South Wales West est MS Luke Fletcher

LAST Wednesday, over 700,000 workers went on strike. On the very same day, the UK Government announced their budget for 2023.

If this isn’t the perfect summary of the damage inflicted by consecutive Westminster governments over the past 13 years, I don’t know what is.

It is apparent from the UK Government’s budget that the cost-ofliving disaster is set to deepen. The Tory Government’s financial recklessness offers no respite or reassurance for many local families.

We will avoid recession (narrowly), but the Office of Budget Responsibility says that we still face the biggest fall in living standards since 1957. Funnily enough, the Chancellor didn’t mention that in his announcement.

Nobody should be surprised by the lack of compassion from Chancellor Jeremy Hunt.

After all, this is the Tory blueprint: exhaust the workforce and starve public services. It’s morally bankrupt, especially against a backdrop of people being forced on to prepayment meters for their household utilities while energy bosses rake in billions of pounds, hand over fist.

We in Wales should have the powers to do away with this inhumanity and not kick these problems into the long grass. We should be able to provide support and an exciting vision for our communities. However, the stark reality is that we remain largely vulnerable to political negligence at home and from across the bridge.

In the midst of all this, it’s easy to become hopeless. However, we must make hope more desirable than despair by thinking about solid alternatives to the injustices we see around us today. It’s worth asking: how do we protect ourselves from this in the future?

The question of Welsh independence has become increasingly prominent in recent years and it will be discussed even more in the coming years. The conversation will happen, and we must do what we can now to ensure that the quality of that conversation is high.

However, I think one thing is abundantly clear: Wales simply cannot tackle its underlying problems by remaining at the mercy and whim of Westminster.

Wales is rich, contrary to the views of many. Not just in terms of its natural resources or talent, but in things that you cannot quantify in terms of pounds and pennies, that which isn’t easily shown on a traditional balance sheet.

What could a Wales, one shaped and determined by those that call it their home, look like?