English people are not the cause of your problems*...

In the song "Hard Times of Old England Retold", Billy Bragg laments the death of the typical English village, an idyll killed off apparently by an unholy combination of Tescos and the "holiday homes which are left empty all day".  According to Bill, "folks from the city" have effectively colonised rural England destroying its identity and traditions. Well, yes, possibly.

But such "takeovers" happen elsewhere, changing the local landscape and, if long-term residents are to be believed, threatening or even removing their national identity:

Policies being implemented in North East Wales are threatening Welsh identity in the area. But, is anybody willing to listen and take action before the damage is done?

So begins an article by a Wrexham Plaid Cymru councillor Carrie Harper in Wales Home.

Her argument in a nutshell is that under the guise of the West Cheshire/North East Wales sub-regional strategy, Welsh identity is under great threat.  This plan has, apparently, caused more higher value houses  to be built in the area and consequently an influx of English immigration from Cheshire and Merseyside. In effect, she believes those "immigrants" are threatening her and the region's Welshness. They are also pricing locals out of the housing market, one of the main gripes mentioned in Bragg's song earlier. Unlike Billy, however, it is obviously the threatening of the predominant national identity of the area causing her most concern here.

So... (and N.Irish readers, at least, should have an idea by now where this is going) poor "working-class people fearing that the arrival of the rich "other" will threaten their way of life and "indigenous" identity, that's her argument in a nutshell right?

I’ll end with another question that I very much hope the powers that be and our next generation of politicians take on board before it’s too late. Do we have a right to be Welsh

Of course.
But two questions following on from that:

1. Does someone have the right to claim their version of Welshness (or Britishness) is the one and only true one?

2. Does that person then have the right to prevent people from moving into their area, just because they think their perceived national "identity" may threaten their version of Welshness (or Britishness)?

Tough ones, eh?



*A play on a line from the Asian Dub Foundation's PKNB.