Correcting Confusion on Ynys Môn

In Golwg360 yesterday was an article which shows Plaid Cymru at its worst. Local members of the party are criticizing party president Jill Evans for speaking at a conference being held today in Caernarfon called Wales Green and Nuclear Free organised by PAWB, CADNO, CND Cymru, Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg, Friends of the Earth Cymru, Urgewald and Greenpeace.

Bob Parry, leader of the Plaid Cymru group on Ynys Môn, is quoted as saying that her participation will "discourage" those in the party who voted in favour of a nuclear energy, and that her presence would be "misleading" because Plaid Cymru had backed a second nuclear power station on the island. But it is in fact Bob Parry who is doing his best to mislead.

In the article, he claims that:

"In Plaid's Conference in Llandudno this year, a vote was passed to press forward to keep the nuclear industry on Ynys Môn. The fact that our president is speaking against Ynys Môn is going to discourage people in the party."

And said that the president should

" ... stand alongside Ynys Môn, especially because councillors had won the vote in conference this year."

They didn't win any such vote. As I noted in this post, the Plaid Cymru conference reaffirmed:

Plaid Cymru’s total opposition to the construction of any new nuclear power stations.

This includes a new nuclear power station at Wylfa. So Jill Evans has a perfect right to speak against nuclear energy on Ynys Môn or anywhere else in Wales. She is representing the party's official position on the issue as endorsed at our conference.

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It makes Plaid look like disorganized amateurs when certain mavericks in the party not only refuse to accept the decisions of the party taken at conference, but then set out to deliberately misrepresent them. The sad fact is that Bob Parry is not alone, for other senior figures in the party have also tried to misrepresent our position. Elfyn Llwyd did it very publicly on Question Time in June, as I noted here.

The damage that this causes us as a party is immense. Although I can't say I have a great deal of time for Arthur Scargill, he was in north Wales only last week condemning Plaid Cymru for hypocrisy. He said:

Plaid Cymru's policy is complete hypocrisy. You can't have a position of being opposed to nuclear power, as they have claimed to have over the years, and then come up with an excuse to continue to develop nuclear power as they have done – so they say – in order to provide jobs.

It's nonsense, as they know full well, and it would be very much better for them if they at least admitted that they had told lies to the people of Wales.

And he would be right ... if it were true. But it is not Plaid Cymru who are the hypocrites and liars, it is people like Bob Parry and Elfyn Llwyd. How is someone like Arthur Scargill expected to know what Plaid's policy actually is when a hard core of senior party members systematically misrepresents the party's position? We can't expect him to have read through the details of the motions at our conference. He, like most other people, will simply accept the misinformation that our own leaders put out, which platforms like the BBC and Golwg seem all too happy to report as if it were true.

So stand up and say it clearly and unambiguously, Jill. Plaid Cymru is against nuclear power in Wales.

Elfyn Llwyd owes us an apology

I've just heard Elfyn Llwyd completely misrepresent Plaid Cymru's policy on nuclear power on Question Time.

     

He tried to make a distinction between "new" nuclear power stations and the building of new reactors at existing nuclear power stations, claiming that Plaid was not necessarily against an expansion of the Wylfa site and, amazingly, that we had voted for this policy in Conference.

This is totally disingenuous on his part, because neither the motion nor the amendment actually said this. The motion, as we can read here, said:

Conference reaffirms:

Plaid’s total opposition to the construction of any new nuclear power stations in Wales.

And the amendment added was:

However, Conference recognises that the decision as to whether a new nuclear power station is built at Wylfa is a matter for the UK government. If the station is given the go-ahead, Conference believes that the main economic benefit should accrue to the local community in terms of construction jobs, supply chain opportunities and the skills necessary for the operation of the station once completed.

The wording is critical to understanding the amendment. It talks about whether "a new nuclear power station is built at Wylfa", thus making it perfectly clear that the proposal to build new reactors at Wylfa constitutes a new nuclear power station. Plaid Cymru is totally opposed to any new nuclear power station in Wales including one at Wylfa. Elfyn's distinction was spurious and misleading.

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One golden rule of public life is that if you don't understand what you're talking about, it's better not to say anything. The last thing we need as a party is for our MPs to start making up policy as they go along. But on the other hand this is so blatant a fabrication, and such a wanton distortion of the truth, that I suspect he deliberately chose to misrepresent what happened at Conference. It is no secret that some in the party leadership do not like policy being decided by the membership; but if he thinks he can force the party to accept the change in policy he wants because the membership won't speak out so as to maintain a semblance of unity, he's miscalculated badly. This subject is too important to fudge.

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I can only apologize to those who have been misled by what one of our leaders has said. It is hugely embarrassing. But it's not enough for me or others like me to do it. An abject and humble apology is required from Elfyn himself ... both to the party he has misrepresented and, more importantly, to the public at large. Question Time attracts a huge audience, so he needs to make every effort to repair the damage that has been caused by his words in an equally public way.

Interview with Elfyn Llwyd

Elfyn Llwyd was interviewed by Andrew Neil on Straight Talk last week. As it is no longer available on iPlayer I've taken the liberty of posting it here:

     

There's one small thing that he got wrong. Crossrail in London is a £16bn project which is being paid for partly by money from Central Government, partly by London businesses and partly by borrowing against anticipated fare income. Although it wasn't obvious at the time of the first announcement (in fact when I talked about Crossrail on the WalesOnline forum I said the same as Elfyn has just said) after a little arm-twisting it was agreed that the portion of the cost funded by Central Government, some £5.5bn, will attract a Barnett incremental for Scotland, as mentioned here:

     Scotland given £500m sop for Crossrail - Evening Standard, 29 October 2007

And confirmed more officially here:

     Select Committee on the Barnett Formula - §44

That means that we in Wales will receive our proportionate share too, about £320m.

Of course, as the Select Committee report confirms, many other projects such as the Olympics are classed as UK-wide money and so won't attract any Barnett consequential. The decision is made by the Treasury and is actually quite arbitrary, rather than based on any consistent rules. So Elfyn's general point is quite valid ...

... and everything else was top notch.