ONE of the biggest scandals during this pandemic has been the scale of misinformation that has spread across the UK over lockdown restrictions in different parts of the country. Amplified by unclear media reports and statements issued by Downing Street, this widespread confusion has endangered lives for weeks. But as Boris Johnson announced England’s path out of lockdown last week, things started to become remarkably clear.

The Prime Minister’s rush to lift restrictions – which has been criticised by his own government advisors – was a stark contrast to the cautious response of governments in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Not for the first time during the crisis, each devolved government made a point of highlighting that their rules were different to those in England. Above all, it is clear that the so-called four-nation approach to dealing with the pandemic is in tatters.

How our devolved governments have dealt with the crisis also reflects a broader realisation that the UK’s balance of power is shifting. Coronavirus has shown that many decisions made in Belfast, Edinburgh and Cardiff are actually more important than the decisions made by Downing Street. Of course, this might seem obvious – especially when over recent years the British public are more familiar with Nicola Sturgeon and Arlene Foster that most Cabinet members. But if you asked even the Welsh electorate who their first minister was at the start of the year, I am sure they would have struggled to answer.

More than any nation of the UK, this pandemic has been transformative for Wales. Even throughout a decade that has completely changed Britain’s place in Europe and the future of the UK, Wales has been a sideshow throughout. As the SNP dominated both Holyrood and Scottish seats in the House of Commons, Plaid Cymru lingered behind Welsh Labour in both houses of parliament. To put it bluntly, Wales was an afterthought.

So it’s even more surprising that the man who has put Wales on the map is a Labour politician: an unassuming former public policy professor who has always insisted he never wanted to be first minister. A leader who, in an interview with Nick Robinson last month, described nationalism as inherently right-wing and incompatible with socialism. But in spite of Mark Drakeford’s insistence that the UK is a model that works well for Wales, he has done more than most to highlight its irrelevance during the pandemic.

For throughout the crisis, Drakeford and his Welsh Government have been even more bullish than Nicola Sturgeon in their dealings with Downing Street. And for good reason too; if Boris Johnson spoke for the whole of the UK, his latest decision would have certainly brought people flooding into Welsh coastal towns which have so far avoided the worst of the crisis. This, of course, would also bring with it the prospect of a second wave of coronavirus, a likelihood that continues to grow in towns and cities across the Prince of Wales bridge.

While Scotland has in more recent times been taken seriously by Westminster – Boris Johnson has even refused the possibility of another second referendum, of course – it has taken a global pandemic to start to secure Wales’ political position within the UK. After all, it has only been a few weeks that our Senedd was officially recognised as a parliament, while the Welsh approach to handling the pandemic has also been praised for being cautious and measured, even compared to Scotland and Northern Ireland. Who would have thought that we could look after our own affairs?

And it’s not just the attitude of our government that has the potential to make Wales a genuine headache for Westminster. The actions of Dominic Cummings, for example, were the latest saga to impact the trust the Welsh have in London. Only last week, a poll found that Boris Johnson’s leadership approval on handling the pandemic had collapsed by almost 40% in Wales in a week – the most of any nation or region in the UK.

Moreover, the economic catastrophe that is starting to engulf this country – which will hit Wales’ manufacturing jobs and industrial communities hardest – will spark further debate as to whether the deal that Welsh people have is one that works for them. For most, independence will not be the first answer, and it is clear that its movement in Wales is far away from the sophistication showed in Scotland. But this crisis has shown that things are not as certain as they have always been, and in times of crisis people do not always turn to the status quo.

For Scotland, too, for once it’s not what happens in Westminster that will influence the independence debate going forward. Events in Wales are now more interesting and important than they have ever been before, and if Scotland’s independence movement is to grow stronger in momentum post-coronavirus, it’ll need to count on a shift in the political scene in Cardiff. And if this crisis has taught us anything, it’s that the Welsh are now prepared to use their voice like never before.

Theo Davies-Lewis is an associate at Finsbury and is from Llanelli, West Wales