YesCymru: Resignations and more

I’M IN SEMI-RETIREMENT AND THIS BLOG IS WINDING DOWN. I INTEND CALLING IT A DAY IN THE NEXT FEW MONTHS. POSTINGS WILL PROBABLY BE LESS FREQUENT AND I WILL NOT UNDERTAKE ANY MAJOR NEW INVESTIGATIONS. DIOLCH YN FAWR.

Here we are again! But with good news to impart. Though we mustn’t get carried away, for the enemy has retreated into the bush to reflect on his next move. Indeed, I hear that in remote valleys, far, far away, the wily Wokie is regrouping and planning a fresh offensive.

And you thought they couldn’t get any more offensive!

Have I got news for you!

OUT WITH THE OLD

Every man and his dog knows by now that YesCymru’s Central Committee – or what remained of it – resigned last Friday. Here’s the statement they put out. Gettysburg Address, it ain’t, but I’ll take it.

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Despite what this destined-for-the-archives document says, speculation abounds as to what really precipitated the decision at that time.

You may recall that in my previous post I quoted a source who’d told me: “The CC meeting to suspend Ben (Gwalchmai) was supposed to have been last Wednesday (Aug 4), then delayed until Thursday, then delayed to today (Monday), and now tomorrow.”

Could it have been that young Benji’s suspension couldn’t be put off any longer, and then, because suspending him would leave the Central Committee inquorate, they decided to go together? Perhaps holding hands and singing Abide With Me, as they jumped overboard into the icy waters of the North Atlantic?

Gwalchmai certainly had one hell of a Twitter rant on Saturday night. He lashed out in all directions. Members of the middle class seemed to particularly irk him. Whether this was an attempt to burnish his working class credentials or an attack on those he felt had betrayed him was difficult to say.

Possibly a bit of both.

Because in that rant Gwalchmai stated that he had not wanted to resign. Suggesting perhaps that he had been outvoted by the other three. (Bourgeois bastards!)

And he hadn’t calmed down by Monday, to judge by this tweet. Though this time the target was, ‘The Groups’.

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But the groups, and the members they represent, are YesCymru. How could they mount a coup against themselves? What the groups have executed is a counter-coup. They’ve been fighting to reverse a sly takeover by extremists.

Far left extremists who’d ensured that some people – Secretary Iestyn ap Rhobert and Central Committee member Dilys Davies – could not be re-elected at the May 22 AGM. While also guaranteeing that their choices would be sneaked in by keeping the number of members able to vote at the AGM down to a few hundred.

There were also people involved in the coup who were not on the Central Committee. Most notably, perhaps, Rob Lloyd of Labour for an Independent Wales.

But whether they were on the Central Committee or not it was a Woke-Left takeover involving the Leannista wing of Plaid Cymru, Undod, Momentum, and Labour for an Independent Wales. Using ‘trans rights’ as their trojan horse they sought to silence all critics by labelling them ‘TERFs’, ‘transphobes’ and, of course, ‘fascists’.

Explained here, with main players named, in YesCymru: it must be a clean sweep.

YesCymru is now in the hands of an unnamed firm of accountants. Which is no doubt costing more money. Maybe a lot of money. Who knows?

This expensive period of stasis could have been avoided if the Central Committee had agreed to an EGM as soon as possible after the Vote of No Confidence passed by local groups on July 13.

Instead of accepting that VONC, at a meeting arranged by them – a meeting at which they’d allowed the attendance of supportive non-branches (Maesteg, Bynie) – the Central Committee rejected the vote as being “anti-democratic”.

A complete absence of self-awareness is something that has been remarked on many times in this saga when people look at the Central Committee and its chorus.

Or maybe it’s psychological projection; in which someone attributes their own faults or feelings onto others.

OUT IN THE FIELD

The High Command may have fled, jodhpurs flapping, but the indefatigable infantryman and infantrywoman carry on the fight, from north to south.

In Rhuthun yesterday they were out showing their colours. (One of my favourite towns, can’t wait to visit again.)

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While back in the City of my Dreams the local branch of YesCymru met the very day the Central Committee did a lemming and discussed a statement to submit to the Gweithgor (the working group to organise the EGM).

Note, in particular, the reference I’ve highlighted about not pre-judging ‘what an independent Wales should look like’. How encouraging to read that!

For those involved in the Woke-Left coup were so prescriptive in their vision that they’d even worked on the locations and lay-out of the gulags, and stipulated that bread queues would have agreed percentages of trans, non-binary, etc., etc.

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Despite this common sense, one from the ugly lovely town was a member of the takeover gang. This was Rachel Cooze, though her elevation to the Central Committee had little to do with support from her local group.

Cooze’s success was due to her allies within and without the Central Committee. Partly a reward for her enthusiastic involvement in the campaign against Dr Dilys Davies that saw Dr Davies suspended and therefore unable to oppose the elections of Cooze and others like her. A suspension that also helped facilitate the adoption of the Left-Woke motion to set up a Diversity and Inclusivity Sub-committee.

All carefully orchestrated, and beginning with Aled Gwyn Williams’ deliberately provocative visit to Dr Davies’ properties in Ceredigion.

The three who lodged the complaints that got Dr Davies suspended were Cooze, ‘Emrys’ Price-Jones, and Elinor Walters. For a while, Walters even renamed her Twitter account, ‘Dr Dildo Davies’.

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Which Aled Gwyn Williams thought was ‘excellent’. Silly boy!

But Cooze went further, offering discounts on her OnlyFans sex site using Dr Davies’ name. That was a new low even for these people. Perhaps worse, was her co-conspirators defending her.

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Cooze gets a mention in the next section. Though we may soon be hearing of her in another context.

A PHOENIX RISES?

After I’d stopped laughing I got round to properly reading what someone sent me on Sunday evening. After reading it properly I laughed a lot more. Here it is.

Aled Gwyn Williams – for it must be him! – has arranged a meeting on Glyndŵr’s Day at Maesteg RFC to launch Cwm Llynfi for Indy, ‘a group advocating inclusive independence for Wales’ . . . but not if you’re Dilys Davies, or Iestyn ap Rhobert, or Niki Jones, or me, or anybody who won’t accept Marxism and women with penises.

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You’ve read about Rachel Cooze, so who are the other speakers?

Siwan Clark has not long returned from London, where she was a big fan of Jeremy Corbyn. It should go without saying that she is in Momentum.

Welsh independence seems to have become more attractive to the far left since Corbyn’s hammering in the December 2019 general election. Not because the comrades want Welsh independence – or even care about Wales – but because with the Labour Party under Keir Starmer being less welcoming they must find new platforms for their odious message.

Clark brought Momentum methods with her. One of which is the sock puppet Twitter account. She has run quite a few of these recently.

The other name is ‘Charlotte Williams from Hiraeth Films’. This outfit has been working for about seven years on a film about Capel Celyn, the village drowned to make way for the Tryweryn dam; though apart from a few short videos to be found on Twitter and Facebook it’s difficult to know if it really does anything.

But the point is, Charlotte Williams comes from Welshpool, and who else do we know in that area? The photo below will help. It’s taken on the Montgomeryshire Canal in the town.

Kneeling down, swigging from a bottle, is Charlotte Williams and behind her is Katie Bataille, another trans woman, one who never turns down an opportunity for a social media pile-on. But who is that bearded fellow, sitting there so nonchalantly, about to fall backwards into the murky water?

Why! it’s young Ben Gwalchmai!

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And is that a sticking plaster across his knuckles? Has Benji been brawling with the local fascists and transphobes? (Cos I’ve seen them many a time goose-stepping up and down Broad Street.)

Enough levity.

Aled Gwyn Williams has brought together this impressive threesome to launch Cwm Llynfi for Indy. So what is this new venture?

Worth asking because, as I mentioned, Williams represented YesCymru Maesteg in the July 13 meeting at which the vote of no confidence in the CC was passed. (AGW of course supported the Central Committee.)

Though whether YesCymru Maesteg was a legally-constituted group is debatable.

Whether it was or not, this proposed launch of Cwm Llynfi for Indy certainly suggests that Aled has now severed his links with YesCymru. The presence of Cooze, Williams and Clark suggests that they too have burned their bridges.

Worth watching, I suggest. And although I’ll be unable to make it myself on September 16 – unless I go in disguise – I’m sure I’ll get plenty of feedback.

(There’s also a Twitter account.)

UPDATE: An early comment tells us that YesCymru Welshpool has rebranded to Welshpool for Independence. Taken with the plan for Maesteg it looks as if this is the path chosen by the defeated takeover gang. Will there be a national structure?

And do these new groups have access to YesCymru information on members? If so, how does this square with General Data Protection Regulation? And access to YC money?

A source also tells me that Scott Mackay, one of the Woke-Left plotters who failed to be elected to the CC, has left YC Abertawe.

BEYOND THE FRINGE

In many ways the Woke-Left coup was the work of different groups and individuals that could be viewed as concentric rings.

With the Central Committee serving as the inner ring. Aled Gwyn Williams and his social media pile-on gang as the next ring, but in close contact with the inner ring. Then beyond them, an outer ring, where we find those who can be rallied to support the others and attack the fascisti.

In the hazy outer ring we find the fascinating ‘Alan Reilly’. I’ve put his name in quotes because I’m not sure if he’s a real person.

This name first cropped up towards the end of 2018, soon after the formation of Gwlad. With vicious attacks on me, personally. Also attacks on Cayo Evans and the Free Wales Army – ‘What did you bastards ever do for Wales?’ and more in that vein.

It was strange stuff from someone professing to be a sympathetic Irish Republican and, as I say, it was very personal. With an unhealthy obsession with my bodily functions. A fascination recently exhibited by others.

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‘Reilly’ was often in the company of Shane Waters aka Séan Mac Uaitéir and Andrew McDonald aka Andras ap Alun. And despite their claims of support for Wales and Welsh independence, they often slipped up.

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Then ‘Reilly’ went quiet. To reappear very recently, when the pressure on the YesCymru Central Committee reached the crescendo that led to the mass resignation.

This time he was commenting to posts on Nation.Cymru. And I’m ‘Nonce o’ the North’.

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I complained to N.C about the first comment and it was taken down, so ‘Reilly’ wrote the second comment, and then I had to complain about that. It too was taken down. In an e-mail, Mark Mansfield at Nation.Cymru told me: ‘I’ve banned him and his IP address and disabled comments for the article’.

‘Alan Reilly’ is now back on the Nation.Cymru site posting as ‘Alan Reilly 1’. Presumably from a different IP address. Unless Mark Mansfield was lying about blocking him.

But he’s not using ‘Alan Reilly 1’ to attack me. No, instead, the attack last Saturday came from someone signing ‘Rwân’. (The correct spelling is of course ‘rŵan’.) How do I know it was ‘Reilly’? Because of the references to ‘old incontinent boy, sad Sac o’ the North’.

Someone saw it, drew my attention to it and, again, I had to complain to Nation.Cymru before the comment was taken down.

To express his frustration, ‘Reilly’ then turned his attention to my blog, where he posted this comment at twenty minutes to one on Sunday morning. It’s difficult to know where to start.

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He accuses me of hiding behind an alias. Yet he knows my name, everybody does, it’s Royston Jones. As it says in the old Daily Mail report from October 1968. In fact, I was ‘lifted’ by the police more than once. (Lost jobs because of it. Fortunately, I was young, and carefree. And handsome!) I did not make a complaint about Leanne Wood’s ‘arsehole’ remark, that was someone else.

How many remember the old Quarter Sessions? Happy days! Click to open in separate tab

Without thinking too much about ‘Alan Reilly’, there appear to be four possibilities:

1/ He’s a sock puppet of one of the Woke Left fanatics who nearly wrecked YesCymru.

2/ He is what he says he is, an Irish Republican with an interest in Welsh politics.

3/ He’s someone in Wales, possibly even Welsh, hostile to Welsh nationalism. And / or me?

4/ He’s working for some agency hostile to both Irish Republicanism and Welsh nationalism.

I dismiss the first two possibilities because I don’t believe anyone qualifying for those descriptions would be so dismissive of the national movement in Wales.

The third option is plausible because Alan Reilly’ seems to know quite a lot about Wales and the history of the national movement, but is clearly hostile. But if so, why adopt the Irish persona?

Then there’s option 4. Also plausible because ‘Alan Reilly’ first appeared shortly after a new political party was formed, and reappeared when it became clear that the coup to subvert YesCymru was in danger of failing.

I am not suggesting that those behind the coup work for the British state. But the British state would have been delighted to see a growing movement for Welsh independence subverted and side-tracked.

If anyone has any thoughts on ‘Alan Reilly’, then please pass them on.

And by the way, don’t think I’m whining here; I’m an old bastard and this is water off a Jack’s back. Think of it more as a warning.

LOOKING FORWARD

The worst appears to be over, with an EGM in the offing at which all members will be able to vote. YesCymru should in future be more representative of its membership than it has been since May’s rigged AGM.

Whether YesCymru sticks with the old structure of officials and a Central Committee, or whether it becomes more professional, with full-time employees, is something else for the members to decide.

But without I hope sounding vindictive, I would warn YesCymru’s members to be very wary of those who’ve appeared on this blog recently. And think carefully about whether they are made welcome in future.

Because, politics aside, there have been some very weird people involved in recent events. Some of them seriously unhinged. Others, violent. A few, genuinely evil.

Speaking personally, I would not extend a welcome to any of them.

And though he’s a long way from being the worst among them, for God’s sake don’t allow Rantin’, Rovin’ Benji anywhere near the levers of power in YesCymru.

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I’m now hoping to take a break from the Woke-Left interlopers who tried to wreck YesCymru and re-acquaint myself with more likeable people. I’m referring now to the grant grabbers, con men, money launderers, mortgage fraudsters, etc., who’ve starred on this blog for so long.

They must be feeling neglected!

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Misogyny, bullying? Depends who’s doing it

PLEASE APPRECIATE THAT I GET SENT MORE INFORMATION AND LEADS THAN I CAN USE. I TRY TO RESPOND TO EVERYONE WHO CONTACTS ME BUT I CANNOT POSSIBLY USE EVERY BIT OF INFORMATION I’M SENT. DIOLCH YN FAWR

A WEEKEND TO REMEMBER, FOR ALL THE WRONG REASONS

For those who don’t know Dr Dilys Davies, she’s a consultant clinical psychologist. This pdf document lists her academic attainments together with some publications. They tell us that on the purely academic level Dr Davies’ record is impressive, but Dilys is a lifelong patriot and supporter of independence.

And she puts her money where her heart is, investing in businesses so that they remain under local control, while also contributing to many good causes.

An example would be Dilys buying Canolfan Tresaith so that kids – many from deprived Valleys’ communities – could continue to enjoy holidays in Ceredigion. This has grown and is now used by other organisations, such as Say Something in Welsh. The Canolfan breaks even.

Most recently, in August, Dr Davies bought the land around the Cofiwch Dryweryn memorial so that it might be safeguarded for the nation.

Dr Davies is also a founder-member of Yes Cymru and a member of the committee.

The famous Cofiwch Dryweryn walls at Llanrhystud. Click to enlarge. Copyright Royston Jones.

So why did Dilys Davies close her Twitter account on Monday following abuse directed at her over the weekend by persons, most of whom project themselves as being totally opposed to misogyny, bullying and a raft of other crimes normally committed by bastards like me?

The answer to that question is that Dilys fell foul of a group of transextremists that I have mentioned on this blog before. She holds the view – like the vast majority of people – that a person in possession of male genitalia is a man. The extremists disagree, violently and vitriolically, arguing that if 20 stone prop Dai Psycho wants to call himself Delyth and shower with the ladies then he must be allowed to do so.

For those I’m talking about, the ladies’ changing room is just as much Dai’s ‘safe space’ as it of genuine women.

It boils down to ‘self-identification’. A form of deception with which every con man, fraudster and politician reading this post will be familiar. It means you ‘are’ whatever you want to be. Which is fine up to a point: if some bloke wants to dress like a woman, then that don’t bother me none; but if he thinks he can play House with my grand-daughters then he’s very much mistaken.

For refusing to accept that Dai in a dress is a woman Dr Davies was branded a transphobe. For these transextremists are zealots, their minds closed to other views. You either agree with them 100% or you’re completely wrong.

It’s also noticeable that they hunt as a pack on social media – once one scents prey the others give voice. As one source put it to me, the way Dilys Davies was treated reminded him of a wounded lioness being attacked by hyenas. Though, personally, I think that’s being unfair on hyenas.

Many of those I’m referring to are of ‘non-binary’ sexual identification themselves, which goes some way to explaining their excitability on this issue. But what gives them strength is that the Dai Psycho lunacy has become an article of faith for some on the left.

Some of the abuse hurled at Dr Davies last weekend was horrendous, and much it was subsequently deleted, but people screen capture shots for me and here we have one of the milder contributions, involving our old friend Aled Gwyn Williams. Russell Elliot is or was in the Labour Party, but seems very comfortable in Plaid Cymru circles. And why not!

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What a stupid yet revealing thing for Elliott to say. Young Aled – knowing his Twitter account is now closely monitored – doesn’t fall into the trap of agreeing, instead he shows his teeth by bemoaning the fact that Dr Dilys Davies had the money to buy the Tryweryn wall! It’s almost refreshing to read good old-fashioned socialist envy.

And then came the letter . . .

On Monday or Tuesday someone wrote a letter to Siôn Jobbins, chair of YesCymru, asking that Dr Dilys Davies’ position on the YC committee be ‘reviewed’. In other words, that she be removed. The letter was then circulated for signatures. Some of those approached were so angry that they contacted me, which explains why I’m able to produce that letter. (Available here in pdf format.)

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The letter is a simpering litany of lies from extremists donning the cloak of victimhood. ‘Please, Sir, this nasty woman came on Twitter and refused to agree with us, so we demand that she be vilified, and expelled; her memory expunged from the record of the nation’.

IDENTITY POLITICS

It’s amazing the connections that can be made once you join up the dots. So let’s do it.

I just mentioned Russell Elliott, and he’s a big fan of Llinos Price, because both are in the ‘Hang Neil McEvoy!’ camp. Llinos gets so worked up over McEvoy that she becomes quite irrational at times. It should go without saying that she has links with Deryn Consulting, the poison factory in Corruption Bay so deeply involved in the tragic death of Carl Sargeant.

This Twitter account has been closed down following complaints, which rather confirms John R Vaughan’s view of certain people.

Someone else who closed his Twitter account last weekend after being taken down by the same, slavering pack was Mal Humphreys, better known as ‘Mumph’ the cartoonist. Like Dilys Davies Mal has done a great deal over the years for Wales, fanning the embers of national consciousness with his unique contribution. But that counts for nothing if you don’t agree with the left, the woke and the transextremists.

Dilys Davies tells me that her problems last weekend started with a tweet in which she criticised former Plaid Cymru leader Leanne Wood. This is the tweet referred to in the second paragraph of the letter. What it says is that Leanne Wood has shown little interest in Welsh matters during her time as an AM, or even when party leader. Few in Plaid Cymru, or the wider national movement, would argue with that assessment. It was one of the reasons Leanne Wood was humiliated in last year’s Plaid leadership contest.

Then the onslaught began that resulted in Dilys Davies closing her Twitter account.

Those involved in the online attack were the usual suspects, among them of course Aled Gwyn Williams. Aled’s a big fan of mine. Here’s a wee collage.

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At the centre we see the Twitter account showing Teifi and his faithful human, then a very recent tweet from Aled’s alter ego, Doreen Ogmore-Pritchard. Does this make Aled a woman?

Working clockwise from top left, we have a tweet put out by him on July 13. Note that to avoid using the dread word ‘nationalists’ Aled comes up with the absurd term ‘self-determinationists’. This tweet was my introduction to the boy, I’d never heard of him before this and I’m still not sure what prompted his outburst. But clearly, if Aled is to be believed, I am one bad bugger; and elsewhere he labelled me a misogynist.

Two weeks later on July 26 Aled is telling some poor woman, ‘Oh fuck off you hateful cow’. But not to worry, for at the Caernarfon independence rally the very next day, Helen Mary Jones, the Plaid Cymru AM for Mid and West Wales – and supposedly a confirmed feminist – gave him her seal of approval!

I include the bottom two images because if I had suggested arson and used a pack of matches to make my point, or joked about monitoring English people, then I would have been attacked by all the colours of the political rainbow.

I suppose what I’m saying here is that when dealing with the woke, and the left, and the transextremists, you quickly learn that they’re hypocrites. For misogyny, bullying, insults of every kind, are just fine – as long as they are dishing it out. They preach ‘diversity’ and ‘inclusivity’ – then demand that individuals be expelled, groups banned, certain views censored.

This hypocrisy was brought home to me earlier this year when Leanne Wood called me ‘an arsehole’, and the party chair, Marc Phillips (Mr Helen Mary Jones), called me ‘a Neanderthal prick’. Covered here in Leanne Wood, my response.

But of course Aled is not alone. For as I’ve said, they hunt as a pack, visible for miles thanks to the glow of self-righteousness they emit.

Though it seems to have dimmed in recent days. Tweets have been deleted, accounts muted or closed down, people blocked. There is clearly a fear among certain pack members that the attack on Dilys Davies went too far.

Though the attack might not have come completely out of the blue. For there was already in existence a Twitter account using the name ‘Dr Dilys’.

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You’ll see that the account was opened in May 2018, obviously by someone who already had a beef with Dr Davies. If I had to guess, I’d say it was connected with her views on transgender issues and self-identification.

The spelling ‘Cymri’ is odd, especially as the account often tweets in Welsh. (More than one person involved?) The account is now closed, and I’m sure this is also a result of the backlash building against those who bullied Dr Davies.

Here’s a July tweet from the ‘Dr Dilys’ account addressed to Neil McEvoy. Does the language and tone have a familiar ring?

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It’s certainly very nasty. Also very, very personal.

ALL ROADS LEAD TO CORRUPTION BAY

What happened to Dilys Davies bears a striking similarity to attempts by roughly the same group – this time fighting ‘fascism’ – to exclude Ein Gwlad (now Gwlad Gwlad) from All Under One Banner Cymru marches.

From my enquiries, and from information supplied by others, I can say without hesitation, that these bullies are encouraged, if not directed, by certain Plaid Cymru AMs. I’m thinking in particular of two female AMs. Given these AMs’ links to Deryn Consulting it is no great stretch of the imagination to see Deryn’s hand in this, especially when so much links up. Not least the Neil McEvoy connection.

Not only that, but the Dilys Davies saga may have started before last weekend, with an attack on her by Chad Rickard, a SpAd working for Bethan Sayed AM, who is of course a former partner of Neil McEvoy.

A strange question in many ways; not least because when Neil McEvoy stands up for poor women, Rickard’s boss, Bethan Sayed, leads the charge to condemn him.

Note that this tweet was put out just after Dilys Davies bought the ‘Cofiwch Dryweryn’ site. With its mention of “poor women” it seems to be another example of socialist envy, this time of a successful Welsh professional woman who has money!

For socialists are dead set against people making money . . . unless it’s back-stabbing AMs pulling down £80,000 a year plus expenses.

The letter asking for Dilys Davies’ expulsion from Yes Cymru was addressed to Siôn Jobbins, the chairman. Even though I’ve never met Jobbins I’ve formed a positive opinion of a fairly level-headed guy, who has publicly expressed his misgivings with Plaid Cymru’s leftward drift.

Then someone sent me this screen capture of a Twitter exchange from Thursday. It obviously begins with Siôn Jobbins and ends with Aled, or Teifi, but who is Hiraeth Film?

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Hiraeth Film is Charlotte Williams, who is “in a relationship” with Katie Bataille, a native of Jersey now apparently living in Welshpool. Bataille is a pack member who snarls at me from time to time and joined the attack on Dilys Davies and ‘Mumph’ last weekend.

If Siôn Jobbins is in some kind of business relationship with Hiraeth Film (or merely opening doors), and with this obviously approved of by Maesteg’s one-man bulwark against the advance of darkness, then the letter attacking Dr Dilys Davies might have been penned with some expectation of it being favourably received.

I’d like Siôn Jobbins therefore to clarify his relationship with Hiraeth Film, and with Aled Gwyn Williams.

And does the linkage suggest that Aled has ambitions to become a movie mogul? I can see it now: there I sit, popcorn in hand, while up on the silver screen, rolls – 21st Century Collie Productions . . . 

To be fair, SJ did ask for people to calm down. Saying “everyone’s welcome in @yescymru . . . the problem being this was said just a matter of hours before the transextremists asked for Dr Dilys Davies to be thrown out!

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Ifan Morgan Jones of Nation.Cymru chipped in and seemed to suggest that easy-going liberals like me should stop “over-reacting to fringe POV’s”. And I see his point.

But the problem for both Siôn Jobbins and Ifan Morgan Jones is that they can’t be too critical of these ‘fringe points of view’ without criticising Plaid Cymru. For that’s the root of the problem.

At its Swansea conference on the weekend Plaid Cymru may confront the choice of dissipating its meagre resources fighting a succession of meaningless, Guardian issue, skirmishes or forcing the conclusive confrontation with the British state.

But I doubt it.

The conference will, perhaps fittingly, be held in the Grand Theatre, a venue that has seen so much farce and pantomime over the years.

TIME TO MAN UP

The real issue, for both Yes Cymru and All Under One Banner Cymru, is whether they are organisations – as stated by Siôn Jobbins – open to all those supporting Welsh independence.

In fact, this question is fundamental to their very existence, because if they’re nothing more than vehicles wherein a defeated faction can regroup and reassert itself – a bit like Confederate diehards heading for Mexico after Appomattox – then Yes Cymru and AUOB Cymru undermine their own raison d’être.

For that’s how it looks. We seem to be in a situation in which membership of Yes Cymru, and permission to take part in AUOB Cymru marches, is decided by those who think that Dai Psycho wearing lipstick is a woman.

And it won’t be limited to transgender issues. Once the precedent is set the questions then will be whether one agrees that Donald Trump should be impeached. ‘You don’t? – You’re out!’ Or one’s views on climate change, Brexit, French foreign policy, Bluegrass music, anything. For once the pack smells blood . . .

Either Yes Cymru and AUOB Cymru are genuinely open to all believing in independence for Wales or else the screechers and those who manipulate them are in control.

I say ‘independence movement’ but of course what I’m describing is very new, and arose – ironically enough – in response to Plaid Cymru under Leanne Wood losing interest in Wales and independence to focus on issues far more important.

Leanne Wood off on one, again. Click to enlarge

I’m not a member of Yes Cymru and I’ve never been on an independence march. Partly because I have nothing to prove and partly because it was made clear to me by the same extremists who attacked Dilys Davies last weekend that I would not be welcome, and might even be attacked.

Others, as yet uninvolved, might look on the treatment meted out to Dilys Davies, by attackers who were not even rebuked, and decide that Yes Cymru is not something they want to be associated with.

THE AFTERMATH

I have been in e-mail contact with Dr Dilys Davies in recent days and she has given me clearance to use anything from those communications. Much of it is too harrowing to be put out on a blog, but here goes . . .

This is from the most recent e-mail I received:

“Royston – this is beyond dreadful now. I really don’t think I can come back to Wales even if I wanted to. Feeling very, very low. it’s been a privilege to have been able to contribute to my country and language in whatever way I could. Never wanted thanks. But I never expected to be attacked and bullied and left so low that I can do nothing further.

On another matter – These people think poverty is a virtue to be aspired to. How on earth are they going to build a successful Independent country.

Anyway I’m done. The wall is now for sale.

Your support has meant much more than you will ever know Royston

Dilys “.

I hope you little bastards are satisfied. All of you; you fucking hypocrites, forever whining about bullying and misogyny; always preaching about being inclusive and welcoming.

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You left-woke extremists are a bigger threat to Welsh independence than anything else, internal or external. Firstly, because you don’t really care about independence, only in using the current upsurge in support as a bandwagon on which you can jump, your bedroll full of ishoos more likely to alienate than to attract.

And if it’s not the ishoos that turn people away then it’s you, yourselves, with your shrill intolerance and your certitude. The, ‘I know the truth and you must listen to me’ attitude shared by all fanatics.

We’re unlikely to hear apologies from the extremists (they’re never wrong), but it would be nice to hear Yes Cymru publicly defend Dr Davies. How about it, Siôn?

Independence will be difficult enough to achieve if we are united, and impossible if we are divided. The only way to unite everyone in the pursuit of independence is to put to one side all other issues.

Anyone refusing to stand shoulder to shoulder with people they disagree with is not really interested in independence, only with using the independence movement to promote the issues that are important to them.

♦ end ♦

FOOTNOTE/CLARIFICATION: For me, ‘transphobia’ is hostility to a person who has transitioned, via surgical procedures and other means, from male to female, or female to male. Refusing to accept as a woman a man who has not transitioned cannot be transphobia. The clue lies in the element ‘trans’. Maybe we need a new word.