Nationalists apart
Colin Bell
Aberystwyth
Seen from London, Plaid Cymru and the SNP must obviously be lumped togetherindeed most political columnists habitually refer to 'The Nationalists' as though the two were one. Seen from there the assumption is that the Scots have nationalists, and the Welsh have nationalists; both are presumably after similar objectives, and that is that.
The view from Aberystwyth is not at all like that, particularly not, if the commentator has some experience of the SNP. Plaid Cymru, or, in the confusing grammar of the Welsh language, 'the Blaid,' is the national party of Wales, and seeks selfgovernment for Wales: beyond those obvious similarities, it differs very plainly from the SNP.
In hard political nose-counting, it differs because it is smaller and weaker. The SNP holds eleven out of Scotland's seventy-one seats, and is quite likely to take somewhere between twelve and twenty-odd more next time. 'The Blaid' holds three out of Wales's thirty-six seats, and is not terribly likely to win more than a further handful at the next election. The SNP got an effective third of the Scottish vote in 1964, the Blaid got only 11 per cent in Wales: The SNP is a powerful force in almost every Scottish constituency, Plaid Cymru has yet to make a major breakout from the rural fringes—although it has smashed its way, at local government level, into Merthyr. Bargoed and Caerphilly.
Seats, and votes, matter most of all in the present state of Britain. But ideas and attitudes will matter more in the coming state, or states, of Britain. And Plaid's view Of the world, as it is and as it ought to be, is markedly different from that of the SNP — or from that of the unionist parties.
Item one: Plaid is not only to the left of the SNP, it is much to the left of the Labour Government, and it seems almost to take for granted the proposition that the enemy IS not merely English rule, but capitalism too. Item two: Plaid itself rejects any route to independence save that of the ballot-box, but it keeps remarkably cool about those on its fringes who are prepared to make their Case by minor illegalities. Item three: Plaid ranks the preservation of the distinctive Welsh culture and language very high on its Priorities; independence, and prosperity are clearly not enough should their price include the continuing erosion of Welsh and Welshness. Item four: Small is very beautiful indeed. Item five: An independent Wales would not necessarily even want to belong to the EEC or NATO. Item six: Plaid Cymru spends a significant proportion of its conference time discussing the United Nations, Zimbabwe, Ireland, and the Antarctic.
Compared with its most obvious ally the SNP, this makes Plaid distinctive. The Scottish National Party is united on many things but socialism is not among them, whereas the complete excommunication of anyone who even speculates about alternatives to the ballot box most definitely is. The SNP is leery of any protracted discussion of the Scottish culture, not least because it knows from bitter experience that this will rapidly degenerate into a dogfight between the Gaels and the Scots, and lead to some anodyne resolution according equal status to all three linguistic strands in the Scottish skein.
Nor do the Scots seriously persuade themselves that they can reject their long industrial and commercial heritage and remake Scotia on a peasant-craftsman cooperative basis. For very similar pragmatic, arguably cynical, reasons, an independent Scotland would unquestionably be eager to strike the best deal it could with NATO, and very probably with the EEC as well. And Scots spend very little time indeed debating the attitude that they should take, in or out of office, to major international problems which seem beyond the influence of the present greater British state.
Listed like that, it sounds very 'much as though the Welsh Nationalists are idealists, and the Scots are sordid realists. There is some truth in that, but no more than some. Plaid Cymru's conference last weekend offered hostages to romantic purity — like the presence of fraternal delegations from the Bretons. the Basques and Alsace —but it spent the majority pf its time debating its rapidly increasing stock of councillors. If the SNP would always rather see at its conference the observers from major embassies than the delegates from beleaguered minor nations, it nevertheless loves best those who would choose independence even were the oil to turn to bitter lemon.
The problems of Wales and of Scotland, at first apparently so similar, are sufficiently disparate to explain something of the difference between the two crusades. At the crude lobby-correspondent's level, it was possible for the SNP to make its first great strides at the expense of the Tory Party, whereas it has always been inevitable that Plaid Cymru should take on and .hope to outflank the Labour Party. Both countries have mountains, and hill-farms, both have grotesque industrial slums perched on the periphery of their rocky heartland: but 60 per cent of the Welsh are owner-occupiers, and only 30 per cent of Scots. The Welsh can strike noble postures on the Irish question uninfluenced by any sizeable religious difference: most Scots are born either a little Celtic fan, or a little Rangers fan. And the Welsh language, even if it causes problems in Cardiff and Swansea, is a very real and vital element in Welsh nationhood, whereas Gaelic has long needed infusions of nostalgic patronage to keep it going even in the outer isles.
Much of Plaid Cymru's deliberations were carried on in Welsh. It must be the only British political conference where earphones for simultaneous translation are a standard fitting. Indeed, many convinced and ambitious nationalists in Wales regard their regular evening class in Welsh as the most important meeting of the week; to address the delegates in English, if you are thought to know any Welsh at all, is to invite hostility.
That is one of the major reasons why, as the large gallery of small-nations who attend all such conferences agreed, it matters more to the Basques, the Bretons, the Catalans, Alsatians, Frieslanders, Cornish and so on that Wales should attain independence than that Scotland should. A separate Scotland might well be splendid for the Scots, but it would not necessarily do much good to the other 'submerged nations,' nor advance the causes of 'small is beautiful' or 'distinctive is good.' An independent Wales would be a beacon, a talisman, and a sponsor, for every other linguistic and cultural minority at present trapped within a major state.
That is a responsibility of which Plaid Cymru is conscious, and reasonably proud. They have not yet quite brought themselves to the pitch of the SNP, which brushes aside all talk of devolution, of home rule, of federal status, and concentrates its impressive energies on the single goal of independence: but whatever the Plaid members may call their goal, they know it is more than a constitutional and political target. Scotland's nationalists want a sovereign state, which can serve the interests of Scotland's people: the Plaid wants the triumph of an ideal, which necessarily embraces the interests of many people far away from Wales.
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