“There was a village choir; there was a folk group with a harp that won prizes; there was a chapel. And all that culture just went under the water. What you see here is the graveyard of a Welsh community.” More than half a century on, Elwyn Edwards still feels a sense of outrage as he contemplates the valley of Tryweryn in north-west Wales, where the thriving village of Capel Celyn was deliberately flooded in 1965. On the orders of Westminster, the picturesque hamlet was sacrificed to create a reservoir supplying water to Liverpool, 43 miles away. Capel Celyn’s inhabitants protested, and there was desperate opposition from Welsh MPs in the House of Commons. Edwards, growing up a few miles away, went to the demonstrations and remembers the raw anger. After the deed was finally done, he recalls a sepulchral silence, as labourers built the reservoir dam using the bricks of the village and sand and clay from local farmers. “There were no sheep, no noise or life. It made such an impact on me.” The “drowning” of Capel Celyn – and the brutal truths it exposed about where power lay in 1960s Britain – led to the birth of modern Welsh nationalism. In 1966, Gwynfor Evans became the first Plaid Cymru candidate to be elected to Westminster, winning the seat of Carmarthen. Bilingual signs became part of the landscape. Devolution and the idea of a Welsh assembly gained political currency, becoming a reality in 1999. Edwards eventually became a nationalist Plaid councillor in the nearby town of Bala. But Welsh independence remained for decades a marginal and even eccentric aspiration. Not any more. As the United Kingdom charts an unsteady course through the fallout from Covid, Brexit and renewed calls for a Scottish IndyRef2, devolved and local elections next month will offer vital clues to the direction of travel. Wales’s journey may yet turn out to be the most surprising one of all. In March, one poll put support for Welsh independence at a record level of 39% – on a par with Scotland’s yes campaign before the 2014 referendum. A mere six years ago, backing for the idea stood as low as 3%. Support among the 18-24s has nudged 60%, with more than 80% in favour of far greater devolution to the Welsh Senedd. Before Covid struck, a trio of Yes Cymru marches in Cardiff, Caernarfon and Merthyr – modelled on the 2014 Yes Scotland campaign – attracted much larger crowds than expected. Celebrity endorsements of the nationalist cause are becoming commonplace. This month the rugby star, Ashton Hewitt, told a nationalist podcast: “There’s more reason to be Yes than No.” And to the surprise and delight of Edwards, the fate of Capel Celyn has become a symbol for a new generation. The slogan “Cofiwch Dryweryn” (Remember Tryweryn), can be seen on graffiti, car stickers and posters throughout Wales. Now in his 70s, Edwards says: “I probably won’t live to see independence, but I know from what I am seeing that it is on its way.” A new sense of the possible Wales is still in the foothills of its breakaway debate. The practical challenges for a population a third of the size of London’s would be enormous. But under the radar, as first Brexit and then the pandemic dominated British politics, a cultural revolution has been taking place. Next month’s Senedd elections will be a crucial, and complicated, test of the new mood. As Plaid has attempted to capitalise, the Labour first minister of Wales, Mark Drakeford, has been making the case for a new constitutional settlement to save the union.
Last month, Drakeford told parliament’s Welsh affairs committee that the United Kingdom “as it is, is over”. A different institutional architecture was needed, he said, “reflecting a voluntary association of four nations”. When the leader of traditionally unionist Welsh Labour issues a warning that stark over devolution, it might be time the rest of Britain sat up and took notice. In the upcoming elections, Mabon ap Gwynfor is the Plaid candidate for the rural Dwyfor Meirionnydd constituency, which includes the town of Bala and the Tryweryn Valley. The grandson of the pioneering Gwynfor Evans, he was born into a nationalist tradition which has its heartland in the region. Bala is about 80% Welsh-speaking. On its high street a Catalan flag flies, next to an independent bookshop offering works on the history of Irish republicanism, and the spring edition of the independence free-sheet, Yes Cymru. The front page is dominated by a photograph of Charlotte Church and the headline: “I’m backing independence.” When it comes to running their own affairs, says ap Gwynfor, “the Welsh have been told so often they are too poor, too stupid and too small.” But events in Scotland and the high profile of the Welsh government during Covid has opened up a new sense of the possible. On Friday, Drakeford enjoyed another moment in the spotlight as he announced an accelerated easing of lockdown in Wales over the next few weeks. “During the Covid pandemic,” says ap Gwynfor, “people have started to realise there is a Welsh government that has real powers; that has control over health, education, agriculture. Mark Drakeford and his government have shown they can plough their own furrow. With the knowledge that Wales can do things its own way, comes a greater questioning of governance, of the status of Wales and the setup of the UK. People are starting to say: ‘Why can’t we do more things our own way?’” Overwhelmingly, the Welsh public has preferred Drakeford’s cautious approach to easing restrictions to Boris Johnson’s more libertarian instincts. The contrast was exemplified in October, when a “circuit-breaker” lockdown was introduced in Wales as London dithered.
But the extent to which Welsh Labour – overwhelmingly dominant since devolution – will reap the political rewards is uncertain. Until last week, its support was falling while Plaid’s was on the rise. A Sky poll last week pointed to a Labour rebound at Plaid’s expense, while general support for independence remained at historically high levels. Having finished a distant second in the last Senedd elections in 2016, the best Plaid can realistically hope for on 6 May is a few more berths in the 60-seat assembly (where it currently has 10 representatives). That will not be anywhere near enough to force an independence referendum. But the Brexit-fuelled rise of the Welsh Conservatives, up 9% in the polls, is creating a three-way contest which could shift the dial of the country’s politics in unpredictable ways. To govern, Labour may need to form a coalition with Plaid, which would involve making concessions to nationalist sentiment. The polarisation of politics in Scotland will also have concentrated Labour minds. Roughly half of Welsh Labour voters are sympathetic to independence, while some Conservative candidates for the Senedd have voiced support for reversing devolution. The dramatic implosion of Scottish Labour, which haemorrhaged Yes voters to the SNP and No voters to the Tories, is a cautionary tale. Wrexham, which deserted Labour in the general election and voted Conservative for the first time since 1935, is a prime Tory target next month, but Plaid has also made notable gains in council byelections. Marc Jones is the founder of a flourishing community pub and Welsh language centre in the heart of the town. He is certain the zeitgeist is moving. “Thirty years ago I think Wrexham saw itself as a bit of a border town. Now I think it sees itself as more of a Welsh town near the border.” What changed? “Honestly, I don’t know how to pin it down,” Jones says. “If I could bottle it I would be very successful in whatever I chose to do. It’s about perception and a sense of identity, which is important. The fact that it is happening so close to the border, just a few miles away, is significant. You know I wouldn’t even disregard the role of the Euros football in 2016 [when Wales reached the semi-finals]. That was a symbol of Wales as a small nation, punching above its weight.”
Jones is hopeful that the sense of frustration with the status quo that led Wrexham to vote overwhelmingly Leave in 2016, and Tory in 2019, may eventually channel itself in the direction of independence. “There is a dissatisfaction that is pretty incoherent at the moment, and that’s what drove Brexit. Now Brexit is out of the way, people are still discontented and that could coalesce around a positive message of Welsh independence.” According to Carwyn Tywyn, a writer on Welsh nationalism and political commentator: “What you have is almost a buffet menu of choices opening up for people to kick the British government in Westminster or the Welsh Labour government in Cardiff. “There are so many unknowns now in Welsh politics. Brexit has blown everything up. Then there is the pandemic, which has given people a taste of an actual tangible border between England and Wales, with public health being devolved. Then you have the developing situation in Scotland and Northern Ireland. It’s like a very finely poised chess match.”
Outside the Awen Meirion bookshop in Bala, ap Gwynfor admits that the turbulence of the times, and the sudden emergence of independence as a mainstream debate has taken him by surprise. “Things have certainly moved on faster and further that I expected,” he says. “I would have expected that we would still be debating the merits of independence, but we are actually debating finer details. We need to make sure that we have the right answers over an independent economy. We need in the medium term to reassure people that ours is not a negative campaign. “Someone can be British and live in an independent Wales. You can have an English identity and be a citizen of an independent Wales. Our project is to build a new state which is fairer, outward-facing and more progressive.”
The Scottish model The pitch has obvious affinities with the Scottish National party’s presentation of a benign, inclusive patriotism, sitting on the centre-left of the political spectrum. And just as the Yes Scotland campaign mobilised nationalist sentiment beyond party politics, Yes Cymru’s appeal seems to be cutting through culturally. Brexit, in a different way, did something analogous in England and much of Wales. The common denominator has been the perception that power, resources and control have for decades been unfairly distributed in the United Kingdom. Dwyfor Meirionnydd is one of the poorest regions in Britain, says ap Gwynfor, but property prices, driven by the second-home market, are sky-high. “If you go to a community about an hour west of here called Aberdovey – a stunning harbour village – more than 60% of the houses are second homes. A flat I saw down there a couple of days ago was selling for over £325,000. The average wages here are £21,000 a year. Local people are forced to leave. “What we’ve had historically is a few wealthy people coming in and extracting the wealth and then leaving. If we carry on as we are, Wales will become a playground for tourists and a battery for the rich. We create energy through water and wind for wealthier parts of Britain and serve as a playground for people to visit and enjoy and then leave. But there are living, breathing communities here, with rich traditions, which need to be respected, valued and helped to thrive.” As he departs for the campaign trail, a car sticker is visible in ap Gwynfor’s back window. It reads simply: “Remember Tryweryn”. Battle for the United Kingdom Scotland Nicola Sturgeon has said that she wants to stage another referendum on Scottish independence by 2023. The authority for moving to hold one will depend on pro-independence parties winning a majority in the Holyrood election. The most recent poll shows a narrow majority against independence. Northern Ireland By creating an effective border in the Irish Sea, the Brexit agreement with the EU disrupted the fragile checks and balances of the Good Friday Agreement. Recent rioting by young loyalists in Belfast and elsewhere is providing a tense backdrop to the Stormont elections. England Devolution in England has focused on the regions. Seven city-region mayors will be elected on 6 May, including, for the first time, a metro mayor of West Yorkshire. But if greater powers are given to Holyrood and the Senedd, as dissatisfaction with Westminster’s power grows, calls for an English parliament are likely to grow louder. • This article was amended on 28 April 2021 to clarify the timing when Elwyn Edwards attended demonstrations protesting the decision to flood Capel Celyn.