Another Country Wants to Break Away from the UK – And It’s Partly Down to Memes

Welsh independence – or “annibyniaeth”, if you’re being serious about it – is having a moment.

Recent “State of the Union” polling data compiled by ITV News and Savanta ComRes shows support for Welsh independence currently stands at 35 percent. This is the highest it’s been since records began, and represents a considerable rise since 2014, when a similar survey placed support for independence at just 12 percent.

The political movement Yes Cymru was established in 2014 with the sole aim of bringing about an independent Wales. In the past 12 months it’s seen its membership grow from less than 4,000 to nearly 18,000 – and while they don’t keep demographic data, this rapid rise in followers has anecdotally been put down to a growing number of young people joining the movement.

Harriet Protheroe Soltani is a Yes Cymru activist who’s worked with the movement for two years. She explained that this youth following is something Yes Cymru has actively cultivated through its social media presence and merchandising.

“I think the movement has kind of created a moment – it has created a spectacle on social media,” she said. “It’s a concerted thing to target younger voters on Instagram and TikTok, and we’ve been working with Welsh independence influencers. There’s a whole ‘Welsh Twitter’, but there’s also Welsh Instagram and Welsh TikTok. They are young, Welsh, pro-indy, and some of them have huge followings.”

If you were wondering, Welsh TikTok consists of videos like dance routines set to a backdrop of text outlining the extent of child poverty in Wales. Plus, as Harriet put it, “They do funny shit, like this one guy just wears Yes Cymru clothes and climbs up mountains and dances.”

The funny shit seems to be working. Carina Williams is a 25-year-old Yes Cymru member who first encountered the movement on social media. “I was seeing a lot of ‘independent Wales’ meme pages. There’s one called ‘Fiery Welsh Memes for Feisty Independent Dreams’, but there are loads of pages on Facebook,” Carina, who lives in Anglesey, explained. “That’s where I got the information from and learned there was a movement. I think [Yes Cymru] kind of knowingly used [memes] to their advantage – they adapted something to share information by making it interesting.”

On Yes Cymru’s Instagram, the memes are interspersed with photos of young supporters sporting pro-indy beanies and sweaters, showing the same sense of devotion as 2000s scene kids felt towards Babycakes clothing. Carina said the movement feels “cool” to be part of, and likened it to how she felt as a new Labour Party member under Jeremy Corbyn.

But Welsh independence never used to be “cool”. Growing up in Wales, the movement always felt like the preserve of older people in kagools who stood outside BHS handing out leaflets on a Saturday afternoon. Carina said she feels the independence movement is experiencing something of a “revival” thanks to social media: “It’s not [former Plaid Cymru president] Dafydd Iwan in the 1960s and 1970s – it’s the newer generation that are pushing it. I think it’s younger people in the revival.”

So why have so many young people taken up the mantle of independence? A number of the Yes Cymru members I interviewed spoke of how the independence movement made them feel “listened to” in a way they never have been before. Since 2010 – around the time many of these members gained the right to vote – we’ve seen austerity, tuition fee hikes and Brexit, all of which represent the exact opposite of what these young voters want, therefor making them feel as if their their political engagement was ultimately worthless.

“After years of seeing inaction from the British state and people’s lives not radically changing, you could argue younger people haven’t seen anything materially change in the last ten years,” said Harriet. “We’ve seen consecutive Tory governments despite Wales voting majority Labour. Obviously we saw some seats peeling away in the last General Election, but the majority of Wales votes Labour.

“I guess, for some young people, this will be the first time they’ve experienced this kind of energy, akin to the excitement some people felt in the Tony Blair era. They will have lived through Labour under Corbyn, and they’ve just seen that shattered, and now they’re asking, ‘Where am I going to go and what am I going to do?’ So it’s understandable that they’re going to put themselves into a movement they can see locally and see themselves reflected in.”

Llion Wyatt, 27, is a Yes Cymru member from Blaenau Ffestiniog, who joined the movement out of a desire “to be heard”. He echoed Harriet’s sentiments, describing the “exciting vibe” around independence. He said: “You see a lot of members of Yes Cymru on Twitter, and you realise other people want the same thing as you. As a young person, it’s our choice and our future, really, so it’s up to us to do our bit.”

For a generation left largely disaffected by a decade of electoral results that don’t reflect their views or their values, the prospect of ripping it all up and starting again understandably seems pretty appealing.

Crucially, Yes Cymru isn’t a political party and is not affiliated with Plaid Cymru, the traditional standard bearers for independence in Wales – nor is it affiliated with Labour or the Welsh Greens. In this sense, it acts as a sort of catch-all organisation, with the sole promise of bringing about something better. After a decade of feeling roundly unrepresented by what they see in Westminster, it’s easy to understand why, for so many young Welsh voters, independence might feel like the answer.