioned and governed by the ECB (English Cricket Board). A team that has over 140 years of sporting history and has fielded 690 different players has only chosen to use 15 Welshmen, despite the ECB themselves claiming to represent the nations of England and Wales.

Admittedly, Wales has not been a sovereign state since 1284 when Edward I annexed it. There was no formal agreement, such as the Act of Union between Scotland and England in 1707; instead we were colonized, we were demonized and we had our language, our culture, and our identity stripped from us. With the language being beaten out of school kids as recently as the early 20th century due to the English language being seen as the language of moral and societal progress.

In the 21 years since I have been alive, Cymru has begun its movement towards recognition, towards relevance. We have our own National Assembly which, as of May next year, will be known as the Welsh Parliament. Then, in 2012, the National Assembly passed their first law since the abolition of Welsh Law in 1535 when Henry VIII decreed that Wales was unequivocally part of England. This Law stated that both the Welsh and English languages are held at equal standings. This shows Cymru’s progressive nature and our aim and trajectory towards the future, with our ever-growing tourism industry and our louder calls for our autonomy and eventual independence.