Why Water Is An Independence Issue

Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.

There is the often repeated joke in England that it always rains in Wales. Similar stuff is thrown at Scotland as well. But it appears that the product from the clouds has now the potential to become an issue for independence as well.

For the chief of the environment agency has warned that England could run short of water within twenty five years. A combination of rising population and dwindling supply caused what would be a perfect storm for drought....if that wasn't the wrong metaphor to use.

Part of the way he seeks to resolve this is to "transfer water across the country" this for now only involves England. But you don't need to have any degrees in politics, business or water management to know that eyes will be looking across the borders into Wales and Scotland.

Of course this is not new. I've previously spoken in the past about the Tryweryn reservoir where in the nineteen sixties the village of Capel Celyn was flooded so that the it could built to supply Liverpool.

Could this happen again? Well politically in Wales First Minister Mark "Jeremy's Disciple" Drakeford and Welsh Secretary of state Alun "Chucky" Cairns are remarkably similar in the way they appear to be supplicants to their Westminster masters. So despite this not being in the interests of Wales there is nothing to suggest they won't agree to do it.

But there is another way and that is for Wales to judge whether they should sell the water to England and at what cost. It's a Welsh resource that should not be drained away like North Sea oil was for Scotland.

This is where independence come in. In my lifetime the Scottish Nationalist Party really stepped up a gear in the seventies in the discovery of North Sea oil. What people could see was that here was a Scottish resource being frittered away by Westminster whilst there were some parts of Scotland that would have benefited from monies that the oil would have provided.

In Independent Wales for oil read Water. Plaid Cymru should emphasise that it is a Welsh resource and the profits for supplying England with water should be put back to Wales with the consequent increase in resources for things like health,education and transport.

It should also emphasise through the rooftops something else as well. Not that no new reservoirs would be built, after all who knows what the future will bring, but that no communities will be flooded for new reservoirs built in Wales if it's designed to solely supply England.

Water is a resource and an independence issue Plaid needs to make this loud and clear. For we know the Unionist parties won't