A question which
often comes up in relation to independence is whether it would make people in
Wales better or worse off. It’s a very
easy question to ask, but a great deal harder to answer.
I can certainly
envisage an independent Wales in which the energies and talents of the people are
harnessed positively and constructively to build a better future for all who
live here. I can also envisage an
independent Wales in which we elect the same old politicians to do the same old
things and Wales continues to limp along behind the UK average. Choosing independence does not, in itself,
guarantee choosing a different way of doing things.
By the same
token, I can envisage a future for Wales within the UK where either of those
two outcomes are possible as well.
Whilst we can definitively say, in empirical terms, that the status quo isn’t
working terribly well for Wales, it’s impossible to be entirely certain that
the alternative wouldn’t be just as bad in simple economic terms,
because that depends on what we do with independence, not on the mere fact of
it.
That in turn
means that the only answer that I can give those who want me to say whether
Wales would be better or worse off with independence is that ‘it all depends’. If we simply replicate the structures and
policies which are currently the norm, then we can hardly expect to make much
difference – if we do what we’ve always done, we’ll get what we’ve always got. If, on the other hand, we make the best use
of the tools that would then be available to us, then there is no fundamental
reason why we should not do a lot better.
We are no more innately poor or stupid than any of the other nations in
Europe, or indeed the wider world.
The question
becomes one of probabilities, in one sense.
Is it more likely that taking responsibility and doing things for
ourselves will concentrate our minds and efforts on improving things in Wales,
or is it more likely that someone else will do that for us? Do we place our trust and faith in our own
ability to turn Wales around, or do we sit back and moan about others not doing
it for us?
I can’t prove,
in completely definitive terms, which produces the best outcomes; but I have a
strong belief that taking responsibility for ourselves is very much more likely
to produce a better outcome over the long term.
For those who
want to reduce the whole question to one about whether we’d be materially
better off or not, and to receive a definitive answer to that question, I have
to accept that my answer is unlikely to be an adequate one. It’s an honest answer, though; more honest
than the position of those, on either side of the debate, who claim to know
with absolute certainty that the option which they favour would be the
best. But simple economics is not, and
has never been, the prime motivation of most of those of us who want Wales to
become independent.
I can
understand why some supporters of independence ‘in principle’, when faced with
a question to which they can’t give a sufficiently positive answer, prefer to
punt the whole question into the long grass, and present it as an aspiration
for the distant future rather than as a serious alternative way forward. It’s a cop-out though; and it’s not at all
clear how or when they would ever feel able to put the question on the agenda. But, as things stand, we are effectively
abdicating responsibility for our future, and complaining about what others are
doing (or failing to do) to us and for us.
I want us to take responsibility ourselves with the aim of doing better. That question of accepting responsibility is
about a lot more than mere economics.
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