British National Day - Opposition

Opposition

On a report about a potential British Day, Peter Goldsmith, Baron Goldsmith said:

"There were undoubtedly issues raised about how a national day would be received in Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland. But the important point to stress in this regard is that there ought to be nothing in the framework of the national day to prevent particular areas from creating events that celebrate other shared identities alongside our bond of shared citizenship. People have multiple identities and it would be false for events organised for a national day not to be responsive to that."

In Wales, the proposed British Day has been criticised by Plaid Cymru and others. There have been repeated calls for St David's Day, the feast day of the patron saint of Wales, to be made a bank holiday. One poll found this idea to have the support of 87% of the Welsh public, and in the National Assembly for Wales all 60 members, representing Labour, Plaid Cymru, the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives, voted unanimously for it to be declared so. The UK government rejected the proposal on the grounds that it was not practical to introduce an additional public holiday. On 3 June 2008, the Deputy Leader of Plaid Cymru in the National Assembly for Wales, Alun Ffred Jones AM, said about the proposed British Day:

"This goes to prove how out of touch Labour is in Westminster. It's just another stunt to try and push Gordon Brown's agenda to make us all feel British instead of Welsh, Scottish, English or Northern Irish. While we don’t even have a bank holiday on our recognised national day in Wales, this London Labour government wants us to celebrate a special day that's being created to support their political goals. It would be far more constructive for the Westminster government to support Plaid Cymru's call for a national holiday on St David's day – a national celebration that is already widely observed across the country."

This contrasts with other parts of the United Kingdom. St Patrick's Day has been a bank holiday in Northern Ireland since the enactment of the Bank Holiday (Ireland) Act 1903, and in 2007 the Scottish Parliament - which has greater devolved powers than the Welsh Assembly - passed the St Andrew's Day Bank Holiday (Scotland) Act 2007 which made St Andrew's Day a bank holiday in Scotland. Bank holidays in the United Kingdom do not entitle workers to a statutory holiday or extra pay on these days.