Will Wales ever become independent from the UK?

The grumbling hum of tyres on poorly maintained tarmac gives way to a smoother ride the moment you cross the English-Welsh border. It is an oddly symbolic awakening. Welcome to Wales, a country that has, for the first time in modern history, elected a nationalist, pro-independence government: Plaid Cymru.

Labour – the party that had governed and dominated Welsh politics for more than a century – has fallen from first place to third. Cast out of office, its leader even lost her seat to the nationalists. By any measure, it is an extraordinary humiliation.

Living in a frontier city such as Chester, the idea of a hardened border or any serious constitutional rupture can feel impossible to imagine. From Cheshire to Flintshire, the accents scarcely change. The economic interdependence is equally seamless: Cestrians commuting to Hawarden for Airbus, Flintshire residents shopping in Chester, and communities on both sides of the border existing as one interconnected region. These marcher lands have long seemed instinctively resistant to any constitutional upheaval. And yet Flintshire – one of Wales’ most historically unionist border counties – recorded a sharp surge in support for Plaid Cymru, mirroring trends across the country.

Plaid now governs alone. It does so without a majority in the Senedd, much like the Scottish National Party during its first period in office at Holyrood two decades ago. In a proportional system, outright majorities are exceptionally difficult to achieve. But the symbolism matters more than the arithmetic. Labour recedes. A pro-independence party takes office. And with power comes legitimacy.

Welsh independence no longer feels like an abstract fringe fantasy. It feels conceivable. Support for Welsh independence has, for most of modern political history, been marginal. Only 4 per cent of voters ranked it as a major issue at the election just passed, even if most acknowledged that constitutional change would inevitably sit high on Plaid Cymru’s long-term agenda.

Polling still suggests independence would lose comfortably in any immediate referendum. At best, around a quarter of Welsh voters currently support it – up from roughly a fifth two decades ago. But the more revealing statistic is not the number in favour. It is the number opposed. In 2007, 69 per cent of Welsh voters opposed independence. By 2014, that figure had climbed to 74 per cent. Today, it stands at 54 per cent.

As a trend, it is remarkably consistent. Enthusiasm for independence remains limited and unlikely to deliver separation before 2030. But hostility towards the idea is steadily eroding. Increasingly, many voters appear willing to adopt a posture of cautious ambivalence: wait and see.

The generational shift is even more striking. In 2018, only 24 per cent of 18-24 year olds supported Welsh independence. Among 16-24 year olds today, support stands at 47 per cent.

It’s a mark of not today, but not never. Why? The causes are familiar across Britain, whether in Makerfield, Dundee, Gorton or Denton: decline, alienation, and irrelevance. National institutions – British and local alike – no longer command the loyalty they once did. Hollowed out by years of austerity and centralisation, communities increasingly rely on charities or overstretched local networks to provide what the state once guaranteed as standard. The common life of the country has, in many places, been privatised or abandoned altogether. And with that abandonment has come detachment from the idea of Britain itself. Because what does the Union mean when public institutions feel distant, ineffective or absent?

Twenty-five years of political disillusionment has accelerated the process. Austerity breeds apathy, which breeds mistrust. And mistrust creates fertile ground for insurgent politics. It helped bring about the rise of Reform. It fuelled the ascent of the SNP. And now it has propelled Plaid Cymru into government.

The same drift can be seen in attitudes across Britain towards the future of the Union. Only 43 per cent of Britons say they would be upset by Scottish independence. More than a third say it would not bother them either way. Emotional attachment to the Union – once a defining feature of British political identity – is fading into something increasingly passive and detached.

The same sentiment is present regarding Wales. Only 53 per cent of Britons oppose Welsh independence, while nearly a third express no strong opinion at all. Even on Northern Ireland, indifference increasingly rivals conviction. For many voters in Great Britain, whether the province remains within the Union or joins the Republic has become a matter of limited personal concern. That may be the most consequential political fact in Britain today.

The break-up of the United Kingdom was once discussed as a dramatic constitutional possibility – loudly forecast in 2007, revisited in 2014, and repeatedly postponed ever since. Scotland has hovered around a 50/50 divide on independence for much of the past decade, though overshadowed by more immediate crises. In Wales, independence remains less urgent and less electorally dominant. But the idea lingers. Not because nationalist fervour has suddenly swept the country, but because belief in the Union is weakening. And in Wales, that slow-growing indifference towards an increasingly irrelevant Union may ultimately bring independence closer than anyone once imagined.

[Further reading: Labour’s war of words]