Welsh Identity Must Transcend Nostalgia to Embrace Economic Ambition
What does it truly mean to be Welsh in the modern era? This question often elicits immediate responses tied to cultural symbols, but the reality is far more complex. Welsh identity should never be reduced to mere grievance, nostalgia, or sentimentality. Instead, it represents a living, evolving identity shaped by both historical challenges and contemporary choices.
The Dual Nature of Modern Welshness
As Wales celebrates St David's Day in 2026, the national character finds itself caught between two powerful instincts: cultural confidence and economic caution. Wales has demonstrated remarkable resilience throughout history, preserving a language that faced suppression and producing exceptional artists, athletes, and scientists disproportionate to its size.
At its best, Wales embodies an intensity where talent and community exist in close proximity. The nation's social fabric is woven with connections where assistance, introductions, and simple gestures like sharing a panad (cup of tea) remain commonplace. This communal strength forms a cornerstone of Welsh identity.
The Economic Challenge Facing Welsh Identity
However, Wales also exhibits a troubling tendency to believe economic success primarily occurs elsewhere. This perception creates a fundamental tension at the heart of modern Welsh identity. Since devolution in 1999, Wales has consistently trailed UK averages in productivity, wages, and economic output.
These statistics represent more than mere numbers; they actively shape national confidence, narrow ambition horizons, and subtly transform the Welsh narrative from "we can" to "we cope." For a nation of just over three million people, every year of underperformance carries significant consequences, as small nations receive few "free hits" in economic development.
From Resilience to Deliberate Ambition
Welshness has always contained remarkable resilience, enduring industrial collapse, political marginalization, and decades of being treated as a problem rather than a place of opportunity. Yet resilience alone cannot substitute for ambition. Modern Welsh identity must move beyond nostalgia to deliberately shape its economic future.
This requires concrete actions: not merely hosting economic summits but actively creating investment; not just training future talent but retaining it within Welsh communities; not simply discussing innovation but using it to build scalable companies that remain rooted in their origins.
The Uncomfortable Question of Scale
The conversation becomes challenging when addressing whether Wales truly believes it can build globally significant businesses that dominate sectors, anchor high-value jobs, and recycle wealth into future generations of founders. To date, Wales has not normalized this level of ambition, instead treating exceptional success stories as outliers rather than building systematic pipelines to create them.
Small nations that successfully scale develop different psychological frameworks, producing founders who think bigger, firms that recruit for global growth, and policymakers who design programs supporting success. Wales possesses abundant talent, ingenuity, and innovation but has repeatedly lacked the conversion mechanisms: sufficient capital, institutional strength, and cultural permission to think ambitiously without constant calls to "be realistic."
Moving Beyond a Development Economy Mindset
Too often, Welsh economic policy focuses on preservation through metrics like businesses supported or jobs safeguarded. While important, these differ fundamentally from creating new employment, growing firms, and building national prosperity. Wales risks becoming a development economy obsessed with avoiding failure, resulting in a national narrative of survival rather than success.
This isn't about demanding every business become a unicorn but recognizing that small nations require high-value economic wins to change trajectories. The mathematics of economic development remain unforgiving: prosperity cannot be built on low productivity and low value-added activities. Instead, Wales needs firms that invest, export, and grow substantially.
Defining the Modern Welsh Proposition
This leads to a deeper question: what should Wales be known for in a world of artificial intelligence, clean energy, and deep technology? Obviously not another romanticized version of coal and choirs, but what constitutes the modern Welsh proposition? Being Welsh shouldn't involve merely looking backward but actively choosing what comes next.
To cultivate an identity that is proud, modern, and confident, Wales must embrace an economic narrative rooted in better performance. This requires institutional courage: serious mechanisms to transform research into investable companies, development finance that knows when to protect and when to pursue growth aggressively, and a political culture that distinguishes announcements from tangible outcomes.
The Path Forward for Welsh Identity
So what does it mean to be Welsh in 2026? Answers will vary, but fundamentally it means refusing to accept underperformance as a national personality trait. It means celebrating community without letting it become a comfort blanket that inhibits progress. It means taking pride in heritage while constantly demanding better economic performance.
Most importantly, Welshness must never be reduced to grievance, nostalgia, or sentimentality. The nation requires a modern identity for a modern economy with modern choices. While a small nation needn't dominate everything, it should reasonably be expected to dominate something significant. When Welsh institutions, companies, and culture begin operating with this belief, the question "what does it mean to be Welsh?" will receive a completely different, more ambitious answer.
