Should Wales become an

independent country?
Harri Thomas
Why did I choose my title?

Should Wales become an independent

country?
What were my aims and objectives?
To expand my knowledge To have a better
To establish greater report
on the current political understanding of the
writing skills for use in
affairs within the United political spectrum in the
later life
Kingdom; UK, in particular, Wales

To explore, interpret and

To learn how to correctly and To explore the increasing
evaluate differing political
efficiently reference text political polarisation that is
views and attitudes from
sources occurring
across the country

To research the potential

To collect, outline and judge
To further improve my time effects of this on the political
the feasibility of conceptual
management skills scene within the UK and
political views
Wales.

To develop my ability to
successfully and efficiently
use academic search engines
such as google scholar to aid
my research
What research did I do?
Blogs
52 Sources from a collection of

Political News articles

Archives

Research
papers TV Programs

Published
statistics Books
How I approached writing my dissertation

Introduction The economic impact The political impact The international impact

Could Wales afford to Does Wales have the

political and constitutional Would Wales be able to
become an independent rejoin the EU and how would
country? foundations to run a country
effectively? it benefit the country?

Are too many people in Does the political spectrum

Wales below the poverty in Wales have enough Would Wales be able to join
line? differentiation? NATO?

Is it too late for Wales to

replicate Ireland’s Celtic
tiger economy?
What skills did I develop through
my project?
Academic Time
search engines management

Advanced my
Documents Index
Design searching Citations presentation
building skills

Critically
Referencing analysing Bibliography
sources
Background to the Welsh independence
movement
What would the political impact of Welsh
independence be?
2 Houses 1 House

People who trust in Govt

(ONS 2022) VS

Trust
35%

Don't
Trust
65%

2880 NURSES FOR

88.7M
What would the international impact of Welsh
independence be?
Members
Walesmust uphold
gained £245 democracy
million per
year from the EU
Stable institutions that guarantee
democracy
Members must have a market economy

Washington Wales has less EU migrants than

Copenhagen Criteria
the rest of the UK, Functioning
despite military
Members’ market
forces must economy
be under civilian control
Treaty people voting for Brexit due to
high levels of immigration
Members must respect their borders
Able to implement EU agenda

Wales was set to receive £2

Members
billion must
of EUwork towards
structural compatibility with NATO forces
funding
from 2014 to 2020
What would the economic impact of Welsh
independence be? 4.7 TWh of
Additional
power
50 Giga
generated
Watts of
Fiscal deficit – the difference between a government's spending
per and
yearits
revenue capacity
Covering an
Generating
area of
revenues2 of
157KM
£4.8 billion
20,000 highly
skilled jobs
Employing
createdpeople
58,000

2.5 GW Enough to
Accelerating Backing from
capacity power 90%
economic growth the UK
of homes in
government
Wales
Would Welsh independence even be feasible?

Is it politically feasible?

It is internationally feasible?

Is it economically feasible?
Conclusion – should Wales become an
independent country?
I believe it would be
successful
internationally and
politically in the short
However, it may be in term I do not believe it would
Wales’ best interests to be economically
become independent in successful in the short
the long term term

Wales should tackle

Wales should remain in
some of its economic
the UK for a minimum
issues before an
of 10 more years
independence motion

Doing this would allow Wales should use its

for much more access to UK credit and
aggressive growth once finance to improve its
independent economy as apart of the
union
Some of the problems which I encountered
• I failed to take into account that I had to sit my entrance exams during the time period I was supposed to be
Time management completing the project. This effected the amount of time I was able to spend on the project at one point.

• The independence movement in Wales is no where near the same scale as it is, for example, in Scotland. This
Lack of available information meant that there was a lack of information or research done into Wales as its own country, most data and
sources tied Wales in with the UK which made it to find specifically Welsh data at times.

• A country becoming independent from mainland Britain is a completely unprecedented event. This made it

Unprecedented event hard to find out what provisions would be made, for example, with the land border with England, as there is no
comparable point in history to go back to. This made it very hard to conceptualise something which is so
complicated yet has never happened before.

• Since politics is a highly opinionated topic, most articles which contained the information that I required had
Source validity some sort of motive; they were either pro-independence or anti-independence. This meant that the sources were
written in misleading ways at time, which made it difficult to find the facts I needed in an unbiased manner.

• Some of the subtitles that I had planned on using at the start of the project, I realised lacked any real relevance

Relevance one I began researching them and writing them up. This is again thanks to it being an unprecedented event, it
was hard to tell what would and wouldn’t be relevant. This led to me removing some sub titles I had previously
planned on including.
The changes I made during the project
Added elements
Removed elements

Addition of the subtitle “is it too late for Wales to replicate Ireland’s
RemovalRemoval of the social
of the subtitle “does impact section
Wales have from the report
an international presence”.
Celtic tiger economy?”

Removal of the subtitle “how would Wales’s border with England

Removal of the subtitle “can Wales afford its own army”.
operate”.
.

Removal of the subtitle “does Wales have the critical infrastructure to

become successfully independent?”
Did I achieve my aims and objectives?
To expand my knowledge To have a better
To establish greater report
on the current political understanding of the
writing skills for use in
affairs within the United political spectrum in the
later life
Kingdom; UK, in particular, Wales

To explore, interpret and

To learn how to correctly and To explore the increasing
evaluate differing political
efficiently reference text political polarisation that is
views and attitudes from
sources occurring
across the country

To research the potential

To collect, outline and judge
To further improve my time effects of this on the political
the feasibility of conceptual
management skills scene within the UK and
political views
Wales.

To develop my ability to
successfully and efficiently
use academic search engines
such as google scholar to aid
my research
What would I have done differently?
Adjusted my time management
• I would ensure that my time management was planned to fit around other events that
would take up my time, such as entrance exams and mock exams. This would ensure that
the same I allocated could be fully focused on EPQ.
• I would also add blocks of time at the end of each milestone as an overrun. This would
mean that if for any reason it did get delayed, the overrun time could be used without it
impeding on the next block.

Reduced the number of subtitles from the start of the project

• Doing this again, I would be more thorough about the subtitles I was picking, to ensure
that they are all equally relevant and to ensure that there is enough to write about all of
them.

Allocated time differently

• I would also have adjusted the time I spent in different sections of the project. I would
have given more time for the presentation and booklet side of the project and less time to
writing the report. I would also give much more time to the literature review.
Are there any questions?