Green Party of Englandandwales, Wales Region AGM 2015

On 12/11/201516/12/2015 By JacIn Assembly, Colonialism, Colonisation of Wales, Greens, Plaid Cymru, Third Sector, Welsh Assembly45 Comments

The mythical Wales Green Party is holding its Annual General Meeting on Saturday at the Angel Hotel in Cardiff between 10:30 and 17:00. I have been given sight of some important documents that shed light on both the Greens’ approach to next year’s elections to the Notional Assembly and the personalities likely to be playing prominent roles in that campaign.

I describe this party as ‘mythical’ because there is no Wales Green Party, all we have is a regional branch of the Green Party of Englandandwales. But rather than confuse you as to why I’m writing about something that doesn’t exist, let us go along with the pretence and, for the purposes of this post, pretend that there is a Wales Green Party. (Though of course there isn’t.)

Let us start with the recent meeting of the party’s Council on October 10th. Among other things it was agreed that although she is ineligible – not even being a member of the Wales Green Party – UK deputy leader Amelia Womack will be standing for the Assembly next year in the Cardiff Central constituency while also topping the list in the South Wales Central region.

So much for rule books and the party constitution. Though I’m hearing that Ms Womack’s selection has not been universally accepted, and has the potential to cause serious disruption within the party.

Though it could be argued that there is a certain logic at work here. For how can this Womack woman be a member of a party that doesn’t exist? She is deputy leader of the only Green Party in Englandandwales, and is therefore perfectly entitled to stand.

Though the likeliest winner could be whoever tops the list for the Mid and West Wales region, and the one who’s bagged this spot is Alice Hooker-Stroud. It seems Hooker-Stroud has connections with the Centre for Alternative Technology in Corris (surprise! surprise!), and busies herself with other hippy activities in the area, such as the Machynlleth Housing Coop and the Machynlleth Food Coop.

But you have to give Hooker-Stroud credit, when it comes to self-publicity this girl is bloody good, as you’d expect from someone in her line of work, Public Relations and Communications. Her Linkedin profile is one of the fullest, most comprehensive, I’ve ever read.

Then there’s the videos . . . believe me, this girl is no shrinking violet, just Google Alice Hooker-Stroud to see what I mean. It should come as no surprise to learn that she is also standing for the leadership of the Wales Green Party, against the dynamic duo of Ashley Wakeling and Anthony Slaughter. ‘Leadership election!’ you cry, ‘what about Pippa Bartolotti?’

Ah, yes . . . I can’t keep the bad news from you any longer, boys and girls – Pippa Bartolotti is standing down! I must admit, I shed a little tear when I heard that news.

Here is Pippa’s valedictory report. It tells us just a little of what she’s been up to this year, from opening the Rhwiderin (sic) “Save our Woodlands” fund-raiser to hosting the South Wales Greens summer party. (My invitation must have got lost in the post.)

But don’t do anything drastic, for the lovely Pippa will be standing for the Assembly next year in Newport West, and also topping the regional list for South Wales East. So dry those eyes and put away the tissues!

UPDATE 16.12.2015: The winner is (drum roll!) . . . Alice Hooker Stroud! You will note that in the report I’ve linked to there is no mention of Ashley Wakeling; that’s because he pulled out of the contest at the end of November and resigned from the party. Reading his resignation blog post makes it clear that he was coming under attack from Neath . . . which is where Martyn Shrewsbury is now based . . . and seeing as Shrewsbury is La Bartolotti’s faithful retainer, dare we consider that getting rid of Wakeling was her way of ensuring the successor she prefers? Note that Wakeling was accused of being rather too fond of himself . . . so to prove his accusers wrong he will now stand in the Assembly elections as an independent.

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In case you can’t make it to the AGM on Saturday, here is a copy of the agenda, to help you follow the international media coverage I’m sure the event will generate. Having flicked through it myself, I urge you to read it, because it’s more than just an agenda, it runs to 29 pages and is also an annual report, a balance sheet, a list of officials and candidates, election results and reports, and much, much more. It is a very revealing document.

For example, it reminds us what a thoroughly English and middle class party the Green Party is with this analysis of its general election candidates in Wales.

Elsewhere the membership secretary boasts that membership has doubled in 2015, to a high point of 2,850 on September 6, but then has to concede that things have gone into reverse since Corbyn became Labour leader.

Though I found it encouraging to read that the Green Party supports the “greater economic independence of poor countries” . . . but not of course, Wales.

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Another document of which I have had sight is the Greens’ Strategy document 2015 – 2017. I can also recommend this 28-page document, it’s another fascinating read. I suppose no one should be surprised by this, but for next year’s Assembly elections the Greens will be bringing in lots of helpers from England . . . how will we manage to tell them apart from our ‘Welsh’ Greens?

Anyway, the Greens’ primary objectives for the Assembly elections next year are set out in the panel below.

Elsewhere in the document we are told that ‘our core demographic remains the left-of-centre “lower class professionals”, likely to work in the third sector or the creative industries’. Plus of course, layabout hippies and other wastrels infesting the Welsh countryside.

Annex 2:5 is good for a laugh. For once the Greens get something right; yes, Plaid Cymru is on a downward trend, and at present it’s still slow. But anyone who believes that Plaid Cymru is a party that wants independence hasn’t been paying attention, or doesn’t know much about Wales, both of which could apply to the Green Party.

Plaid Cymru also gets a mention in a discussion of election strategies and relationships with other parties.

Them bloody badgers!

The final part of the document is taken up with wild hypothesising and guesswork on election outcomes. Here’s an example: ‘Some of the implications are downright weird – for example, in MWW (Mid and West Wales), if the Corbyn bubble continues to expand, we should target Plaid Cymru, but if it bursts, we should target the Lib Dems’.

Believe me, there are some really strange and highly improbable – though very entertaining – calculations in there (some even involve the Socialist Labour Party!), but I shall avoid any snide reference to smoking.

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I have written about the Greens more than once, most recently about a year ago, with Plaid Cymru and the Green Party of Englandandwales (November 10) and More on the Green Party of Englandandwales (November 17). Reading these posts will tell you how I feel about them. The documents I’ve read this week only confirm me in my contempt.

Because those documents reminded us yet again what a thoroughly English party the Greens in Wales are. Dozens, perhaps hundreds of names are given in them, and yet I doubt if more than a handful are Welsh. Alice Hooker-Stroud clams to have attended Llanfyllin High School; maybe she did, but I guarantee she comes from a white settler family.

There is something so ineffably colonialist about the Greens in Wales that I cannot think of any comparison. Not simply because they’re English, but also because of their dictatorial ‘We know best’ attitudes. I cannot think of any party, operating in any Western country, that is so divorced from the indigenous population of that country. So where should we look for an analogy – the Chinese Communist Party in Tibet?

Any Welsh person with concerns for the environment should think long and hard before voting for a party whose members regard him as a quaint and primitive native. And if Plaid Cymru suggests another deal with the Green Party of Englandandwales then that should be taken as final confirmation that Plaid has given up all hope of victory.

UPDATE 12:50: I’ve just been told that Dan Boyle has been appointed to manage the Greens’ Assembly campaign next year. Who is Dan Boyle? Well, he’s an Irish politician, from Cork. In his favour – and unlike the shower we’ve got in Wales – this guy has actually been elected. But he doesn’t know Wales any better than those who’ve appointed him. I hope he knows what he’s let himself in for.

UPDATE 20.11.2015: Predictably, I suppose, this post didn’t go down well in Green circles. To get revenge La Bartolotti revived her attack hamster, Martyn Shrewsbury. Here’s his comeback post. Shrewsbury has served this purpose before as this makes clear. Here’s another account. As these sources also remind us, Shrewsbury very nearly ended up in the slammer. Here’s one report of the case.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, there are some very ugly people in the Wales Branch of the Green Party of Englandandwales. When they aren’t fighting each other like ferrets in a sack they’re up to dirty tricks against anyone exposing them for the charlatans they are. Sometimes it’s both.

‘Vote Plaid Cymru – Get Labour’

On 28/06/201529/06/2015 By JacIn Assembly, Conservatives, Labour Party, Plaid Cymru, Ukip61 Comments

Leanne Wood, leader of Plaid Cymru, has announced that her party will not go into coalition with the Conservatives after next May’s elections to the Notional Assembly. (Read all about it!) From where I’m sitting, this would appear to condemn Plaid Cymru to either impotence or a pact with Labour. Not an attractive choice, but then, when you play student politics with a nation’s future, and duck the real issues, you deserve no third option. Though the nation of course deserves a lot better than Plaid Cymru.

If my judgement strikes some as a little harsh, then that’s because, as a nationalist, I have little time for Plaid Cymru. But before dismissing my opinion out of hand let us examine the possibilities for next May’s elections. A good way to start is by reminding ourselves of the results from the Assembly election in 2011 and the two polls since then, the Euro elections of May 2014 and the UK general election of May 2015.

In 2011, Labour gained 30 seats, half of the total, and chose not to go into coalition with another party. They’ve never really come unstuck. Plaid Cymru came third, with less than half of Labour’s vote in both constituencies and regions, and well behind the Conservatives. The Liberal Democrats averaged over 9% of the total, while Ukip, who contested only the regional lists, gained a paltry 4.6% of the votes cast.

By the European elections of 2014 Ukip had transformed itself into a major force in the politics of Englandandwales (but not Scotland), and was now the second party in Wales, just .6 of a percentage point behind Labour. All the other parties bar the Greens lost ground.

Just seven weeks ago we saw Ukip fall back somewhat, and drop from its second place in 2014 to third, but it still got more votes than Plaid Cymru. In fact, Ukip came second to Labour in a number of Valleys’ seats which, when taken with the increase in the Tory vote, tells us there was a move to the right which, as I suggested in my blog post Election 2015: Plaid Cymru Fails, Again, might have marked the death of the ‘socialist Wales’ myth. From these recent results it’s reasonable to predict that Labour, with just 30 seats in 2011 and its share of the vote dropping since then, will not win 30 seats in 2016.

The major changes since 2011 are, quite obviously, the rise of Ukip, then there’s the increase in the Tory vote, and finally the near-demise of the Liberal Democrats. Next year Ukip could, if the heavenly bodies align aright, win a seat or two; though if that doesn’t pan out, and given that the party might get 15 – 20% of the regional vote, then it could pick up 5 – 8 seats.

Labour has in previous Assembly elections gained less than other parties from the regional lists, just two seats in 2011, because it wins so many constituency seats, so the bigger threat to Labour may come at the constituency level. With Labour losing Gower and the Vale of Clwyd to the Conservatives last month, and the Lib Dems losing Brecon & Radnor to the same opponents, there must be a possibility that these results will be repeated next year. If so, then it would establish the Tories as the second largest party by some margin. This seems predictable because the number of Plaid Cymru AMs is bound to fall, partly because other than Llanelli it’s impossible to see a seat Plaid could gain (though maybe not if Siân Caiach stands again), and Plaid is bound to lose out to Ukip in the regional allocation. Though if the Lib Dems do lose Brecon & Radnor then that makes it more likely they will be compensated with a couple of regional seats.

Looking at the bigger picture it would not be unreasonable to predict the following result for next year’s Assembly elections: Labour 26 seats (-4), Conservative 17 (+3), Ukip 7 (+7), Plaid Cymru 7 (-4), Lib Dems 2 (-2), Greens 1 (+1). Which would mean that to cobble together an administration Labour would need to go into coalition with Plaid Cymru, which is almost certainly what influenced Ms Wood’s rejection of a deal with the Tories. But this is so short-sighted.

Being a native of the Rhondda Ms Wood must know that throughout the Valleys (and indeed the south) there are tens and tens of thousands of people looking for a viable alternative to Labour, that’s why they turned out last month and last year to vote Tory and Ukip in Caerffili, Merthyr, Blaenau Gwent and Islwyn, and in the process pushed Plaid Cymru down to fourth place. So why should anyone who doesn’t want Labour in power vote for the party that will keep Labour in power?

There may be another, even less charitable way of looking at this. Over the years I have consistently argued that the Labour Party relies on deprivation in Wales – and blaming the Tories for that deprivation – to keep people voting Labour. This means that Labour has no incentive to make Wales a wealthier country, and this then explains the obscene amounts of public funding wasted on Labour’s cronies in the Third Sector, so that they can make an industry out of deprivation and present their parasitism as a form of economic activity.

Could it be that Plaid Cymru, most definitely a begging bowl party, has taken this reasoning a step further? Have those at the highest, policy-making levels of the party calculated that if a poor Wales votes Labour, then a poorer Wales might swing towards Plaid Cymru? Don’t dismiss the suggestion out of hand; just ask yourself, what other hope has Plaid Cymru got of ever becoming a successful party? Well, of course, there is one, obvious route; Plaid could be a Welsh party, focusing on Welsh issues, from a Welsh perspective. But that option was rejected in favour of a slow, lingering death – for both nation and party – decades ago.

Last month I loaned Plaid Cymru my vote because I persuaded myself that doing so was a way of giving a proxy vote to the SNP, a party I respect greatly for confronting the Labour monster head-on, and slaying it. Compare that to what we now hear from Plaid Cymru – ‘A vote for us is a vote for Labour’. How do we explain the difference?

I can’t help thinking that one explanation for ruling out any pact with the Tories may be Ms Wood’s desire to play to a foreign gallery. I’m thinking now of those Left-Green ‘progressive elements’ Plaid so assiduously courted a few months ago. If so, then it’s another reminder of how divorced from Wales and Welsh issues Plaid Cymru has become. By comparison, the Scottish National Party does not fashion its policies to appeal to audiences in Islington, or the offices of the Guardian newspaper . . . and certainly not Labour HQ!

But if Plaid Cymru wants to talk about poverty, then okay. Let’s talk about the poverty of ambition in the party that has the nerve to call itself The Party of Wales. While the SNP is leading the Scottish people to independence, Plaid Cymru’s ambition extends no further than begging a few more crumbs from England’s table and propping up Carwyn Jones and his gang of deadbeats. Almost fifty years after Gwynfor Evans won Carmarthen Plaid Cymru’s ambition today extends no further than acting as a crutch for the party of George Thomas and Neil Kinnock in a system of sham devolution. Now that’s poverty! And total failure.

More On The Green Party Of Englandandwales

On 17/11/201418/11/2014 By JacIn Colonisation of Wales, Greens, Plaid Cymru104 Comments

This time last week I didn’t know a lot about the Green Party, its leading personalities and its internal workings, this week I know a little more; enough to know that Plaid Cymru would be making a big mistake to go into any form of electoral pact with the Green Party.

Let’s start by trying to establish exactly what we are dealing with: is there a separate Wales Green Party (as we are being asked to believe), or do we have just a regional branch of the Green Party of Englandandwales? I believe the answer is definitely the latter. And even if there were a separate body, note how it calls itself the ‘Wales Green Party’, not the Welsh Green Party. Compare that with the Scottish Green Party, which is completely independent of the GPE. This is more than just semantics, for the Scottish Green Party is composed overwhelmingly of Scottish people and supports Scottish independence, but what we have in Wales is mainly English people belonging to an essentially English party.

The evidence for the status of the local Green structure comes from the ‘Wales Green Party’ itself. The party’s candidate in the Uplands by-election in Swansea is Ashley Wakeling (or possibly Ŵakeling) and he made the comment below to my previous post. Now if there is a separate Wales Green Party how the hell is it supposed to operate without a leader? On the other hand, it makes perfect sense if there is no separate Wales Green Party.

The leadership contest referred to, between current leader Pippa Bartolotti and challenger Andy Chyba, will be dealt with later; although I found it odd, and contradictory, that Wakeling should argue that the Greens in Wales need no leader and yet in the same paragraph call for the re-opening of nominatiions!

What became obvious with the many comments made to my previous post is that the ‘Wales Green Party’, perhaps the environmentalist movement more generally, is in a constant state of conflict, riven with personality cults, rival camps and back-biting on a scale I thought had departed with New Labour. Far from being the kind of tension and conflict admired by Harry Lime, from which great things emerge, this appears to be just a bunch of political no-hopers slagging each other off and hampering what little chance there ever was of Green politics having an impact on Wales. I say ‘appears to be’ for there may be more to this than meets the eye.

To bring you up to date, here’s the Green Dragon website report on the Wales Green Party Conference 2014, held last Saturday in Merthyr. I’m referring you to the Green Dragon site because at the time of writing this the official Wales Green Party website hadn’t caught up with its own AGM. According to former Green Anne Greagsby ‘Green Dragon’ is Martyn Shrewsbury of Swansea. Ms Greagsby also alleges that the AGM was not quorate. Another complaining about Green Dragon and the general running of the Green Party in Wales is respected environmentalist Max Wallis. And from other quarters I hear of censorship, stitched-up elections and other practices that suggest the Greens are after the ‘tankie’ vote.

But let us turn to the rivetting leadership contest between Pippa Bartolotti and Andy Chyba. Who are they? Well, it should go without saying that both have come to us from England, though Ms Bartolotti obviously has an Italian surname and claims a Jewish grandfather; whereas Chyba’s ancestry is uncertain.

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Pippa Bartolotti is on record as dismissing the Welsh language as belonging to a “regional identity”, before reminding us that there are far more important things to worry about . . . perhaps finding a decent coiffeur. As regards the status of the so-called Wales Green Party she tends to give the game away with this entry from her ‘News’ section (click to enlarge). The ‘We’ quite obviously refers to the Green Party of Englandandwales.

As for “the young man from Cardiff”, I have no idea what she had planned for him, I can only hope that he enjoyed it and has now recovered. In fact, the siren-like and Jaguar-driving Ms Bartolotti may have a thing about young men, for in another entry she admits to chatting up a young man on a train! (This spoof website may be of interest.)

The problem many Greens have with Ms Bartolotti is her somewhat ‘hazy’ background, with periods in the security business and years unaccounted for. There may also be a more general question over her honesty. For example, she has claimed to have started companies – Encrypta Electronics being one – yet it was her ex-husband and his father who started both Encrypta (1985) and Enigma (1986). Encrypta had links with the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment at Aldermaston, and one of its sub-contractors was AB Connectors of Abercynon, which might explain why in 1997 she was recruited on a part-time basis by the Welsh Development Agency. In 2004 she is said to have represented Encrypta at a security conference in Las Vegas. Among those present was a Lt. Col. Oliver North of Iran-Contra fame.

But, then, for no apparent reason, she gave up the life of business to go on a world tour . . . though where exactly she went, who she met, and what she did, is another source of mystery. According to the Swansea Action for Palestine website Ms Bartolotti lived in Israel for 7 years, which might make sense, given her Jewish grandfather. Though elsewhere she claims to have spent time in India, Cuba and other places which would have made it impossible for her to have spent all seven of her years away in Israel. But anyway, let’s stick with Israel. Here’s a link to a bizarre bit of film showing her making a fuss at Tel Aviv airport, it’s connected with this escapade. Though some ask why Bartolotti was the only one out a group of 40 people allowed through unmolested by Israeli customs, and whether realising her isolation made her cause the scene.

Let’s end on a lighter note. Here’s a link to Come Dine with Me starring the irrepressible Ms Bartolotti. (To view this gem you may need a 4oD player installed.) Shalom!

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Now we turn to Andy Chyba, who was to have been the Green’s lead candidate in Wales for the May European elections. Then he withdrew and urged Greens to support Plaid Cymru! Despite this support for Plaid Cymru Chyba regards Welsh as a “moribund language” and in his resignation piece repeats that he has “no time for the Welsh language”!

I urge you to read Chyba’s resignation piece, for in it he also admits that he does not want to see an ‘autonomous’ Green party in Wales (as exists in Scotland and Northern Ireland) while conceding that the current set-up of the GPE in Wales is never going to take off. It all sounds very confused, or confusing.

These thoughts were in my mind when I received a Facebook message today from someone offering more information on Chyba. (Addressed to ‘Mr North’!) Suggesting, specifically, that Chyba has a background in the military or the police, and may be operating as a spy. Whether or not there is any truth in these allegations, I still find it intriguing that Chyba’s Wikipedia page was pulled last Friday, when my previous post was receiving so many hits and comments from Greens.

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So we have two contenders for the leadership of something calling itself the Green Party of Wales that is in reality nothing but a regional branch of the Green Party of Englandandwales and both are accused of being tools of the security services. With the accusations against Chyba being perhaps nothing more than retaliation on the part of Bartolotti’s supporters for the aspersions cast against their gal. Should we give these allegations any credence? I think so. Let us consider the bigger picture, from a different perspective.

As I have remarked in a number of recent posts, in the eyes of an increasing number of people Westminster politics is discredited, with voters looking for alternatives to the Conservatives, Labour and the Liberal Democrats. In Scotland there is an obvious alternative to the Westminster bawbags in the form of the SNP, which threatens to wipe out Labour, the only party that can maintain the Union. South of the border many in England (and quite a few in Wales) are turning to Ukip. The publicity achieved by the SNP and Ukip can sometimes make us overlook the Greens, who already have one MP and could have a couple more after next year’s General Election.

Alex Salmond has said that he may stand for Westminster next year, and he has already posited the scenario in which the SNP and its allies hold the balance of power. So who will be the SNP’s allies? Well, Plaid Cymru, obviously, but also the Greens. Which makes the Greens of increasing interest to the security services. And how better to gain entry to the higher councils of a party with perhaps 20,000 members than by controlling the leadership election of a ramshackle branch with just a few hundred members, many of whom – as a result of carefully engineered schisms – are disbarred or discouraged from voting? It’s what I’d do if I was a spook. Always go for the weakest link to provide the entry point.

Plaid Cymru would be mad to go into any electoral pact with the Green Party of Englandandwales, either nationally or on a constituency by constituency basis. There is nothing in such a pact for Plaid Cymru because the Greens have nothing to offer, and when views like Bartolotti’s and Chyba’s on the Welsh language become known they can only lose Plaid Cymru votes. Worse, if some of the allegations levelled are correct, then there may be more to Bartolotti and / or Chyba than meets the eye. Even if both are ‘clean’, there is still the worry that there are those who realise the Green brand is not selling in Wales, and now view Plaid Cymru as the best stall from which to promote their wares. Plaid activists should think long and hard about accepting this trojan horse, and don’t leave the decision to your ‘leaders’. They’ve already let you down too often.

Plaid Cymru and the Green Party of Englandandwales

On 10/11/201429/01/2015 By JacIn Colonialism, Environmentalism, Plaid Cymru126 Comments

As I informed you in M ay, I have broken with the habit of a lifetime and stopped voting for Plaid Cymru, a party I ceased to believe in decades ago. One of the reasons for my losing faith in Plaid Cymru was its infatuation with the Green Party, and its desire to cover Wales with wind turbines (a position from which it has now retreated). So, as you might guess, among the parties I shall definitely not be voting for in future is the Green Party of Englandandwales. I’m dealing with this subject now because there is talk of another electoral pact between Plaid Cymru and the Greens.

Plaid began to get seriously enamoured of the Earth-botherers back in the late 1980s, which was almost certainly connected with the fact that at the June 1989 European elections the Green Party (formerly known as the Ecology Party) gained 99,546 votes in Wales, 11.1% of the total votes cast, and a massive increase of 10.9% on the party’s performance in 1984. In fact, the Green’s total vote was not far behind Plaid Cymru’s 115,062. Someone in Plaid Cymru who could do big sums calculated that if the two numbers were combined then the result would be, well . . . a big number. That’s my take on it, but Cynog Dafis would have us beleve that the links between Plaid Cymru and the environmental lobby go back further, as he explains in Plaid Cymru and the Greens: Flash in the Pan or a Lesson for the Future? which I advise you to read, as I shall refer to it later, and also because I get a mention! (Did I really say that!)

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The first test of this love-in came at the 1991 Monmouth by-election following the death of Sir John Stradling Thomas when Mel Witherden stood as a Plaid / Green candidate. He came fifth, with 277 votes, behind the Monster Raving Loony Party. Admittedly, Monmouth is not ferile ground for Plaid, but the Plaid candidate at the 1987 General Election got 363 votes. (There was no Green candidate in 1987.) In the 1992 general election Witherden stood again, this time winning 431 votes, an improvement of sorts. Though the real significance of Monmouth was what the candidate said some time later. In essence, Witherden confessed that many Greens refused to vote for a joint candidate because, quite frankly, they were anti-Welsh, and displayed crude, colonialist attitudes. Which was no more than many nationalists suspected, and for which some of us had clear evidence. Damning proof of Green attitudes from a Green Party member.

The sort of attitudes Cynog Dafis was to learn about the hard way. In the paper linked to above he talks of meeting leading Greens from Arfon and Meirion, John Nicholson and Chris Busby, who were outraged that community councils in Gwynedd conducted their business in Welsh (which presumably prevented them from taking over the meetings), and that their kids were being taught Welsh in schools. Dafis says, “I tried to respond, rather lamely, and through rational defence rather than counter-attack, but I came from the meeting feeling quite shaken”. Rarely does one come across a passage from a leading Plaidista that so perfectly sums up Plaid Cymru’s fundamental weakness when confronted with naked racism and colonialism. In such circumstances “rational defence” will get you nowhere. When faced with colonialist bigotry like that the only response must be: ‘You don’t like Wales the way it is? – then fuck off home!’

(Following the Fukishima nuclear accident in 2011 Busby sought to capitalise by selling his anti-radiation pills online and suggested that the Japanese government was deliberately spreading cancer throughout the country in order to hide or disguise the ‘clusters’! He has a number of companies selling £25 reports, his self-published books and assorted medicinal products that experts believe do nothing except enrich Chris Busby.)

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Despite this insight into the Green colonialist mindset Cynog Dafis stood at the 1992 General Election on a Green-Plaid ticket in Ceredigion and Pembroke North. He gained the seat from the sitting Liberal Democrat MP Geraint Howells with a majority of 3,193. To a number of nationalists at the time, myself included, Howells was a good old stick, a Welshman of the old school, and preferable to Dafis, especially if the latter was going to dance to some hippy tune for the duration of the parliament. Though there remains some dispute as to whether Dafis was ever a joint Plaid-Green candidate, certainly, the official record lists him for posterity as a Plaid Cymru candidate, and some grouplets within the Green Party insist he was never formally adopted. Whatever the truth of his position, Plaid’s leadership, Dafis to the fore, had convinced itself that the party needed Green votes to win Ceredigion, and perhaps other seats.

So were the Green votes influential, even decisive? Well, let’s look at the neighbouring constituencies where no deal was struck to see if they can point us towards an answer. To the south, in the Pembroke constituency, the Green candidate got 484 votes, or 0.8% of the vote. To the east, in Brecon & Radnor, the Green candidate limped in last with 393 votes, or 0.9% of the vote. Moving north, into Meirionnydd Nant Conwy, there the Greens – in the form of Busby’s mate, Bill Pritchard – were ecstatic over their 471 votes and 1.8%. Though in Carmarthen the Greens couldn’t even find a candidate. The flash-in-the-pan nature of the Green Party’s 1989 Euro election result was betrayed at the first ‘serious’ election, which also told us that Plaid Cymru would have comfortably won Ceredigion and Pembroke North without any pact or agreement with the Greens.

After which it was all downhill, and to cut a long story short . . . in July 1995 the inevitable, yet amicable, parting of the ways came, and here’s an extract from the statement announcing the divorce, taken from Dafis’ document: “‘a bridge was built between the indigenous people of Wales and those who had moved here to live’ for progressive and enlightened purposes”. (I bet you want to read that again!) So condemning Welsh community councillors for speaking their own language is progressive and enlightened! Now if I’d made up that statement in an attempt at ridicule or sarcasm I would be rightly criticised, but a Plaid Cymru luminary who bent over backwards to accommodate a bunch of arrogant, dictatorial and often racist immigrants can write such bollocks without any sense of irony. But that’s all in the past, and I’m not a man to bear a grudge (yes, that is sarcasm) so what of today’s saviours of the planet?

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One worth noting, for the wrong reasons – though I assure you I have no evidence that he sells pills of any description – is that five-letters-a-day (to the editor) man, John Childs, who has opinions on just about everything. I mention him because he has imposed himself on the Treboeth neighbourhood in Swansea, an area close to my heart, and indeed close to where I was raised. I recall my father telling me that, pre-war, once you’d left Brynhyfryd Square and started walking up Llangyfelach Road into Treboeth you automatically switched from English to Welsh. Treboeth was the home patch of Daniel James (‘Gwyrosydd’) writer of Calon Lân. Also where Dewi ‘Pws’ Morris has his roots, and I understand Cynog Dafis himself was born there. Nowadays the name Treboeth is seen in newspapers and other publications on a daily basis when people read the opinionated and offensive drivel of an English environmentalist.

Another who feels Swansea cannot do without him is young Ashley Wakeling (or Ŵakeling?), who is contesting the upcoming by-election in the Uplands ward. ‘So who is he?’ I hear you ask. Young Mr Wakeling is a student, and last year he was the Green candidate back home in Maidstone. Here we have a young Green who knows nothing about the city he’s just moved to, but clearly believes that such ignorance is no obstacle to him standing for election to the body running that city. It’s incredible. I sincerely believe that no one should be allowed to stand for election to any local authority until they have lived in the area for a minimum of five years. Why should we demand that taxi drivers have more local knowledge than those getting paid to run a city? Another candidate recently announced was Matt Cooke in Torfaen.

Then we have the much more mature – at 27 – Chris Were, alleged to be deputy leader of the Wales Green Party’, though how one can hold any position in an organisation that doesn’t exist is beyond my ken. Were may be 27 but he prefers to behave like a 12-year-old, as his mocking of Wales testifies. (And the silly boy can’t even spell ‘innit’!) Were was a Green candidate in this year’s memorable European elections, in which the Greens achieved 33,275 votes, or 4.5% of the total, proving yet gain what a blip that 1989 result was that set Plaid Cymru hearts all a-flutter. Ah! those European elections of May 2014, memorable because I sincerely believe that the Ukip MEP elected, a Mr Nathan Lee Gill, will provide hours of enjoyment in the years ahead for those of you in possession of the gift of schadenfreude. (A gift that I, alas, have been denied.)

Finally, and much closer to home, I had a run-in not so long ago with an environmentalist living just up the road. It all started with a couple of letters to the local weekly rag on the subject of raising council tax on holiday homes; one headed, ‘Second home owners keep Gwynedd economy alive’, the other arguing that it would be ‘racist’ to increase council tax, before introducng the spectre of arson. Naturally, I responded, then the following week there was a reply that concluded with a reference to “the burning of second homes by Nationalist extremists”. The two letters mentioning arson are almost certainly phoney, and the second cleverly distorts what I actually said. The exchange can be found here.

The debate rumbled on a bit, and provoked a letter from Andrew Currie, the environmentalist who lives just up the road from me. According to Currie, I had missed the point that, “coastal towns and villages came into being because of tourism in Victorian times”. In other words, there was really nothing here until English tourists ‘discovered’ Wales. This is a reminder that the most virulent and outspoken bigotry doesn’t always come from the usual suspects, because what Currie is exposing here is the traditional ‘justification’ for colonialism – ‘They couldn’t manage without us’. The full exchange can be found in this post.

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I can only assume that whoever is gently blowing on the embers of an extinguished love is prompted not by renewed passion but by the very pragmatic consideration that with Assembly elections due in 2016, and Plaid defending a majority of just 1,777 in Ceredigion, the 1,514 votes won by Chris Simpson, the Green candidate in 2011, could be critical for Plaid’s chances of retaining the seat. It might also be worth pointing out that while this figure of 1,514 might look impressive, it should be borne in mind that Simpson was the only constituency candidate the Greens fielded in 2011, so the party concentrated almost all its resources on Ceredigion. A more meaningful assessment of Green support would be that in the (second preference) regional list section they got just 32,649 across the whole of Wales, roughly ten thousand votes ahead of the Socialist Labour Party and the BNP.

This is a party that can deliver, at most, thirty to forty thousand votes across the whole country – and that’s if all Greens are prepared to vote for joint candidates, which of course they aren’t. And not only will joint Green-Plaid candidates alienate most Green supporters, they’ll also piss off quite a few Plaid voters – and there are many more of the latter. A further consideration could be explained as follows. The Greens are an English party attracting English votes, therefore, as few of these votes will transfer to a joint candidate in the event of a pact, it makes more sense to have a Green candidate in Ceredigion, grabbing a thousand or two votes, rather than see those English Green votes transfer to a party that could beat Plaid Cymru.

Crude, electoral considerations aside, the bigger question has to be, why would Plaid Cymru – or any self-respecting party, come to that – want an electoral pact with the Green Party of Englandandwales? A party that refuses to recognise Wales as a country. A party that has members and activists who are positively racist in their attitudes to anything Welsh. A party whose luminaries see Wales as a backward territory ripe for ‘improvement’ by superior beings like them, with we Welsh viewed – at best – as obstructive primitives to be shouted down and brushed aside. Whichever way we look at it, a pact with the Greens could be very damaging to Plaid Cymru, and should call into question the political nous or motives of anyone promoting such a deal.

Free at Last!

On 23/05/201406/11/2014 By JacIn Colonialism, European, Plaid Cymru33 Comments

I didn’t vote in the European elections yesterday. In fact, this was the first time ever that I failed to vote in an election. Previously, I had always voted Plaid Cymru at Assembly, Westminster and European elections (there’s rarely a Plaid candidate for local elections). I got a bit twitchy as the ten o’clock deadline approached, but after a good night’s sleep I felt much better, like I’d finally rid myself of a bad habit. So why did I do it?

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To begin with – and a Triban s readers of this blog will know – I don’t really support Plaid Cymru, I haven’t supported the party for decades. I don’t believe in Plaid Cymru, it’s policies, its leaders, its anything. Which means that since I lost faith in the party I have been voting Plaid Cymru for the wrong reasons: 1/ Because there is no real alternative and 2/ Because I hoped that my vote, and the votes of others like me, would help Plaid Cymru to be viewed – in England – as ‘the voice of Welsh nationalism’ and might therefore get Wales a better deal. But the first reason is totally negative and the second is nonsense, because anyone who studies Plaid Cymru for ten minutes knows that far from being a threat to the constitutional status quo it is actually one of its pillars.

So why did I make the decision at this time? In a word, or if you prefer, an acronym, Ukip. The rise and rise of the United Kingdom Independence Party posed a threat to Plaid Cymru’s European seat and this resulted in social media being alive with desperate pleas to ‘vote Plaid to stop Ukip / Tories / Labour getting a second seat which, again, is a very negative reason for voting for any party, and no better than Labour’s message at every election: ‘(Ignore our appalling record and) send a message to London by voting Labour’. In addition, I was being told that Liberal Democrats I’d never heard of, and equally unknown Greens, were heeding this call and being collectively described as “progressive elements”. Jesus! “progressive elements”; now there’s a truly chilling phrase, from the same Stalinist lexicon as ‘freedom-loving peoples’, ‘enemy of the people’ and all the other phrases earlier generations came to love. Knowing I’d be on the same side as these ‘progressive elements’ was another reason to finally break with Plaid. (Those unfamiliar with my views on Liberal Democrats and Greens should either scroll down to Wales Euro Election 2014: Runners and Riders or click on the link.)

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I’m writing this before the Euro results are declared, I can do this because the actual result is irrelevant to my decision, and to my feelings towards Plaid Cymru. Which can be summed up quite simply – Plaid Cymru is a complete and utter failure. It first lost its way a few decades ago when it turned its back on Welsh issues to adopt some flavour-of-the-month left-liberalism. (This happened around the same time as I have always believed the party was compromised.) The death-knell was rung when it decided that discussion of our survival as a nation was a taboo subject following the mauling received by Councillor Seimon Glyn in the English media, and the humiliation dished out to party leader Ieuan Wyn Jones by Glenys Kinnock on Question Time. (Here’s a report.) Which means that the colonisation of Wales, and our inevitable assimilation into England, is off the agenda . . . of a ‘national’ party!

On the purely political front, Plaid Cymru has now reached a ‘plateau’ on the lower slopes of electoral success from which it is incapable of advancing and will, before long, and inevitably, start sliding back. At the European level, this ‘plateau’ means 1 seat or no seat (of four); at Westminster level; 2 – 5 seats (of 40); and in the Assembly 8 – 18 AMs (of 60). The reason for the inevitability of Plaid’s demise lies in the fact that its support is concentrated in those areas – largely Welsh speaking – targetted for social engineering. The English immigrants to these areas won’t vote Plaid, and the diminishing percentage of Welsh in these areas’ populations will soon realise that Plaid has failed them. Couple these painful realities with the ‘breakthrough in the south’ never materialising and it should become obvious to all that time is running out for Plaid Cymru.

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Over almost fifty years of political activism of one kind or another I have heard all sorts of theories, been made all kinds of offers, and been involved in some pretty weird shit myself, but the more I think about the abject failure of Plaid Cymru the more I remember something I heard that, with hindsight, and looking at the state of Wales and Welsh politics, makes sense, of a kind.

The suggestion was that it might have been better for Wales if Plaid Cymru had never been formed. Because then, Labour would have taken on the mantle of Wales’ defender and been able to do a much better job without accusations of being ‘nationalist’. (I am of course talking here of the Welsh Labour Party of S. O. Davies, Cledwyn Hughes, James Griffiths, Gwilym Prys Davies, Elystan Morgan et al.) Also because it has widespread support across the country and could form a government in London. But as things stand today, Labour – and especially at Westminster level – often takes up positions inimical to Wales’ best interests almost to spite Plaid Cymru and to avoid being seen – or accused of – ‘making concessions to nationalism’. While Plaid, stuck on its ‘plateau’, will never achieve its objectives yet blocks the emergence of a genuine nationalist party. The worst of all possible worlds.

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The real irony is that Labour’s vote in the south, the vote Plaid needs to become the biggest party in Wales, has never been solid. In many cases it is a vote Labour gains due solely to the absence of an attractive alternative of the kind the SNP is, but Plaid Cymru is not. Earlier this year I posted a piece on an opinion poll that showed most people, even Labour voters, were dissatisfied with Labour’s running of Wales – yet most of them still intended to vote Labour. Today I read that Ukip is set to become the second party in the Heads of the Valleys region, because Welsh working class men find Ukip more attractive than Plaid Cymru. Clearly, much of Labour’s s Dragon union jack outhern vote is there for the taking . . . but not by a party with all the appeal of Sinn Féin on the Shankill Road!

Plaid Cymru should now do the honest thing. It should admit that it has been a miserable failure. Concede that it will never become a national party. Then it should apologise for wasting everybody’s time for the past ninety years and promise to disband so that a genuinely national party can arise.

But no. Instead, Plaid Cymru plans to enter into a formal coalition with the Green Party of Englandandwales. With a single stroke of tactical genius Plaid’s leaders not only prove me wrong but guarantee my future support. Where do I join? (Hope I don’t get trampled in the rush.)

Wales Euro Election 2014: Runners & Riders

On 15/05/201422/05/2014 By JacIn European39 Comments

Standing for election on May 22 to Wales’ four European Parliament seats are no fewer than eleven ‘parties’ (I use the term loosely), each putting up the ordained four candidates. Though looking at some of those candidates it becomes clear that their parties have not so much scraped the bottom of the barrel as gone through the barrel bottom and kept going. But that’s just the opinion of a cynical old bastard who long ago lost faith in politicians and political systems. Anyway, form your own opinions as I run through the parties and candidates in alphabetical order. The full list is on the right (click to enlarge). Each section heading contains a link to that party’s website.

BRITAIN FIRST

Despite the name, this crew is fielding candidates in Wales and Scotland only.

Britain First has already gained considerable notoriety by being allowed – by the Electoral Commission – to use ‘Remember Lee Rigby’ on the ballot papers. The party was founded in May 2011 by Jim Dowson, with lead candidate Paul Gosling as chairman. Though one mystery must be why another founder member, former BNP organiser for Wales and 2009 BNP Euro candidate, Kevin Edwards, is not on the list. Following the break-up of his marriage, and after quitting the BNP in February 2011, Edwards moved from Llandybie (near Ammanford) to Llansamlet in Swansea which, along with neighbouring Bonymaen, is where many of the city’s fascists can be found.

Britain First founder Jim Dowson is also ex-BNP and perhaps into fundamentalist Christianity and hostility to Islam more than direct and blatant racism. A former Scottish Calvinist minister who apparently believes in the death penalty for gays and is fanatically anti-abortion, Dowson has also been a busy boy in the Six Counties, founding Protestant Coalition. So it makes sense that Britain First should be standing in Scotland – targetting the Rangers / Orange Order vote – but why Wales, because as far as I can make out, none of them is Welsh.

BRITISH NATIONAL PARTY

Next we have the (as yet) unsplintered BNP. Top of their list is a man many think should not be standing at all because, in a parallel dimension, Mike Whitby of Wrecsam is disqualified from becoming a member of a county council or similar authority, but this, it seems, does not extend to the European parliament. Number two on the list is Laurence Reid, an Ulster Protestant domiciled in Wales. Jean Griffin at number three is presumably party leader Nick Griffin’s wife or daughter (possibly his French cousin). While the one with the least chance of being elected is Gary Tumulty of Salford . . . unless he guns down all the other candidates. Again, it’s encouraging that none of these people are Welsh.

CONSERVATIVE AND UNIONIST PARTY

As if Britain First and the BNP weren’t enough, this is yet another bunch of anglo-centric, Unionist fanatics, whe believe that the Ninth Circle of Hell is located somewhere in the English Channel. Regarding our little patch of earth, the message may be more muted than that from the clown troupes mentioned earlier, and said with a smile rather than a snarl, but don’t be fooled, it’s the same message – ‘Wales and England are the same country, and that’s how we like it’.

Top of the Tory list is current MEP Dr. Kay Swinburne who, though Welsh, now lives in the tiroedd coll, which seems to agitate the bruvvers who have just selected young Kinnock. Number two is Councillor Aled Wyn Davies of Llanrhaeadr ym Mochnant & Llansilin (a home of Glyndŵr). Number three is Dr. Dan Boucher who lives in Morriston and does a nice line in self-promotion. Bringing up the Tory rear (and haven’t we all thought about a Tory rear at one time or another?) is Richard Hopkin, a lawyer, who may or may not be the same Richard Hopkin described by his employer as a “pugnacious litigator”. Grrrr! Here’s a link to the introductory video for the lot.

GREEN PARTY

There is a separate Scottish Green Party that has always backed independence, while we have to suffer the Green Party of Englandandwales, a bunch of English middle class colons no different to those in other parties who believe that we Welsh must be told what’s best for us, with our country a laboratory for the policies they’d never be allowed to implement in their homeland. Although standing as a party in these elections their real forte is as a pressure group, where they enjoy influence way beyond their political support by playing on the questionable assertion that people want green policies even if they aren’t prepared to vote Green. Clever, and worth studying. Though Plaid Cymru has mis-read the message and contemplates a formal alliance.

I can’t be bothered to make enquiries about Pippa Bartolotti, John Matthews, Chris Were or Rozz Cutler.

LABOUR PARTY

The usual uninspiring crew that brings home yet again how ‘stretched’ once-mighty Labour is to find candidates for Europe, Westminster, the Assembly, and 22 local authorities. Thank God we don’t have as many quangoes as in the past, and that civil servants have taken over the running of devolution.

Derek Vaughan tops the list as the current MEP, a former trade unionist and leader of Neath Port Talbot council and said to be a ‘tidy bloke’. Vaughan is certain to be elected so the interest is really on the second name on the Labour list, Jayne Bryant, born in Newport, who could also be elected if Plaid and the Tories do badly and the anticipated Ukip surge does not materialise. At number 3 we have Councillor Alex Thomas, who represents the Rhos ward, also in Neath Port Talbot. The no-hoper is Christina Rees, formerly Mrs Ron Davies; not wishing to be reminded of her husband’s behaviour she wrote a book about it, The Davies Diaries, though she did later apologise.

Worth noting that there is no Labour candidate from west of Neath or, indeed, from north of Neath.

LIBERAL DEMOCRATS

Where to start (says he, wishing he didn’t have to)? Those who know me know that I reserve a special kind of contempt for Liberal Democrats and liberals of all kinds. I regard them as smug, wishy-washy wankers.

The Lib Dem quartet is headed up by Alec Dauncey who lives in Aberystwyth. Now Alec may enjoy a skinful of lager and a bag of chips of a Saturday night before throwing up the diced carrots on the way home . . . but I doubt it. To me, the picture shows a professional tree-hugger in a polo neck sweater more likely to be found listening to a cupped-ear folk singer while unwinding with a glass of organic cider. His bio is a gem, taking political prose to previously uncharted depths of vacuity. But it is so typically Liberal Democrat.

Number two is another Englishman, Robert Speht, living in Swansea. This one a wind turbine-hugger with a string of failed business ventures and an unpaid sandwich bill to his name. Speht lives in Mayals, one of Swansea’s poshest neighbourhoods which, because it lies within the fiercely defended borders of Mumbles community council, provided Speht with the chance to use the title ‘Councillor’ after losing his city council seat. Said – even by colleagues – to be unreliable he struck up a weird friendship with Richard ‘Tricky Dicky’ Lewis when Lewis, having tried all the rest, eventually fell in with the Lib Dems, mainly because they promised him his year in the Mansion House. To understand how unlikely a Liberal Democrat Richard Lewis is just try to imagine Ghengis Khan the pacifist. Lewis was sighted on April 30 entering the Liberty Stadium to hear Nigel Farage.

The other two candidates are Jackie Radford and Bruce Roberts, of whom I know nothing, and care even less.

NO2EU

Don’t be fooled by the name, for this is not another ‘Wogs begin at Dover’ party. It can’t be, for I see the name of Comrade Robert Griffiths topping their list, as he did in 2009. Robert Griffiths, stalwart of the long defunct Welsh Socialist Republican Movement (also, so some would have it, the Workers Army for a Welsh Republic). Robert Griffiths the current General Secretary of the Communist Party of Great Britain. (Marxist-Leninist, I believe.) So we’ve obviously arrived on the hard left.

Of the other NO2EU candidates I know nothing . . .

PLAID CYMRU

For Plaid Cymru / The Party of Wales this is a very important election. Opinion polls suggest they might lose their MEP Jill Evans. If that happens, then I can see real soul-searching within a party that has lost its way.

The problem for Plaid Cymru is that Labour in Wales has cleverly painted Welsh politics as a simple picture of them defending Wales against ‘London’ – even when Labour is in power in London. This is what the ‘send a message to London’ (by voting Labour) is all about, even for European and Assembly elections! Then, because Plaid does little more than promote itself as ‘Labour, but a bit more Welsh, like’, it is, effectively, marginalised. Plaid’s only hope is to get out of Labour’s shadow and re-position itself as a genuinely Welsh party, taking up the issues other parties ignore, and addressing the big issues from an aggressively Welsh standpoint. But it won’t.

In many ways this state of affairs is regrettable, for in Jill Evans, Marc Jones, Stephen Cornelius and Ioan Bellin the party has a strong team. That said, it might still be best for the long term if Plaid was to lose its seat.

Footnote: Plaid’s number 4 candidate in 2009 was the apple of her daddy’s eye, Natasha Asghar. Happy days!

SOCIALIST LABOUR PARTY

Formed in 1996 by Arthur Scargill – who is still ‘Leader’ – the SLP is perhaps the only hard left group that would need something bigger than a telephone booth for its meetings. It claims a direct line of ideological descent from James Connolly, and quotes him in its website header. But there were, in a sense, two James Connollys. One, the Edinburgh-born British socialist; the other, the man who returned to his Irish roots, formed the Citizen Army, and was executed (though wounded) in Kilmainham jail by the British army after the Dublin Easter Rising of 1916. The SLP reveres the former.

Despite being one of the larger minor parties the SLP’s candidates are hardly household names, even in their own households, but here they are anyway. At number one we have Andrew Jordan, who stood in the Cardiff South & Penarth by-election in 2012, a by-election caused by Alun Michael’s strange decision to stand for election as the local Police and Crime Commissioner. Second is Kathrine Jones, of whom I know naught. David Lloyd Jones, number 3 on the list, is probably the man who stood for Conwy in 2005 against the heavyweight trio of Betty Williams, Guto Bebb and Gareth Roberts. He got 1% of the vote, though he still managed to beat Ukip into 7th place. (Which ain’t gonna happen again any time soon.) If these three are relatively unknown, number 4 on the list, Liz Screen, has a slightly higher profile, if only because she stood in 2009, but it’s all relative.

SOCIALIST PARTY OF GREAT BRITAIN

Not being terribly au fait with the 57 varieties of socialism I’m not quite sure where the SPGB stands – are they Wobblies? Maybe someone can help me out. The SPGB has three branches; Swansea, Cardiff, and that hot-bed of revolutionary socialism . . . Llandudno. I tried to get more information but the SPGB website was down. The SPGB candidates can be found in the list at the top of the page. None of the names mean anything to me. Though if Richard Cheney is the real name of candidate number 2 it’s a strange quirk that he should share a name with Dick Cheney, vice president to George W. Bush and bête noire of the left. Anyway, seeing as Joe Hill was the most famous Wobbly of them all, let’s end this section with Joe Hill, sung by Joan Baez.

UKIP

The stars of the show! Certainly everybody is looking at Ukip, wondering how big an advance they’re going to make, for there’s no question it will be an advance. I did a recent post on Ukip which says most of what I want to say about them, so it only remains to look at their candidates.

Nathan Gill is an English grannyfarmer living on Ynys Môn who stood in the Seiriol ward in last year’s council elections, where he came eighth out of nine candidates. Though his wife(?) came eighth out out twelve in the Aethwy ward. (This being the ward where our old friend Jacques Protic came bottom of the poll.) Number two on the list is James Cole who, in the photograph I link to, is actually wearing a double-breasted blazer! It says he ‘relocated’ to Swansea, but not from where, though he is Welsh. This video by Cole is priceless; he predicts that ” . . . the native Welsh will be a minority in their own country within the next 15 to 20 years . . . “ yet he makes no mention of English colonisation, for he wants us to believe the influx will come from mainland Europe and elsewhere! Caroline Jones from Porthcawl is a former Tory parliamentary candidate who defected a year ago. The fourth candidate has concerns about “huge volumes of immigration”. David J. Rowlands lives in the Gwent valleys, where this is obviously a serious problem. Rowlands is the only survivor from the 2009 quartet.

I find it very disappointing that three of Ukip’s four candidates are Welsh. But then, this may be a ploy used in the hope of disguising the party’s fundamental Englishness.

SUMMING UP

One unavoidable conclusion is that the European elections are not taken seriously by the electorate. It gives voters a chance to do something silly, which many of them will. The turnout in 2009 was just 30.4%, down 11% on 2004. (Click on panel to enlarge.) This year’s elections could see an even lower turnout. (Here’s the 2009 result by constituency.)

Six of the eleven parties standing can be said to belong to the extremes of left and right (three of each). Few of their 24 candidates have any relevance to Wales and even fewer have any intention of debating Welsh issues . . . even if they could. Some have been honest enough to admit they’re using the elections – and Wales – simply to gain publicity. In some regards the Greens could be added to this group. Leaving us with the four ‘mainstream’ parties, all running scared of Ukip. For this election is all about how well Ukip will do, how that will impact on the other parties, and if we’ll ever have European elections again.

My position is that I’m a European of the Gaullist persuasion, preferring a confederation of independent states – rather than a bureaucrat-led supranationalist entity – serving as a counter-balance to both Russia and the USA (to which we must now add China). The UK (or England) was never going to fit with either version for so many reasons, one being – as de Gaulle always understood – its ties with the USA. I have now reached the stage where I detest what the European Union has become but could never line up with any of those calling for withdrawal. Perversely, perhaps, the loony left and the loony right being on the same side only serves to make the bloated monster a little more attractive. With enemies like some of those I’ve looked at here, who needs friends?

Jac o' the North

Tag: Green Party of Englandandwales