Section:GDN 1J PaGe:2 Edition Date:190801 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 31/7/2019 18:44 cYanmaGentaYellowbla
- The Guardian Thursday 1 Aug ust 2019
2
not to say that Welsh independence is
on the cards any time soon. But it most
defi nitely is to say that support for Welsh
independence is liable to rise, and possibly to rise
quite fast if Brexit eventually triggers either Irish
reunifi cation or Scottish independence, let alone both.
Johnson’s personality contributes its own fl ame-
thrower to this combustible mix. His insouciance about
the devastation that threatens the Welsh hill-farming
industry from a no-deal Brexit could come back to haunt
him. The land, like the language, plays a dynamic role
in nationalist consciousness. Angry farmers can make
a leader suddenly vulnerable. Look what they and the
“gilets jaunes” did to Emmanuel Macron.
But this volatility is not simply about Johnson’s
Marmite personality. Nor is it simply about the single-
mindedness of the nationalist parties to exploit every
situation for the separatist cause. It is also structurally
bound up with Brexit itself, whatever the terms.
In June , the civil servant formerly in charge of the
Brexit department, Philip Rycroft , laid this on the line.
“The fact of Brexit poses a series of challenges at a
practical, as well as an existential, level to the current
governance of the United Kingdom,” Rycroft said. “It
seems clear that this and any future UK government is
going to have to devote considerable time and eff ort to
reworking its policy towards the union.” He concluded:
“Our sense of social cohesion, indeed the very cohesion
of the United Kingdom, will depend on it.”R
ycroft off ered some illustrations.
What if Scotland chooses to
subsidise its fi shing fl eets while
England does not? What if Welsh hill-
farmers secure a diff erential subsidy
rate for their lamb that northern
English hill-farmers cannot access?
“It will put new pressure on a system
of inter-governmental relations that was devised for a
very diff erent era, ” he suggests.
It is important not to exaggerate, of course. There
are many bridges to be crossed before Wales becomes
as much of a threat to the union as Northern Ireland
and Scotland now are. There are radical ways of
heading off the disintegration of the United Kingdom.
But Brexit has put the possibility of break up squarely
on the table, even in Wales.
Outright support for independence in Wales
languishes in single fi gures. But more than one in
three Welsh voters now feel some support for the idea,
and the proportion of those whom nationalists dub
the “ indycurious ” is clearly rising. Use of the Welsh
language is growing and becoming more fashionable.
Even Drakeford said in July that his support for the
UK was not “unconditional” and that, if other parts
seceded, it would be sensible “to reassess Wales’s place
in the components that were there in the future ”.
T he overturning of the old order that occurred
in Scotland a generation ago could now be starting
to repeat itself in Wales too. Labour has never been
weaker, and Jeremy Corbyn refuses to engage on these
identity issues. But it is a big stretch to say that Labour’s
decline means Wales will soon be pressing for or
achieving independence. Five hundred years of union
are unlikely to dissolve in a hurry. Yet modern politics
is nothing if not volatile. Wales’s sense of nationhood
takes many forms and has gone through many changes,
but its existence as a living reality is undeniable.
Around the time of the last Brecon and Radnor
byelection, the late Welsh historian Gwyn Alf
Williams wrote about the continuing potency of the
legend of Owain Glyndŵr. “Since 1410 most Welsh
people most of the time have abandoned any sort
of independence as unthinkable,” wrote Williams.
“But since 1410 most Welsh people, at some time or
another, if only in some secret corner of the mind, have
been ‘out with Owain and his barefoot scrubs’. For
the Welsh mind is still haunted by its lightning-fl ash
vision of a people that was free.”
Boris Johnson would be wise to remember that
thought. If he does not, he may even turn out to
have done more for Welsh independence than almost
anyone since Glyndŵr himself.We tend to learn better from experience than from
what we have simply been told. So for many in Europe,
sleepless nights and suff ocating buses or workplaces
have helped to make real the threat posed by global
heating. Now statistics are reinforcing the message.
Last week the UK had the hottest day on record : 38.7C in
Cambridge. New records were set in Germany, Belgium
and the Netherlands in July, and June was the hottest
month in US history. The Met Offi ce says that the UK’s
10 hottest years on record have all been since 2002.
Heatwaves naturally occur in summer, but they
did not used to be so hot, or so frequent. Experts say
that the UK’s sweltering weather last summer was
made 30 times more likely by global heating. That link
has sunk in: in a new survey , 77% believed the recent
heatwave was partially or wholly caused by the climate
crisis. As temperatures reach unprecedented levels, so
does public concern about the environment.
Yet while global heating is just that, its impact varies
even within countries. Most people surveyed in July
considered the weather too hot. But, while 73% of
people in the east of England judged it too hot, in chillier
Scotland only 47% of people agreed – and a slightly larger
proportion thought it just right or not warm enough.
Some may look forward to warmer staycations and the
chance to grow grapes in their back garden.
Even those alarmed by July’s heat may not
envision the full scale of the climate crisis. The
connection between global heating and heatwaves
seems self-evident. It’s intuitively harder to link it to
other extreme weather events , and to take in experts’
warnings that Britain seems to be getting wetter
as well as warmer. It’s more diffi cult still to fully
comprehend how harsh its impact will be elsewhere.
For many people, even a small rise in temperatures
will be catastrophic. A new report from MonashIt is often only when we lose things, or risk losing them,
that we realise how much we value them. As public
library budgets have shrunk and doors have closed –
with around 500 branches shut in England since 2010,
and around the same number handed over to volunteers- people who had not given libraries much thought have
been stirred to action. High-profi le campaigns against
closures have been fought, and in some cases won.
Cressida Cowell, the new children’s laureate, is urging
that school libraries be made a statutory requirement.
But the fate of librarians has largely escaped notice.
This is a mistake, because they are the guides and
curators without whom a library, whether standalone
or in a school or institution, is simply a collection of
books. At their best they can reshape not only the skills
and knowledge of users, but their whole perspective:
“How many times I’ve been told about a librarian who
saved a life by off ering the right book at the right time,”
the American author Judy Blume has said.
Yet 10,000 jobs in council libraries have been lost
since 2005, with about 15,000 remaining. Technology
has displaced some, with the creation of unstaff ed
branches , and has transformed the role of others;
computer access is now an important aspect of the
University in Melbourne warns that the climate
crisis is already causing deaths ; one of its authors
said almost 400 people died from heat stress and
heatstroke during fi res in Victoria 10 years ago. It
predicts climate-related stunting, malnutrition and
lower IQ in children within the coming decades; a 2018
report from the World Health Organisation predicted
that an additional 250,000 deaths a year will occur
between 2030 and 2050 due to global heating.
Some places will experience more severe
temperature shifts or will fi nd it harder to adapt
than others, often through lack of resources.
Poorer countries, which broadly speaking are
the least to blame for the climate crisis – emitting
less carbon dioxide per capita – will suff er most.
A hurricane or wildfi re is deadlier when there is
little capacity to prepare for it or to speed recovery.
Families that spend most of their income on
food struggle to eat when crops suff er.
A recent study found that global heating has already
increased global inequality : in most poor countries,
higher temperatures are very likely to have resulted
in lower economic output than they would otherwise
have enjoyed, while richer nations were not harmed
to the same degree, and some were potentially able
to actually benefi t. Bangladesh and sub-Saharan
African nations are among those hit. The resear ch ties
in with previous projections that by 2100 the average
income in the poorest countries will be 75% lower than
it would be without climate change, and that some
wealthy countries might even see higher incomes.
Yet none of these problems will be fully
contained within national borders. Drought and
famine are already forcing families from Guatemala,
Honduras and El Salvador to attempt to migrate
to the United States when they are unable to feed
themselves. A World Food Programme study of
Central American migrants found that almost half
were food insecure. A 4C rise this century, which is
now considered a realistic prospect, would produce
at least 300 million refugees and drown cities in the
US and China. It is the duty of richer nations to do all
they can to hold back the soaring temperatures which
they did most to produce, and to take what action
they can to mitigate their impact – abroad as well as
at home. It is also in their self-interest.service, and librarians routinely help people with
online benefi ts applications.
There is no reason why libraries should not off er
this kind of support, as long as staff have suffi cient
resources and training. The baby and book groups,
homework and play clubs, English and IT lessons
hosted by libraries are a positive extension of their
role. But such activities must not come at the expense
of the librarian’s task of championing books and
literacy, which is even more important in an age of
information overload and fake news.
Shrunken budgets inevitably make this service
harder to deliver: when libraries no longer have
budgets to buy new publications, readers can’t
access them, which may in part explain a recent fall
in lending. Such cuts aff ect all sorts of people, but
are particularly damaging when children cannot
fi nd books to suit them. This year marks the 20th
anniversary of the Summer Reading Challenge, a
scheme off ering incentives to children who sign
up to read a book a week during the holidays ;
especially valuable to those who don’t go away
or have shelves full of books at home. It is also a
reminder of the kind of one-on-one engagement that
has become a rarity. The ideal librarian is a skilled
maker of recommendations.
Librarians can be much more than book experts.
Libraries are community as well as knowledge hubs,
and should promote and harness civic activism.
The 50,000 people now volunteering in English
libraries have much to off er. But any government
with a serious commitment to expanding educational
opportunities for young and old would invest, not
only in libraries, but in the people who work in them. Continued from frontLibraries that have no
librarians are worlds
without maps or guides
Public services
Climate crisis
The rich did most to create
global heating. But the
poor pay the highest price
Founded 1821 Independently owned by the Scott Trust No 53, 788
‘Comment is free... but facts are sacred’ CP Scott
How Johnson’s Brexit could tear
the United Kingdom apart
Martin Kettle
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