Between 1843 and 1845, Daniel O’Connell presided over a series of “Monster Meetings”, dubbed such by a worried English press over their massive size, with attendance at some allegedly close to a million. The meetings aimed to send a clear message to Westminster to repeal the Act of Union and grant Dublin an independent parliament – regional devolution.
These meetings were generally held in places with historical or mythological significance. Perhaps this was why the leaders of Sinn Féin, Plaid Cymru, and the Scottish National Party (SNP) met in Cardiff, the scene of the British Labour Party’s most bitter defeat in decades. This meeting, probably as disconcerting for the British commentariat as O’Connell’s were, is to demand the right of devolved governments to call their own independence referendums.
And why not? After all, the central thesis of Burnham’s “Manchesterism” is to challenge the centralisation of power in Westminster that leads to regional inequality. Travelling across England and other parts of Britain, the logic behind this idea becomes clear. Far from the matcha and lunch bellies of central London lies a constellation of drastically different worlds. Multiethnic metros, dilapidated post-industrial towns and rolling countryside peppered with ageing single-steeple burys and combes- how could their affairs possibly be managed and met equitably with power so thoroughly centralised in a distant city-state on the Thames?
Burnham’s ideology of local governments meeting local needs and seeing devolution as a process fits, whether he likes it or not, neatly alongside the wishes of the UK’s other constituent territories.
It’s time for these islands’ 14 million Celts to pry the crown’s hypertensive hands apart and reach for true self-determination. Hopefully Monday’s summit will be the first in a series of collaborative efforts to pave the way for such self-determination, and give each nation the opportunity to build a truly new homeland.
