Being British – it's a Welsh state of mind

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/mar/01/british-welsh-st-davids-day

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Ah, St David's Day and I can guarantee two things. After posing for a photo, schoolgirls will abandon their tall black hats with the scratchy lace and boys will come home with their breath smelling of raw leek, having consumed their national symbol.

More surprising is the result of the ICM poll commissioned by BBC Wales showing that out of a sample of 1,000 people only 7% support independence for Wales, with the figure rising to 12% if Scotland left the union.

Appetites for devolution and independence in Wales have always been smaller than in Scotland. Given that nationalistic feeling in Wales is largely defined by attitudes to the language, this poll makes clear that even among the 20% of the population who are Welsh-speakers, independence is not an option favoured in the great British shake-up happening in the next couple of years.

There are good historical reasons for this contrast between Welsh and Scottish attitudes to the union. From the very beginning, Wales and England have shared a push-me pull-you relationship. In the sixth century, Welsh was spoken as far north as Edinburgh. As the modern nation state was formed, the English word for the Welsh dubbed us, paradoxically, "foreigners". Henry VII achieved the Tudor throne through Wales, using the myth of the Welsh as the "ancient British", descended from the Trojans.

Yet Wales always represented danger to the crown. Before he achieved fame in the 1605 gunpowder plot Guy Fawkes tried to persuade the Spanish king to land an army in Milford Haven. During the Reign of Terror after the start of the French revolution in 1789, the French landed troops in North Pembrokeshire. The great families of Wales – like the Herberts, Earls of Pembroke – were co-opted into the English cause, leaving Welsh opposition without the financial and political resources of the gentry.

Anyone who has witnessed the high emotion of England v Wales rugby matches will understand that the terms Welsh and English are yin and yang to each other. Neither term exists independently. This may also be true of the terms Scottish and English but a distinct history means that they have a less intimate stance, a stronger mutually repelling charge.

Oil, of course, makes all the difference to the argument. With new oil fields opening deep into the North Sea, Scotland nationalists can make economic and energy cases for independence. Wales has water and wind but energy policy isn't devolved from Westminster, despite pressure from the Welsh first minister.

The Welsh do, however, feel strongly about the NHS. In the same ICM poll, 77% are against government proposals to further open the NHS to private markets. Successive Labour-dominated administrations in Wales have developed a distinctively Welsh NHS. It may be that the legacy of Aneurin Bevan is more alive in the South Wales Valleys. Every time I go into our hospital in Cardiff, I pass a portrait of Bevan in a pin-stripe suit and bless him. Free prescriptions and free parking in most Welsh hospitals are two of the benefits of living here; longer waiting lists and no spending ring-fence around the service the disadvantages. As time goes on, however, the divergence between an old Labour NHS in Wales and a more American model in England will grow more pronounced.

So, we won't be leaving the union then. As Jason Evans tweets (@EvanstheCrime), "Being Welsh is a state of mind". And what kind of mind is that? Everybody has his own view, but here, for what it's worth, is mine. We know what it is to be both Welsh and British, to live in a totally different culture while integrated as well. Does it sound familiar? Much less like Scotland, I'd say, than the Muslim population. <em>Dydd Gwyl Dewi Hapus!</em> Happy St David's Day.

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