Wales can’t afford to lose opportunity
AMAJORITY of voters in Wales last year backed Brexit but the result was a deep disappointment for the 772,347 people who wanted to stay in the EU.
Among this number, few will have been as dismayed as Geraint Talfan Davies.
The former BBC Wales controller was at the forefront of the battle to persuade Welsh voters that our nation’s best interests were served within the union.
He chaired the Wales Stronger in Europe campaign and earnestly made the economic and security arguments for continued membership.
With Theresa May expected to trigger the formal start of the Brexit process at the end of this month and Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon already pressing for a second independence referendum, it looks as if an epic chapter of change is about to begin.
Mr Davies has stepped back into the limelight to identify some of the things he is determined we should not lose in the tumult ahead.
His detailed paper, The Single Market of the Mind, is a plea for the “free exchange of ideas and talent” to continue with a particular focus on education and culture.
This work contains sobering statistics, particularly when highlighting the dependence on EU funding in Wales.
He writes: “Across the UK, EU funding represents roughly a third of the competitive funding distributed by the UK’s Research Councils and Innovate UK. For Wales that EU funding represents nearly two-thirds.”
Furthermore, while “across the UK the private sector is responsible for 45% of the €226.3bn spent on research and development” in Wales “the private sector accounts for only 10%”.
He sums up the situation succinctly, stating: “In short, Wales has more to lose, and just at the wrong moment.”
People were bombarded with facts warning of the dangers of Brexit in the months leading up to the referendum. But for reasons that historians may well still debate in a century’s time they rejected such words of caution.
Mr Davies acknowledges just how deeply this issue has divided the country.
He writes: “The biggest single differentiator between Remain and Leave voters in the referendum was educational qualification: 75% of those with no qualification voted to leave, while only 27% of people with post-graduate degrees did so. This is not intended as a slight against those who voted Leave, rather as one stark measure of the divide in this country.”
It is telling that people who were engaged in education felt the EU was a force for good and a provider of opportunity while a narrow majority of the whole electorate felt we were better off Out.
It is ironic that one of the feared consequences of Brexit is that programmes intended to extend educational opportunities in Wales will need to find new sources of funding. Wales urgently needs to boost its skill levels and we will all suffer if doors to learning close.