Welsh Journals

3. THE POLITICAL CONSEQUENCES OF MIGRATION INTO WALES Dylan Griffiths United Kingdom a national society affected by class divisions but not by the regional, ethnic or cultural conflicts that scarred political life in less fortunate countries. (Birch, 1977, p. 13) This rosy view of Britain as a modern society where socio-economic conflicts between classes and class-based parties have supplanted ethnic or cultural conflict has informed much of the debate on political behaviour in Britain (for example Butler and Stokes, 1974, p. 121). Yet it has been claimed that Wales provides an exception to what Balsom (1984) terms the British homogeneity thesis. Balsom et al. (1983) found that attributes such as being able to speak Welsh and possessing a Welsh identity influenced political behaviour in Wales. Arguably, the reaction by some groups in Wales to migration into Wales from England shows that cultural issues can still play a major role, even in a 'modern' society such as Britain, contrary to the expectations of modernization theorists (for example: Birch, 1977, p. 33). Jones et al. (1983) noted a process of acculturation in Wales whereby Wales was acquiring the 'politico-cultural characteristics of the wider, English political and social system' (p. 226). One element in this process that they identified is demographic change, through in-migration from England. 'Such diffusion can occasion culture conflict', they warn (p. 226), and I will examine evidence for this by considering the political reactions to in-migration by local and central government, among linguistic and cultural nationalist groups, and also the reactions of in-migrants (and others) to the issues raised by in-migration. Finally I examine whether and to what degree in-migration may have hastened the process of acculturation in Wales. The British homogeneity thesis was perhaps captured most concisely by Pulzer (1968, p. 98) when he stated that 'Class is the basis of British party politics, all else is embellishment and detail.' A great deal of evidence could be found to support this notion; the near-monopoly of parliamentary