The Mocking Of The Welsh Accent : Post Brexit Westminster Rule Begins Early

Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.

Some time back in this blog I stated that the Welsh would need to be aware of a an attitude of a certain type of English person post Brexit. That it would be treated as whipping boy for jokes and attitudes that would not be put for example on the Scots.

I was right that these sort of attitudes towards the Welsh would occur. Events have proved me wrong however in that these attitudes seem have come to the surface before Brexit appears.

In Parliament on Monday Plaid Cymru MP Jonathan Edwards was making a speech on the Budget (you remember the budget, the one where Phillip Hammond said that Austerity was over ...yeah right) and his accent was mocked by an unnamed Conservative MP.

Let me explain what is worse than the Conservative MP mocking the Welsh accent. It was the fact that he felt empowered to do so. That is a colonial master to servant attitude, It is that the Welsh will face even more post Brexit.

Why? Well the fact that I believe that the Welsh were misled into voting Leave in the Brexit referendum is part of it. Also though, there is the Welsh Labour administration meekly giving away some of their powers to the weakest Westminster administration that I've ever known in my lifetime. Something that the Scots haven't done. The SNP government didn't do this. They are fighting their cause. Nicola Sturgeon may be smaller than Carwyn Jones with his new shifty Santa beard look. But in all other respects we all know who the bigger Politian is.

Mocking the Welsh accent is just an obvious manifestation that has made Westminster (often with Welsh Labour government agreement) allow for the following to happen (all to the detriment of Wales).

• The cancellation of the Swansea Bay Tidal Lagoon project
• The cancellation of rail electrification west of Cardiff
• The building of two super prisons - set to house English criminals who were living in England at the time of their incarceration
• The Dumping of "nuclear mud" from Hinckley Point in Cardiff Bay
• The servile renaming of the Severn Bridge without any consultation. Secretary of State Alun Chucky Cairns claiming he spoke for "the silent majority". How he knew this no one knows.
• The M4 Relief Road - Whether needed or not I don't know but as I've discussed previously there appears to have been no report into the consequences of people from England buying houses in border towns with the consequent potential social unrest given the lack of affordable housing for the local people

I could go on. But you catch my drift. And post Brexit it's likely to get worse. The issue really is how much worse.

So how to stop it. Well attitudes do not change overnight and the main solution will be independence. But I'm reminded of my childhood in the seventies and from the fog of memory I seem to recall that whilst British Afro Caribbean and Asian people faced racist jokes in terms of television media the biggest group that had to bare them the most were the Irish. "Did you hear the one about the Irishman who...." would be spoken by many comedians at that time to paint the image that they were as thick as the two proverbial short planks (and it's telling that those comedians who are remembered fondly today - Morecambe and Wise,Tommy Cooper - did not resort to that).

No comedian would say that now. Partly because of the obvious racism but also because few in Britain would actually believe it. So I would argue that Welsh people need to shake off being too nice and protest now at the damage being done.

Perhaps then perceptions will start to change.

Until the next time.