Secure in Valour's Station?

No part of Wales welcomed continued membership of the European Community more than Radnorshire in the 1975 Referendum. With Powys voting 74% YES, a figure doubtless depressed by NO votes in the old Breconshire coalfield, the more rural parts of the county would surely have outstripped the most pro areas of England in enthusiasm for Europe.

Your correspondent was one of that small minority of Radnorians to vote NO in 1975, so it was with a degree of sadness that I noted the YES vote in Ireland over the weekend, the good voters of Donegal excepted. The main reason voters gave for giving up their country's hard-won independence seemed to be money. Unlike the Scottish Parliament in 1707, the Irish voters were admitting to have been bought for European rather than English gold.

Now I realise that the chances of a referendum in the UK are fairly remote, but if by some mishap it should happen, how should Radnorian vote? As a supporter of Welsh Independence it seems somewhat eccentric to vote to give away that independence before it has even been won. At the same time a victory for the NO side would be a massive fillip to the old myopic English Nationalism that defines itself by what it doesn't like, the Welsh and Scots in particular, rather than what it does.