Tagged with Plaid Cymru

Why Welsh Labour and Plaid Cymru should work together to defeat UKIP

Welsh UKIPTo the extent that the British media’s political coverage ever veers far from Westminster, all eyes are currently on Scotland. In the wake of the Neverendum on Scottish independence and its leadership election, the potential  meltdown of Scottish Labour in the general election is massive not only in Scotland: it is the biggest factor in the outcome of the 2015 general election.

UKIP may yet change the face of UK politics, but in the two-party contest for government next year, UKIP still looks like helping not hindering Labour in England — though it may not feel like that in up to a couple of dozen constituencies where they could prevent a local Labour victory. But Wales is different. Yesterday, UK Elect predicted that UKIP could become the second biggest party in Wales at the Welsh Assembly elections in 2016. edging ahead of both Plaid and the Tories. Continue reading →

Navigating to Welsh unity against austerity

The call was for ‘Plan B’ but unity was the dominant theme at Compass Wales’ panel debate in Cardiff this week. A fine array of speakers, led by Guardian columnist, John Harris, came together to debate Compass’s ‘Plan B’, their alternative to austerity.

Plaid Cymru leader Leanne Wood, the Green Party’s Anthony Slaughter and John McInally, vice president of the PCS union all spoke convincingly but it was Mark Drakeford who made the first challenge to the Compass project by claiming there is no alternative. Continue reading →

Labour and the 2015 progressive majority

Though we have about 1000 days until the next election, Plaid Cymru have offered the Labour party a deal by way of a strategy should we find ourselves with a hung parliament in 2015.

Jonathan Edwards, MP for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr and a key advisor to Plaid Cymru’s leader Leanne Wood, said: “We would be interested in offering a supply and confidence (not voting down budgets or supporting no confidence motions) arrangement for a non-Tory government.” Continue reading →

Leanne Wood’s win is a victory for the Left

Leanne Wood, the left candidate, founder member of the cross-party Celyn editorial team and occasional Labour Briefing contributor, has won Plaid Cymru’s leadership election. The South Wales Central Assembly Member secured 55% of the vote over her main rival, Elin Jones, on the second ballot, after former leader, Lord Dafydd Elis Thomas had been eliminated.

Her victory is remarkable for a number of reasons. First of all, she came from behind: virtually no-one was predicting that she would win when the contest began in January. Continue reading →

Leanne Wood elected leader of Plaid Cymru – a new challenge for Labour

Leanne Wood has been elected leader of Plaid Cymru with 3,326 votes compared to runner-up Elin Jones’s 2,494. Leanne is a socialist and a republican as well as a nationalist, and will unquestionably lead Plaid to the Left. In doing so she will pose a new challenge to Carwen Jones, Welsh First Minister, and Welsh Labour. Having successfully pursued a policy of putting ‘clear red water’ between Welsh Labour on the one hand and both the Tories and New Labour on the other, could Plaid’s shift to the Left cause the same problem the SNP had caused for Scottish Labour? Continue reading →