Dragons, Doubts, and Devils Dog Welsh Identity as Scottish Referendum Looms

Opinion polls predict that the September 18th referendum on Scotland’s secession from the United Kingdom will fail, with polls giving somewhere between 46% and 47% intending to vote for continued union with England (and Wales and Northern Ireland) and only about 35% to 40% intending to opt for independence.  With just about four months to go before polling day, a lot could change.  But if the outcome is not 100% assured, one thing is: the truism that in the event of a “yes” result for Scottish independence, or even, as looks likely, a relatively close (non-landslide) “no,” the other constituent parts of the U.K.—England, Northern Ireland, and Wales are going to experience something of an identity crisis.

Wales, in particular, in the event of a Scottish split, would probably be carried along to independence itself like a rudderless ship in Scotland’s wake—much in the way that in the 1990s Serbia, the Czech Republic, and Belarus became independent states not from any desire to separate themselves but because of the dissolutions of their larger federations driven by centrifugal forces generated elsewhere.  After all, the U.K. is the United Kingdom because of the early-18th-century merger of the kingdoms of England and Scotland; without that constitutional basis, a rethinking of the rest of the union is in order.

Some of this anxiety is expressed as kerfuffles over flags.  Wales, were it to be independent, would suddenly become the European country with the most striking, remarkable, and dramatic national flag, featuring a rampant red dragon on a horizontal white-and-green bicolor (see above).  That prospect has attracted the superstitious nervousness of a fringe group called the Welsh Christian Party.  (Unlike more primitive backwaters like the United States, in Britain fundamentalist Christianity is a phenomenon of the fringes, not the political mainstream.)  As the Rev. George Hargreaves, speaking for the party, put it, “We will not allow this evil symbol of the devil to reign over Wales for another moment.  Wales is the only country in history to have a red dragon on its national flag.  This is the very symbol of the devil described in the Book of Revelation 12:3.  This is nothing less than the sign of Satan, the Devil, Lucifer, that ancient serpent who deceived Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden” (he explains helpfully in case we haven’t heard of him).  Just for the record, Revelation 12:3 tells us, “And there appeared another wonder in heaven; and behold a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads.”  Far be it from me to contradict a man of the cloth, but I’ve been studying that Welsh flag and I’m afraid I see only one head and no crowns at all.

Now that’s the dragon of Revelation.  See?  Lots more heads.

But never mind that.  Hargreaves recommends that the Welsh dragon—which is of murky origins but has been in use on the flag only since 1959—be replaced by a black-and-yellow cruciform design called the Cross of St. David, which is the emblem of the patron saint of Wales (see the flag at right in the photo at the top of this article).  This flag is often flown on March 1st, which is the feast of St. David and the Welsh national holiday.  Adopting this flag would put Wales’s flag on the same footing as those of England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Cornwall, which feature the traditional crosses of those countries’ patron saints—St. George (yes, of dragon fame), St. Patrick (patron saint of all Ireland, actually), St. Andrew, and St. Piran, respectively.

This vessel in Queen Elizabeth II’s Diamond Jubilee flotilla in 2012 featured, atop the cabin,
the flags of England, Scotland, London (England’s flag but with sword in upper left), Northern Ireland
(not official, but the St. Patrick’s Cross), Cornwall, and Wales,with flags for the sponsoring Motability, Inc.,
mixed in, plus, aft, the U.K. civilian ensign.

(Hargreaves, given his feelings about the Welsh dragon, will be equally vexed to learn that archaeologists have recently discovered, in the ruins of Leiston Abbey in East Anglia, the remains of a seven-foot-tall canine who some feel might have been the origin of the 16th-century legend of the “Hell Hound of Suffolk.”)

It is not just conservative Christians who are unhappy with Wales’s flag.  The radical, militant Free Wales Army (F.W.A., or Byddin Rhyddid Cymru), uses a vaguely swastika-ish black-and-white emblem as its flag.  The F.W.A. are republicans and presumably would like to eschew anything heraldic as too posh.  Among other parties, the left-wing socialist Cymru Goch (“Red Wales”) independence party, though republican, wants to keep the dragon flag—it’s red, after all!—as does the equally republican Cymru Annibynnol, the Independent Wales Party, along with the former majority party in the Welsh Assembly, Plaid Cymru (“the Party of Wales”), which has republican and pro-Commonwealth (monarchist) tensions within it.  Nor are these minor distinctions: Plaid Cymru came under fire (as reported at the time in this blog) when a party leader appeared alongside F.W.A. radicals and their flags at a rally marking the 729th anniversary of the killing by English soldiers of Llywelyn ap Gruffudd (Llywelyn the Last), the last true Prince of Wales (before it became a title affixing to any English crown prince), thus ending Welsh independence.  By contrast, the Scottish National Party has prevailed over republican Greens and socialists in its coalition and plans on keeping Scotland in the Commonwealth, with Elizabeth II as its head of state.

No one respectable wants to be seen alongside the F.W.A. banner.
(A more benign St. David’s Cross flag is at right.)

The Scottish referendum campaign has raised vexillological vexations in other parts of the kingdom as well.  Northern Ireland’s identity crisis in a post-Scottish dis-United Kingdom would be even more severe than Wales’s, since the Scottish ancestry of the Protestant Scots-Irish majority in the region is the only rationale behind it being part of the U.K., rather than the Republic of Ireland, in the first place.  Northern Ireland currently has no flag, and uses only the Union Jack, but the traditional flag of Ulster is used by the small minority (soon to be taken more seriously, perhaps) who wish Northern Ireland to be independent.  (Ulster, rather awkwardly, includes not just the Northern Ireland counties but the majority-Catholic county of Donegal within the Republic, so there might be some words over that ...)

Unionist rallies in Belfast sometimes feature the “red hand” flag of Ulster.

And what of a rump U.K. minus only Scotland?  The current Union Jack is a blending of the crosses of SS. George, Andrew, and Patrick—

—and without the Scottish St. Andrew’s Cross it would look like this:

Clearly, a lot less colorful.  Thus, some favor incorporating Wales’s green into it somehow ...

... or in some other way taking the opportunity to give Wales a piece of the flag to call its own, if only to persuade them not to secede themselves:

Okay, well, maybe not that prominently.  It isn’t all just about Wales, you know.  Others favor solving the color problem in a more grandiose way:

If Scotland’s secession is followed by those of Wales and Northern Ireland, then England would find itself independent in spite of itself.  Indeed, the St. George’s Cross flag is the one preferred by the pro-independence party English Democrats (as reported on earlier in this blog):

... though some of independence-for-England activists prefer the “three lions” flag which is a modification of the personal royal standard Richard the Lion-Hearted (and which for complicated reasons—1066 and all that—is also a flag used by regional activists in the Normandy region of France):

Presumably, some of these suggestions are ones that the Welsh Christian Party can live with.  And if it’s Satanic symbols they’re worried about, just be glad they don’t have deal with Morocco’s national flag:

Oh, no, wait, sorry, I put it upside-down.  Here, let me fix that ...

Phew!  That was a close one.

Thanks to Jen Mayfield Shafer for alerting me to the report on the Leiston Abbey discovery.

[You can read more about Wales, Scotland, and many other separatist and new-nation movements, both famous and obscure, in my new book, a sort of encyclopedic atlas just published by Litwin Books under the title Let’s Split! A Complete Guide to Separatist Movements and Aspirant Nations, from Abkhazia to Zanzibar.  The book, which contains 46 maps and 554 flags (or, more accurately, 554 flag images), is available for order now on Amazon.  Meanwhile, please “like” the book (even if you haven’t read it yet) on Facebook and see this interview for more information on the book.]

Cornwall’s Mebyon Kernow Launches New Push for Devolved Parliament

While Scotland gears up for its own referendum on independence from the United Kingdom later this year, a Celtic nationalist party in the comparatively tiny Duchy of Cornwall is pushing for a devolved parliament of its own.  (See a recent article from this blog for much more detail on Cornish nationalism.)

Mebyon Kernow (“Party for Cornwall”) marked St. Piran’s Day (the Cornish national holiday, named for the patron saint of tin miners) on March 5th by unveiling a document titled “Towards a National Assembly of Cornwall.”  In it, the party argues that a Cornish legislature should eventually take control of must government functions in Cornwall, including all aspects of health and education.

Rob Simmons, a member of the Cornish Council, stated, “I don’t believe there has been a more unifying political issue in modern times.  Even campaigns against the hated Devonwall constituency and the ‘Pasty Tax’ didn’t have this kind of reach and influence in Cornwall.”  (“Devonwall” refers to a Conservative Party proposal in the 1970s to merge Cornwall, England’s southwesternmost county, with its neighbor to the east, Devonshire, a.k.a. Devon.)

A few days later, the U.K.’s nationwide Liberal Democratic Party, which is a junior partner in Prime Minister David Cameron’s ruling coalition, formally endorsed the idea of Cornish devolution at their spring assembly in York.

Don’t tax ’em!

[For those who are wondering, yes, this blog is tied in with my new book, a sort of encyclopedic atlas just published by Litwin Books under the title Let’s Split! A Complete Guide to Separatist Movements and Aspirant Nations, from Abkhazia to Zanzibar.  The book, which contains 46 maps and 554 flags (or, more accurately, 554 flag images), is available for order now on Amazon.  Meanwhile, please “like” the book (even if you haven’t read it yet) on Facebook.]

Right-Wing English Separatists Declare “Precious” Cornish Nationalism “Dead”

The idea of a national identity for the people of Cornwall, England’s southwesternmost point and the most obscure of the Celtic nations, is “dead,” according to the chairman of the English Democrats political party.

Robin Tilbrook

The party’s chairman, Robin Tilbrook, was exulting over recently-released census data which show depressed figures for those identifying themselves as ethnically or nationally “Cornish.”  He added, “The census figures show that not many people are precious about declaring themselves as Cornish.  There’s at least five times more people for English nationalism than Cornish.”  Only 14% of Cornwall residents in the 2011 census indicated Cornish as their national identity—though that is a more impressive figure when one considers that Cornish was not one of the printed choices and that those 73,200 people Cornish nationals were all write-ins.  Moreover, Cornwall has one of the highest rates of immigration from other parts of the United Kingdom among England’s counties, and nearly 5% of the population is from immigrant ethnic groups.  Given that, the true figures for those thinking of themselves as Cornish first may give greater cause for English Democrat worries.

The English Democrats were founded in the late 1990s (as the English National Party) in response to devolution of powers to Scotland and Wales.  On the face of it, they are a devolutionist and Eurosceptical movement favoring removal of England from the European Union and of course from the U.K.  But its true motives are less savory: English Democrats regularly march in white-supremacist rallies alongside National Front neo-fascists, and the movement is part of a broader movement of Continental European right-wing extremist groups such as Serbia’s neo-Nazi Obraz movement, the affiliated Russky Obraz in Russia (which the English Democrats publicly support), the New Right (Noua Dreaptă) hate group in Romania, and even Golden Dawn, the violent, high-profile fascist party in Greece whose leaders and M.P.s have recently been rounded up by the Greek government.*

Coming to a Skinhead rally near you

The English Democrats have no seated legislators and have recently lost ground to the more centrist (but still plenty right of center) United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP), which aims to remove the entire U.K. from the E.U. and currently seats three parliamentarians in the House of Lords and nine in the European Parliament’s U.K. delegation in Strasbourg.  So the English Democrats are floundering for an edge in the polls.  Picking on the Cornish seems especially pathetic and bullying, but that sort of image problem has never bothered them before.

Cornwall has a peculiar status within England.  The only English county known formally as the Duchy of ..., rather than County of ..., this does not actually translate to any kind of autonomy.  It is semantic merely, like Pennsylvania’s designation as a “Commonwealth” or Quebec’s parliament being called a “National,” rather than provincial, assembly.  But it is also the constituent part of England with the most recent experience with sovereignty.  King Edward III unilaterally annexed to England the previously independent Duchy of Cornwall in 1337 and designated his son Edward, the “Black Prince,” as Duke of Cornwall.  Since then, that title has been reserved for the first in line to the throne, alongside the title Prince of Wales.  Today’s Prince of Wales, Charles, is thus Duke of Cornwall as well.  His specific royal prerogatives include silly medieval stuff like the right to all shipwrecks that wash ashore on Cornwall’s beaches or any porpoises “or other royalle Fishes” caught in Cornish waters, but also more serious assets such as over 540 square kilometers of productive land in and around Cornwall, including enough lucrative farmland to support his lavish lifestyle without dipping into other royal coffers.  Cornwall is really Charles’s personal royal fief—and is one day to be Prince William’s.

The current Duke of Cornwall is ready to claw the county back if necessary.

That is, unless the nationalist Party for Cornwall (Mebyon Kernow, or M.K.) has anything to say about it.  They argue that the original ducal line, and the Cornish sovereignty it embodied, were never formally extinguished.  In 2003, a non-binding referendum showed 55% favored a devolved legislature for the duchy.  Others favor being made a full constituent “country” of the U.K., like England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland, or a quasi-independent “Crown Dependency” like Jersey, Guernsey, and the Isle of Man.  Still others, like the sometimes violent Cornish Nationalist Party, back full independence.

Cornwall is, along with Brittany across the water in France, one of the only two of the seven (as they are sometimes defined) Celtic nations to lack any home rule.  (Ireland is independent—most of it, anyway—while Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, the Isle of Man, and Spain’s region of Galicia all have powerful regional parliaments, and Scotland is voting on independence next year.)  The Cornish language went more or less extinct in the 19th century, by some reckonings, but recently it has been brought somewhat back to life by schooling elders who had dimly remembered passive knowledge of it up to proficiency, with the help of younger speakers of the more-healthy, mutually-intelligible Breton language in northwest France.

Cornish nationalists reacted strongly to Tilbrook’s death certificate, with one local leader, Wendron Loveday Jenkin, saying, “Most Cornish people define themselves as Cornish and British but not English, and many non-Cornish people living in Cornwall would recognise Cornwall as a land apart, a duchy and a distinct region, if not a nation.  A significant number of people have voted for Mebyon Kernow and more than 50,000 have called for Cornwall to have its own assembly to run its own affairs.”  And even this does not include the even greater popularity in the county of the Liberal Democratic Party, now the U.K.’s ruling junior coalition partner, which champions Cornish autonomy.

Indeed, the English Democrats and M.K. are a study in contrasts.  Like the separatist movements in Scotland, Wales, Brittany, and Galicia and Ireland’s Sinn Féin, Cornish nationalists are considerably left of center.  Galician separatism even includes a Communist component (though there are, to be far, smaller far-right Scottish and Welsh nationalist movements).  The English Democrats, however, have more affinity with far-right separatist groups on the Continent, nearly all of them from the more prosperous parts of their countries, like northern Italy’s Lega Nord (Northern League), Belgium’s Flemish nationalists, and the fascist-tinged Norman Movement in northeastern France.

But Lega Nord, for all its racist anti-immigrant bluster, does champion the rights of linguistic minorities such as Provençal and Swiss-German speakers in Italy’s northwestern Alpine fringes, and the Friulian, Ladin, and South Tyrolean peoples in the northeast along the border with Austria.  The English Democrats, by contrast, are as intolerant of indigenous diversity as they are of immigrants.  They hate anything that spoils the picture of an English unitary state and are even cold to movements to establish devolved parliaments for the Wessex and Yorkshire regions.

With high hopes for referenda on Scotland and Catalonia next year and rising nationalism in Wales, Cornish national identity may in fact be on the upswing.  It is the English Democrats who may be headed for the dustbin of history.  Good thing, too.

*Note: This article includes a revision of the original version, which featured a statement to the effect that the English Democrats were formally allied with the extremist groups listed in the third paragraph.  See comments below for the discussion.  Thank you to all readers who provide feedback, clarifications, and corrections.



[For those who are wondering, yes, this blog is tied in with my new book, a sort of encyclopedic atlas just published by Litwin Books under the title Let’s Split! A Complete Guide to Separatist Movements and Aspirant Nations, from Abkhazia to Zanzibar.  The book, which contains 46 maps and 554 flags (or, more accurately, 554 flag images), is available for order now on Amazon.  Meanwhile, please “like” the book (even if you haven’t read it yet) on Facebook.]