Editorial
From Planet 223
by Emily Trahair
That bewildering morning after the UK voted to leave the EU, I began searching through the Planet archives, back to 1970. My task was to find articles about Europe and Wales for an exhibit on a Planet stall for the Tosta festival in Theatr Felinfach, a collaborative project to celebrate European minoritised languages and stateless nations introduced by Meic Llewellyn in this issue. In the archives I found articles articulating a now poignant optimism about new possibilities for the Welsh people, their economy, culture and language within the structures of the EEC and later the EU: finally being free to vault over the structures of British state and have a voice in the wider world. But these pieces were juxtaposed with often prescient concerns about whether the EEC and EU will actually be a force for egalitarianism and democracy, or rather oversee the triumph of free market capitalism over what would become an increasingly debilitated working class. What struck me in particular were simply the countless articles by overseas Europeans who had made Wales their home and an inherent part of their identity.
Sign in to read more