Squabbling over scraps

So the Tories eventually managed to negotiate a confidence and supply deal with the DUP to keep Theresa May in power. The headline is that it will result in £1bn of additional spending over two years in the Six Counties. People in Wales have been kicking up a fuss about it.

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It doesn't surprise me at all that Carwyn Jones should do so. As Welsh Labour see things, the whole point of being in this political union is that, through it, Wales can be subsidized by countries that are richer than we are. Therefore the size of the handout we get, and how it compares to the handouts that other parts of the UK get, is important ... in fact it's probably the most important thing on their agenda.

For what it's worth, I wouldn't worry too much about it. There is almost certain to be legal challenge from the Welsh and Scottish governments, which might well result in Wales, Scotland and perhaps even England getting more public spending. But even if some legal process eventually determines that a few billion pounds more has be made available to be spent elsewhere, it is only small change in comparison with total UK public expenditure of more than £750bn a year. From the Tories' point of view, it's a very cheap way of giving them a comfort zone in terms of votes in the House of Commons. And even if there is some legal challenge, it will take years, so the Tories will have bought themselves time ... which in itself is a very precious commodity.

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What concerns me more is that many of those who want independence for Wales have been complaining in exactly the same way, and that some—for example in this post have said that if only we were a little more unruly, then we in Wales could get bigger handouts from Westminster. I find this disturbing, because the whole point of independence for us to stand on our own two feet as a nation, not relying on handouts from others at all, and certainly not arguing about whether we should now get £1.7bn more to spend in Wales just because the Six Counties are in line to get £1bn.

If we do this, we are missing the point entirely. Our mentality is completely wrong. I do not want a Wales on its knees squabbling over a few billion pounds, I want a Wales on its feet, producing that few billion—and much more—by our own efforts.

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Let's look more closely at Ireland. Before independence Ireland was poor. Since independence (and particularly since joining the EU) the Republic has become much, much richer. This wealth might be concentrated in the south east (just as it is in both Wales and England) but even the poorer Border, Midlands and Western region of Ireland is considerably more wealthy than the Six Counties.

Southern and Eastern Ireland ... €39,900 (£28,950) per head
Border, Midlands and Western Ireland ... €23,700 (£17,200) per head
Six Counties ... €21,000 (£15,200) per head

Source

Let's now put this additional £1bn into perspective. It equates to £500m per year, or £280 (€390) per head, since the Six Counties have a population of about 1.8m. At best, all this additional spending only scratches the surface of the underlying inequality of wealth between the Six and Twenty-six Counties. And in fact the current inequality is much bigger now than these figures show, because the pound has fallen so much in value since the Brexit vote.

Of course, nobody can say for certain that if the whole of Ireland had become independent, without partition, the Six Counties would now be as rich as the Twenty-Six. But I would be astounded if they weren't.

To slightly modify the proverb: is it better to give someone an extra £280 of fish a year, or allow them to catch fish for themselves and become a few thousand pounds richer each year as a result?

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I have no doubt that the DUP will spin this deal as a victory, and will say at the next election, "Vote for us, because only we are able to deliver all this extra fish pork."

Fish-barrel politics is as grubby as pork-barrel politics, it's a reflection of our obsession with the small picture at the expense of the big picture. We need to be asking why Wales, Scotland or the Six Counties should live as beggars, squabbling with each other over how many billion pounds the UK government will give us on the rare occasions when one of our political parties is in a position to twist their arm. With independence, we can each arrange our economies to suit our own strengths and in time, like Ireland, become much richer than we will ever be as part of the UK.

Musings on a Sunday lunchtime

On a lazy Sunday lunchtime, I was rather taken by something that Lee Waters wrote on his Amanwy blog today:

I'm bored of the economic debate in Wales. All the business organisations, the CBI and IoD, can come up with is the idea of spending £1 Billion on a new stretch of M4 around Newport, which would gobble up all the available money for the whole of Wales and only success in moving the traffic jams a few miles down the road.

Amanwy, 28 February 2016

His view on the proposed new M4 motorway should hardly come as a surprise, after all he was director of Systrans Cymru. But the first thought that came to my mind was that the new M4 is not just all that business organizations can come up with ... it is equally true that it is all that the Labour government in Wales can come up with (or the Tories, for that matter). Yet he is standing as the Labour candidate for Llanelli in the Senedd elections in May.

Which got me thinking ...

First, it reminded me that there are distinct divides in the Labour Party in Wales. A point I have often made is that Welsh Labour contains people who tend to see things from the perspective of the Welsh national interest as well as those who primarily see what is in the British national interest. Next, I remembered an article by Gerald Holtham in 2014 in which he suggested the best way of rekindling excitement in Welsh politics, especially one in which Labour always leads the government, is that Welsh Labour should supply its own opposition.

As I re-read that article, I smiled at how much things had changed in relation to the fortunes of our national football team, and smiled even more about what he said on adopting STV for elections:

A possible stimulus could come from multi-member constituencies. Suppose we reduced the number of Assembly constituencies and elected three members for each. Each Party would have to put up three candidates per constituency and the public would express their preference by voting 1, 2, 3 … Different views within the same Party could be judged and endorsed by the public, reflected in the order in which it voted for a Party’s candidates.

If people in Pontsticill are determined to vote Labour, they can at least ask "which Labour". Yes, that would result in a degree of intra-Party competition, traditionally anathema to UK politicians, but it would give the public more influence and the public would like it. For proof, look to the Republic of Ireland where such a voting system has long been in place. From time to time politicians have urged changing it and set up referenda to do so. Every time the public has refused and clung to the system. Admittedly a degree of selflessness is required of our politicians to move to such a system. What an opportunity to demonstrate that they are not "just in it for themselves", as cynics claim.

Gerald Holtham – Click on Wales, 27 March 2014

As it so happens, the Irish held elections for the Dáil on Friday, and I'm one of those people who are keeping half an eye on how the counts there are unfolding. It is a truly wonderful system, especially because it gives people the chance to throw out one candidate from a particular political party in favour of someone else from the same party who they consider to be better.

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Turning now to more practical and immediate matters, we all know that Labour are going to form the next Welsh Government after the May elections, despite the long-standing traditional pantomine performance from most party representives that they are going to win. Labour will get 25-27 seats, the Tories 13-16, Plaid 9-10, UKIP 6-9, LibDems 1-3, Greens 0-2. They'll probably be able to govern as a minority government because the opposition on any issue would be so divided. Labour won't want to give any other party the credibility of a share of government if they can help it, and will look to play one small party against the others to get their budgets through.

So yes, in one sense it will be more of the same. Our government will be a Labour government. The question is, What sort of Labour? If the majority of Labour AMs are the sort that will put the Welsh national interest first, it will inevitably take us further towards independence. As I've said before, Labour boast that they were the party that delivered devolution for Wales, even though they were hardly very keen on it before they did; and we might well find that Labour are the party that will deliver independence for Wales, even though they are hardly very keen on it now.

If it works for the Baltic, why not for us too?

This is from an article in today's Guardian about a rail tunnel linking Finland and Estonia:

The dream has been given added impetus by a recent preliminary study which suggested that the fixed link could be built for between €9bn and €13bn (£6.6bn-£9.5bn), would treble travel and boost trade between the cities in its first decade, and see 25m journeys by 2040.

The undersea tunnel is made particularly attractive because of a planned €3.6bn Rail Baltica high-speed train line, which will run from Tallinn to Poland and link into western Europe’s rail networks – and could also potentially connect Helsinki directly via train to Berlin and beyond.

The cities are, however, banking on Brussels paying several billion euros towards the scheme, and have applied for EU funding to carry out full feasibility studies.

The Guardian, 6 January 2016

Although the article seems to concentrate more on the benefits to the cities of Helsinki and Tallinn, one of the factors that would make the project feasible would be that it would form part of the already-planned Rail Baltica high-speed train line, linking the Baltic States to Poland and Germany.

     

I think this is a very good idea, and would like to see it happen. However it struck me that the economic and technical feasibility of a rail tunnel between Estonia and Finland is almost identical to the economic and technical feasibility of a similar link between Wales and Ireland.

First, the distances involved are about the same. The distance between Finland and Estonia is about 75km, and the distance between Ireland and Wales is about 80km for the southern link (or 95km for the northern link) although the actual tunnel length will obviously be greater. Both maps below are to the same scale.

     

     

Finland and Ireland are remarkably similar in that they are roughly the same size in terms of population (Finland has 5.5m people, Ireland has 6.5m) and are both relatively rich in European terms. Finland has a GDP per head of 110% of the EU average, Ireland (the Republic) has a GDP per head of 134% of the EU average ... although adding the poorer Six Counties will bring that down. So although the costs of such infrastructure links are very large, the benefits to the more remote country at a European-wide scale, and therefore the economic feasibility of the project, are probably greater for a link to Ireland than for a link to Finland.

But there is also a remarkable parallel between Estonia and Wales as the poorer, less remote, countries. This map (click here for an interactive version) shows GDP per head at a NUTS 2 level.

     

The GDP per capita of Helsinki-Uusimaa is €39,300, and is €38,800 for Southern and Eastern Ireland. Estonia's is €19,500, West Wales and the Valleys' is €17,900, East Wales' is €24,900. So in just the same way as Estonia will benefit at a more local level from better links to a richer next-door neighbour, so will Wales benefit at a local level from better links to our richer next-door neighbour. Should anyone need reminding, the Republic of Ireland has a higher GDP per head than the UK.

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I'm sure some people would dismiss the idea of a rail links between either Finland and Estonia or Ireland and Wales as a pipe dream. However I would say that long-term planning of this sort is necessary. We have to decide what we want our continent to look like and how we want it to work. If we suffered from a similar lack of foresight, we would have neither the Channel Tunnel between France and England, nor the Øresund (or Öresund) Bridge between Denmark and Sweden ... and I would find it hard to imagine a Europe without such links.

My point is simply that if there is a case for a rail tunnel between Finland and Estonia, then there is an equal, if not better, case for a rail tunnel between Ireland and Wales.

The myth about high levels of immigration

The news that Ireland now has the highest level of net emigration per 1,000 inhabitants of any country in Europe is naturally a matter of great concern for the Irish. I wouldn't want to detract from how serious that is in any way.

   

However what struck me about the graph above from An Sionnach Fionn is that net immigration into the UK is not particularly great. It is only just above the EU average, with twelve other European countries having greater, and sometimes far greater, levels of net immigration.

Denmark, Finland and Belgium have greater net immigration than the UK. Germany, Austria, Sweden, Lichenstein and Italy have net levels of immigration more than twice that of the UK. Malta has three times more. Switzerland and Norway have four times more. Luxembourg has more than eight times more.

The raw data are available here on EuroStat.

Not Foreigners, Not a Foreign Country

Although most of Ireland became an independent state in 1922, it was as a dominion of the British Empire known as the Irish Free State. This came to an end in 1937 following a referendum on a new constitution, but some powers were still reserved to the United Kingdom. The final vestiges of constitutional attachment to the United Kingdom were only brought to an end when the Irish passed the Republic of Ireland Act, 1948.

In response to this, the United Kingdom Government passed the Ireland Act, 1949. Section 2(1) of this Act is particularly interesting:

     

It clearly states that the United Kingdom does not regard the Republic of Ireland as a foreign country for the purpose of any law or act that had either been passed before or might be passed in future; and that citizens of the Republic of Ireland would not be classed as foreigners or aliens. Section 2(1) has not been repealed or amended (check this page) and remains in force to this day.

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That makes the repeated assertions by several unionist politicians about the Scots suddenly becoming "foreigners" if Scotland becomes independent—including this by David Cameron and these by Ed Miliband and other prominent Labour and LibDem politicians—not only hollow and ridiculous, but dreadfully misinformed.

There is absolutely no reason why the remainder of the UK should treat an independent Scotland and its people any differently from the way the (somewhat larger) remainder of the UK treated the Republic of Ireland and its people in 1949.

The Arc of Prosperity

Watching the Conservative Party conference is a hardly a pleasant task; but someone has to do it, and there are one or two laughs to relieve the tedium.

One of them was in their debate on the future of the UK, in which Cheryl Gillan was first up. After the usual Labour bashing, she spoke of her fears about Plaid Cymru, especially because in our own conference a few weeks ago we made our aim of independence for Wales more explicit.

     

As I'm sure most of us will remember, the Arc of Prosperity was a phrase used by Alex Salmond in 2006 to include Ireland, Iceland and Norway, which were at that time among the six richest nations in the world on a per capita basis. Norway has managed to stay near the top, but both Ireland and Iceland's economies suffered badly as a result of the banking crash.

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But it so happens that the latest CIA World Factbook came out only a few days ago, including a list of countries (and a few sub-national entities like Bermuda, Jersey and Hong Kong) ranked on a GDP per capita basis. Norway was seventh, Iceland had slipped down to 25th and Ireland to 27th.

But where is the UK? Sadly, it's floundering at 37th.

And the CIA factbook is not alone in that assessment. The latest figures from the IMF, World Bank and OECD tell a very similar story.

CIA World Factbook

Norway ... 7th
Iceland ... 25th
Ireland ... 27th
United Kingdom ... 37th

International Monetary Fund

Norway ... 4th
Ireland ... 13th
Iceland ... 17th
United Kingdom ... 22nd

World Bank

Norway ... 5th
Ireland ... 13th
United Kingdom ... 22nd
Iceland ... 24th

OECD

Norway ... 2nd
Ireland ... 8th
Iceland ... 15th
United Kingdom ... 16th

Both Ireland and Iceland might have suffered, but they are still more prosperous countries than the UK. The figures show that we'd be fools to gloss over the enormous fall in the UK's own prosperity, which is largely accounted for by the fact that the Pound fell from a level of around $2 in 2008 to a level of around $1.60 now.

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So I hate to burst your bubble, Cheryl, but we in Plaid Cymru are very happy to talk about the Arc of Prosperity. For even though a couple of the countries in it have taken a bashing, they still remain richer per head than the UK.

The economies of small, independent countries can do better than those of the large, slow to manoeuvre "oil tankers" not because they don't suffer in times of economic crisis, but because they tend to bounce back faster. That's one of the conclusions of the Flotilla Effect.

So why is Cheryl Gillan still clinging to the idea that:

"Wales doesn't need independence to prosper, it needs the interdependence of the four nations [of the UK] to provide strength and security during these difficult times."

The hard evidence shows that the UK is far from being a lifebelt, it's more like a block of concrete tied round our necks. As part of the UK, Ireland used to be poor. Independence is what allowed it to become and remain more prosperous than the UK.

Contrasting articles on Catalunya and Euskadi

Thanks to Col·lectiu Emma, I've just read an interesting article by Paddy Woodworth, comparing what is happening in Catalunya with what is happening in Euskadi, the Basque Country, a place with which he seems to be well acquainted.

  Madrid's nightmare

  

  Foreign Policy, 20 August 2010

It's worth reading alongside a contrasting article that appeared just over a week ago in Spiegel Online.

  Zero Tolerance in the Fight against ETA

  

  Spiegel Online, 13 August 2010

One of the great imponderable questions of the last century is whether a country like Ireland would ever have won its independence from the United Kingdom if it had not fought a war for it; or whether the UK would later have relinquished its strategic interest in the north if people hadn't been prepared to fight for it. We in Wales and Scotland can only consider ourselves fortunate that we are now in a position to become independent when we vote for it.

But once a fight for independence has become violent—or indeed the fight to prevent it, for in any armed conflict both sides use violence—it requires no little effort and commitment to then fight by peaceful and democratic means.

To my mind, Der Spiegel's article reads too much like a vanity piece for Patxi Lopez. As I read the situation in Euskadi, the Basques will undoubtedly vote for independence whenever Spain allows them to do so ... that's why Spain refuses to let them exercise that choice. They have been able to portray far too many Basque leaders calling for independence as terrorist sympathizers, imprisoning them and banning their parties in an attempt to quash any mechanism by which independence could be achieved by democratic means.

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But Catalunya, like Wales and Scotland, has no real history of violence in the fight for independence, so the issue is not clouded in the same was as it has been in Ireland and Euskadi. If Catalunya can gain its independence by peaceful means (the onus being on the Spanish, because they're the ones who might use military force to prevent it) it will then be hard for them not to let Euskadi do the same.

And when Scotland wins its independence, it might in turn be the catalyst that triggers Irish reunification. For the unionist community has far stronger cultural and social links with Scotland than with the RUK. And their loyalty to the crown will be tested to breaking point when a queen they respect and can look up to passes away to be replaced by a son who cannot be looked up to.

Western Rail Corridors in Ireland and Wales

Having just posted about reinstating disused rail routes in Wales, I thought I'd check out what was happening on the west coast of Ireland, where there have been plans to reopen the route between Limerick and Sligo—the Western Rail Corridor—for some years. In 2005 it was included as part of a comprehensive €34bn transport infrastructure programme called Transport 21.

Serendipity was smiling. I found that the first part of the route has just been completed, and that the first direct service from Limerick to Galway ran just before Easter. The article in the Irish Times is here and this is the news item from TV3 on 29 March:

     

And I also found this 25 minute video of a programme from March last year called EcoEye, which should give some idea of the overall scope of the project, and even how it might be extended:

     

But for those who'd prefer to read about it, there's a Wiki article about the WRC here and a lot more information on the West on Track website here.

      

First, I don't think anybody could fail to be struck by the similarities between western Ireland and the western half of Wales. In the not too past Ireland, like Wales, had railways that ran north-south, but these were abandoned several decades ago, so now there is a rail network that radiates from Dublin in the same way as the British network radiates from London, leaving relatively good east-west links by rail, but nothing running in a north-south direction.

The second thing to note is that re-instating this railway will bring significant benefits to the area – both in terms of expanding the economy and in terms of environmental benefits to a predominantly rural area. That same argument must surely hold true for the western half of Wales as it does for western Ireland.

The third thing I would note is that the cost of reinstating the rail link has been extraordinarily low. The sections of rail from Limerick to Ennis and Galway to Athenry already exist, so this first stage involved reinstating 58km (36 miles) of track at a cost of €106.5m (£93m) including four new stations and associated works:

•  renewal of 36 miles of track, including all necessary fencing and drainage and installation of points and crossings at Gort and Ennis

•  a 90m platform with furniture, signage, shelter, Automatic Ticket Vending Machine, lighting, car park, PA, Customer Information Systems, help point and CCTV provision at Sixmilebridge, Gort, Ardrahan and Craughwell. These stations will also be accessible to the mobility impaired

•  At Ennis and Athenry stations, PA, Customer Information Systems, help point and CCTV has been provided

•  Repair and improvement work has been undertaken on bridges on the route to allow rail services to operate:
- modernised signalling systems
- improvement to level crossings, and elimination where practicable

Source

That works out at £1.6m per km or £2.6m per mile. To put that into perspective, the same sum of money wouldn't build more than three or four miles of motorway ... probably even less. The thankfully aborted M4 relief motorway would have cost £1bn, which worked out at £45m per km or £70m per mile.

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Yet there are some things about what has been done in Ireland that cause me concern. First is the low speeds. It takes two hours to make the journey between Limerick and Galway but, on a clear road, the car journey would take 90 minutes. Although the track was already there, most of it had to be taken up and relaid, I would have thought that would be an opportunity to iron out some of the slower sections. But Irish railways are not particularly fast anyway, the train from Dublin to Galway takes about 2hr40m to cover 208km. That's only about 80km/h or 50mph. When we reinstate our railways, we should spend more to get a higher standard of track capable of supporting faster speeds.

There are some very wide variations in predicted passenger numbers. The video reports pointed to about 300,000 a year, but this report in the Irish Independent put the figure at only a third of that, meaning that the service would run at a €2.4m a year loss. As the service has only been running for a week, it's much too early to tell. However one encouraging sign is that Iarnród Éireann have upgraded the train from a two car to a four car unit, as reported here. As I mentioned in this post, other rail reinstatements have attracted many more passengers than were originally predicted.

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My main reason for reporting this is to give us in Wales an idea of not only what can, but what is being achieved in a country that is very similar to our own. To look forward to the day when our own Minister of Transport can ride on the first train in fifty years to link Porthmadog to Blaenau Ffestiniog or Bangor, or Carmarthen to Aberystwyth.

In total, the WRC in Ireland is or 185km (115 miles) in length. The length of track it would be necessary to reinstate for us to get a west coast main line is 89km (56 miles) between Carmarthen and Aberystwyth, plus either 40km (25 miles) between the Cambrian Coast line and Pont Britannia or 18km (11 miles) between it and Blaenau Ffestiniog, although part of the second would be new rather than reinstated. So it's a smaller project, but just as important for just the same reasons.

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Even though it is election time, I don't want to be overly political about this since the project in Ireland had support from across the political spectrum, although the more right wing Fine Gael seem to be lukewarm about future phases now. I would like to think that all parties in Wales could unite around a reinstated west coast main line for Wales ... but at the moment it seems that it isn't even on the radar of the other parties.

So much of this election seems to be about two parties making a big deal over what are really just minor variations on the same overall policies. On transport, for example, both the Tories and Labour are going to spend £16bn on a high speed line to Birmingham and more on extending it to Manchester and Leeds. The only difference between them is the exact route. If that sort of money can be spent by a UK government entirely in England, who else but Plaid is going to fight for our share of transport investment in Wales? Who else but Plaid has the vision to plan for it? We pay our taxes too, and our fair share of £16bn is 5% or £800m. A west coast main line for Wales would cost much, much less than that.

Swansea to Cork ... again

It's been a while coming, but it looks like the new Swansea-Cork ferry is now operational.

     

Yes, it will probably do more for the economy of south west Ireland than it will do for that of Wales ... but even so it will still bring benefits to Wales. And every car or truck it takes off the roads west of Swansea will reduce pollution, make those roads that much safer to use, and reduce the need for those roads to be widened. Those are very welcome benefits.

Congratulations to those who have fought so hard to get the service reinstated. I wish the Fastnet Line every success and hope it will be a permanent part of our transport infrastructure.