Dafydd Wigley: Welsh independence less likely if Scotland stays

An independent Wales is "less likely" to come about if Scotland does not vote to leave the UK first, a former Plaid Cymru leader has said.

Lord Dafydd Wigley said if Scotland again voted "no" to independence, there would be a "greater focus" on a redesigned United Kingdom.

He was speaking to the BBC Walescast podcast in the first of a series of interviews with Welsh politicians.

The Scottish government wants to hold a second independence referendum in 2023.

But UK government ministers are opposed to the vote.

Lord Wigley served as MP for Caernarfon from 1974 up to 2001, and was the constituency's assembly member from the opening of the institution until 2003.

He led Plaid Cymru twice, in the early 1980s and from 1991 to 2000. He will retire soon from the House of Lords, where he has been a peer since 2011.

In a wide-ranging interview, Lord Wigley talks about his "difficult" time in Cardiff Bay, and how he witnessed the election of a new prime minister from Downing Street.

The former Plaid leader questioned where England and Wales would be left "as a unit" if Scotland became independent.

"Is that what we want," he asked, "to be a small pimple on the western side of England that doesn't count for anything?

"We get precious little voice now in the UK, we'll get even less when it is so dominated by the needs of England."

But he said if Scotland rejected independence a second time it was "less likely" that Wales would become independent.

"In realistic terms, if Scotland was to have a referendum and it went 'no', I think what we then have is a greater focus on a federalism or confederal argument."

Under a federal set-up, more powers could shift from London to Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland but power would still ultimately reside in Westminster.

Lord Wigley prefers a confederal system, where authority would lie with the four individual countries of the UK, but "certain functions", like defence, are pooled together.

The current Welsh government, led by Labour's Mark Drakeford, supports the union and is opposed to Welsh independence.

Plaid Cymru, the third largest party in the Welsh parliament and now in a co-operation agreement with Mr Drakeford, campaigned to hold a vote at the last Senedd election.

Lord Wigley's Plaid Cymru campaigned for the then National Assembly to be established in the 1997 referendum, as did Welsh Labour at the time. The Yes side won, but just, with 50.3% of the vote.

A quarter of a century on and the slender victory for Welsh devolution is still emotive for the former Plaid leader.

As the results first came in, he said it was "as if you were going in half-time in a football match losing 10-0… I knew in my heart if we'd have lost that we'd have lost it for my lifetime".

But the fortunes of devolution supporters would change as the counting continued.

"A civil servant came down and said: 'The Secretary of State [for Wales Ron Davies] would like to have a word with you.'

"I went down a long corridor, I knocked on the door, and the door opened. Ron just came and flung his arms around me and said: 'We've won, Dafydd.'

"And that was a night, a moment of a night that I will never forget, never forget."

Fighting back tears, he adds: "It was a changing of our fortunes in a flick of a switch."

The first election for the National Assembly - the institution now known as the Welsh Parliament - took place in 1999.

As the results and early gossip started coming in, Lord Wigley "went ashen white" because Plaid could well be the largest party and "the reality was we were not ready for that".

In the end, Plaid won 17 out of the 60 seats. It was a high watermark that the party is yet to beat.

"We got to a position where there was a danger of Plaid talking to its heartlands, and there is a need now, as always, to have an agenda that touches the nerve in each of those industrial seats and in Cardiff, and Swansea, and Newport, there's no reason on earth why we can't relate there," he reflected.

He recalls his brief time in the National Assembly from 1999 to 2003, while he was still an MP, as "difficult".

"I'd wrongly, I believe, made the decision to continue as MP for Caernarfon up until the next election in 2001.

"It's one of the worst decisions I've made in my life. I should've stood down immediately in Westminster."

Having then had a "heart operation in December 1999", Lord Wigley laughs as he explains he was then told "to avoid stressful positions".

Shortly afterwards, it was suggested by Plaid colleagues Ieuan Wyn Jones and Cynog Dafis that he should stand down as leader.

"I don't feel betrayed because I don't see other people's ambitions as anything you should try restricting," he said.

Despite dedicating his political life to the establishment of a Welsh Parliament, Lord Wigley has spent much more time in Westminster.

There are many highlights, from securing compensation payments to former slate quarry workers suffering from pneumoconiosis, to his campaigning work on disability politics following the death of two of his boys, Alun and Geraint, to a genetic illness.

He has also struck up some unexpected friendships, including with a former prime minister.

On the night John Major was chosen to enter 10 Downing Street, Dafydd Wigley was invited over for a "small family party".

Dafydd Wigley continues the story: "There about 40 or 50 people milling around.

"John Major then goes through next door to join Margaret Thatcher for a night cap and the party starts dying down.

"Anyway, Newsnight was coming on and they only had one television."

That television was in John and Norma Major's bedroom.

Lord Wigley added: "So, there was I and a couple of other family friends and Norma sitting on the prime minister-elect's bed watching coverage of him being elected as prime minister."

He eventually left, not wanting to overstay his welcome.

Lord Wigley is now preparing to leave Westminster once and for all. But after more than 50 years in frontline politics, he isn't quite done yet.

Watch the interview on Walescast on BBC One Wales at 22:40 on Wednesday, or on iPlayer after broadcast, or listen to it on BBC Sounds.