[This article originally appeared on our Facebook page]
LAST week, we broke the story about Lancashire Tory MP Jake Berry, and his property empire building project on Ynys Mon.
We argued that this was just a further example of colonialism at work in modern day Wales.
Right on cue, the latest Welsh government population statistics have confirmed this in the starkest possible sense.
The Welsh-born population of Wales in the figures for 2020 is now down to 70.1%.
Let that sink in. 30% of the population of Wales were born elsewhere, with the vast majority of these born in England.
The statistics also show another worrying trend – that only 62.9% of the Welsh population identify as being Welsh today.
Which suggests in turn that 7% of the population are born to people who were not born here, although of course these could just be children who adopt the identity of their parents.
A big shout-out here to the people of Merthyr, who registered the highest ‘Welsh-identifying’ percentage of the population at 83%.
With the opposite end of the scale occupied by Flintshire, with only 34% of the population there ‘Welsh-identifying’.
The figures in general are absolutely shocking. Heartbreaking even.
Most of us had accepted that the non-Welsh born percentage here was around 25%, but to learn that it is now at 30% is a hammer blow.
Just imagine the uproar and fury in England should their native-born percentage of population have declined to 70%?
They are at 83%, but still have a continuing amd powerful narrative about being ‘submerged’ by outsiders.
Put in European terms, Wales comes 4th in the non-native born league, behind Andorra (56%), Luxemburg (43%) and Lichtenstein (33%).
But these countries are absolutely tiny in comparison,, 77,000, 600,000 and 38,000 respectively – and therefore you would expect that their percentage of non-native born population would be naturally higher.
You could argue therefore, that in real terms, Wales has the highest non-native born percentage of the population within all the nations in Europe today.
This is clearly unsustainable and has to stop.
But when did you ever hear of a Welsh politician talking publically about this problem?
And identifying the problem as being related to the continuing and relentless colonialism of Wales by its big neighbour next door?
GWLAD will not shy away from confronting this huge problem and calling it out as it is.
There are no easy solutions of course, but that’s not to say that there are no possible answers that could be put in place.
A Residency and Citizenship policy will be on our manifesto for next year’s election.
This will be similar to the policy already in place on the Channel Islands, where people can only buy property there by attaining citizenship status.
A lot of the migration into Wales is largely an ‘unthinking’ one, with people regarding Wales as just another English county in effect.
Epitomised by the couple stopped from travelling into Wales this week by the Police, who complained ‘but don’t we control Wales as well?’!
Having a Residency and Citizenship Policy in place would make such ‘unthinking’ migration a thing of the past.
People would have to accept that they would need to attain Welsh citizenship to buy property here, and that is sure to be a huge deterrance to many.
But apart from being a defensive policy, having a Residency and Citizenship policy in place would bolster Welsh identity, and Welsh self-respect amongst the population here.
And hopefully persuade many of the 30% non-native born here, that they could also become proud Welsh citizens.