January 9th, 2022.
The New Year in the UK continues to amaze, with the difficulties of devolution presenting again. Chester FC, a non-league football side have been threatened with prosecution for breaking the Welsh Government’s Covid legislation. The problem is that the Welsh/English border runs through the stadium, with the playing area being in Wales but the car park, offices and main entrance are in England. The Welsh Government (Llywodraeth Cymru) has insisted that the club must follow the restrictions that apply to Wales, which limit spectator numbers to just 50. The club’s average attendance is 2,000+.
On Friday morning Chester Football Club was invited to a meeting with representatives of North Wales Police, Flintshire County Council, Cheshire Police and Cheshire West & Chester Council. The club play in the 6th tier of the English pyramid system.
The football club is now caught in the middle of a turf war between different agencies and is losing money hand over fist as they need gate money to survive.
Meanwhile, the Welsh RFU are looking at relocating their home games in the 6 nations competition outside of Wales, with Tottenham Hotspur’s ground being the favourite to host their home games. This will cause major problems for the Welsh Government if it happens as it will not go down well with the Welsh people.
With similar restrictions in place in Scotland, soccer games are being played in stadia with crowd limits of 500. This is causing major financial problems for the sport and they have brought forward the 3-week winter break to avoid playing games with low attendances. The clubs are now negotiating with English football authorities and clubs to investigate renting grounds in England to stage their fixtures. Following Nicola Sturgeon’s restrictions imposed over the holidays, the Scots are rapidly falling out of love with her.
All through the Covid pandemic, the UK has suffered from not having a coordinated approach, and the devolved nations playing dirty politics with the situation, blaming everything on England and Westminster.
Boris Johnson recently described devolution as a disaster. This view is not surprising when one realises that the architect of devolution was Tony Blair. It has successfully caused division within the UK. Blair has even admitted that parts of devolution and the process were flawed.
Given that Jacinda Ardern was part of Blair’s team in the UK, it is easy to see where some of her attitudes and political thoughts have been nurtured.
New Xi-land is becoming ever more divisive, not only on ethnic grounds, but for the first time in New Xi-Land we will see animosity between the haves and the have nots. Yes, we had the waterfront strike in the 50s but this is different because this time many of the people with grievances have previously been relatively comfortable financially. Now they find it difficult to purchase or rent property. Their standard of living is dropping, and as they see more and more benefits going to an ethnic minority, resentment will grow.
The highlighting of and ‘blame’ being directed at the unvaxxed will also see discrimination growing in a country once renowned for its egalitarian culture. In a couple of weeks, I am attending a global centre for conflict resolution and I am sure that as part of the discussions on societal disintegration the topic of New Xi-Land will be to the fore.