Welsh Independence And The Left

On 02/01/202302/01/2023 By JacIn Greens, Plaid Cymru, Welsh Independence, Welsh Labour, Yes Cymru54 Comments

I’m kicking off 2023 with thoughts on independence; more exactly, the kind of independence being offered by those who’ll be gathering in the Brangwyn Hall, Swansea, on the 28th of this month.

Ah! the Brangwyn Hall. I remember being slung out of there many years ago. It was a Labour Party do, with that son of Abersychan, Roy Jenkins, topping the bill. (Ere he and others left to form the SDP.)

Anyway, Woy had got to the bit in his peroration where he proclaimed to the assembly that he too was Welsh . . . at which point a young Jac jumped up and shouted ‘You’re no Welshman!’ (My outburst may have contained an expletive attributive.)

I was immediately attacked by some old crow sitting behind me, who laid into me with her umbrella! A possible headline from the Evening Post flashed through my mind – ‘Nationalist yob beaten to death by umbrella-wielding Labour granny’.

I was saved from this undignified and premature fate by the ‘stewards’ (i.e. Labour heavies) dragging me off towards the huge front doors. With a few reminders along the way that my contribution was not appreciated. (‘Troublemaker, ew are!’)

Happy days!

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‘PROGRESSIVE’ MELIN DRAFOD

In this section I shall refer more than once to the briefly successful far Left takeover of YesCymru in 2020 and 2021.

I wrote about this extensively at the time and so, to catch up with what I wrote, type ‘YesCymru’ in the search box atop the sidebar.

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The event later this month in the Brangwyn is organised by think tank Melin Drafod. And you don’t need to think too hard to realise what anyone attending is likely to hear.

All the speakers are on the Left. Or the far Left. Or the Woke Left. Call it what you will.

But ‘progressive’ is the label behind which they all hide nowadays. Such a nice word, harmless and unthreatening. Who among us could object to ‘progress‘?

Me. Because I recognise rebranded Marxism.

Helping me appreciate that the ‘progress’ demanded by those who’ll gather where a young Jac was assaulted by a Bolshie harridan is worrying.

But let Melin Drafod speak for itself:

‘Not independence for its own sake’. What is that trying to say – patriotism is not enough? Or is it a veiled threat to scupper any form of independence that doesn’t meet with the approval of the far Left?

There is so much to read into that section.

My views on ‘climate change’ are well known – it’s not happening. The myth is being kept alive by ‘environmentalists’ and others who’ve staked their reputations on it and can’t afford to backtrack, with supranational bodies thinking ‘global warming’ gives them the excuse to control human behaviour worldwide.

And does anyone seriously believe that racism is a ‘scourge’ in modern Wales? Who but the seriously unhinged could insult us by equating Wales in 2023 with Arkansas or the Transvaal a few decades back?

Only perhaps those with a vested interest in using the allegation of ‘racism’ to slander political opponents and to promote their own interests.

The latter might apply to Melin Drafod National Committee member Harriet Protheroe-Soltani, of the Wales Refugee Council. Like all third sector bodies, this one thrives by inventing or exaggerating a problem – and then demanding funding to tackle that problem.

Ms Protheroe-Soltani of Momentum was also employed by YesCymru when it fell briefly under the control of the far Left in 2020 / 2021.

Sam Coates is another member of the National Committee.

His Twitter account tells that he is a socialist first, then a Welshman. Which would appear to bear out that for these ‘progressives’ Wales comes second to their ideological priorities.

Significantly, perhaps, there’s no mention of independence.

And, again, it’s worth returning to the far Left takeover of YesCymru, for Coates wrote this essay in July 2021, and it’s revealing. (Available here in pdf format.) Not just about Coates but about the others who’ll be at the Brangwyn later this month.

He writes: ‘In 2017, I rocked up to the Hen Coleg yn Aberystwyth on a baking hot day to attend YesCymru’s AGM. It was a friendly room of about 50 people, mostly middle age, and mostly white.’

‘Mostly white’ – in a country that is 95% White! Would Coates and the comrades be happier if YesCymru was a majority non-White organisation, and therefore grotesquely unrepresentative of Wales?

As unrepresentative as those who’ll be at the Brangwyn Hall.

Referring to the rigged YesCymru elections of May 2021 that saw the far Left briefly take control, Coates writes: ‘Hundreds of members attended the online event, and used a voting tool used by many other political organisations to choose members of the new Central Committee’.

It would appear that when he wrote of those ‘hundreds’ voting Coates had forgotten that a few paragraphs earlier he’d talked of YesCymru having 18,000 members. Presenting us with the obvious question: why were just 2-3% of the members able / allowed to vote?

But let’s remember some of the tweets from ‘progressives’ celebrating victory!

Coates’ whole essay is an apology for an attempted far Left takeover; and it’s riddled with inaccuracies, misrepresentations and outright lies.

The other members of Melin Drafod’s National Committee seem to be Plaid Cymru members, and others who were involved in the near-destruction of YesCymru in 2021. I’m thinking of Llywelyn ap Gwilym, and Siôn Jobbins, Chair of YesCymru who eventually jumped ship.

Then we have Elin Hywel and Colin Nosworthy of Undod, the source of so much of the poison that almost finished off YesCymru.

And of course there are one or two on the National Committee from the Labour Party.

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WHO’S COMING TO THE SUMMIT AND WHO’S NOT INVITED?

Let’s start by listing those political parties and organisations that are not invited by Melin Drafod (or whoever) to the portentously dubbed ‘Independence Summit’.

First off, there’s the party to which I belong, Gwlad. Then there’s Propel. There’s also the Sovereign Party / Plaid Sofren. So without going too far, we’ve already found three registered political parties, with councillors, made up of serious and experienced people, with all three parties committed to Welsh independence.

So why didn’t Melin Drafod invite them?

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The listed speakers are advertised as follows . . .

‘Anthony Slaughter (Wales Green Party Leader), Adam Price MS (Plaid Cymru Leader), Cllr Rachel Garrick (Welsh Labour for Independence), Sam Coates (Undod), Gwern Evans (YesCymru), Luke Fletcher MS, Mirain Owen (Cymdeithas yr Iaith) and others’.

So let’s begin with Slaughter, and remind everyone that there is no Wales Green Party! There is only the Wales branch of the Green Party of England.

In 2018 Green Party members in Wales had the chance to create a separate Wales Green Party, they voted not to. The main reason for that was that most Green Party members in Wales are English.

Then, last year, the Green Party of England in Wales claimed to be in favour of Welsh independence! Plaid Cymru fell for it and was happy to enter some sort of agreement with them.

No individual, group, or party, sincere about Welsh independence, should even talk to a colonialist outfit that refuses to even recognise the existence of our country.

Plaid Cymru I’ll leave until last.

‘Welsh Labour for Independence’ (WLfI) is another piece of nonsense. Labour is a Unionist party. Any Labour member who wants independence is in the wrong party. Maybe some now realise that.

But is (WLfI) the same as Labour for an Independent Wales (LfIW)? Or, and this is the frightening bit – are there two of them!

During the struggle for YesCymru LfIW was prominent in undermining sensible committee members and replacing them with some real nutters. Working from the shadows was Rob Lloyd of Prestatyn, while out there on the Welshpool barricades was Benji Gwalchmai.

Where are they now? How I miss them!

We already know all we need to know about Sam Coates and Undod.

Luke Fletcher is a Plaid Cymru Senedd Member. With a beard.

YesCymru is represented by Gwern Gwynfil Evans. He was announced as YC’s first-ever full-time CEO in September. The piece I’ve linked to says he has ‘a business background’. Which is true; one of his companies was Dissolved in the very month he was appointed.

Yet he brings another Aberystwyth connection to the party. Which I’ll explore shortly.

Cymdeithas yr Iaith is not worth dwelling on. Hopelessly Woke it overlaps with Undod and other far Left groups like Plaid Cymru’s youth wing, Plaid Ifanc, where pronouns are of paramount importance.

So, finally, let’s give some thought to Plaid Cymru which, in most people’s eyes, is ‘the nationalist party’, and the leading voice for Welsh independence.

On the one hand, Plaid activists seem to be more at home at Gay Pride parades than at marches for independence; while the party is being eaten away from the inside by a combination of back-stabbing and sexual misbehaviour.

The party tries to keep things under wraps but news of the obsession with other people’s ‘bits’ inevitably reaches the public domain.

MS Rhys ab Owen was suspended a few months ago for unwanted sexual advances to a female. But he was only suspended after the party had sat on the case for some time in the hope the complainant would go away.

Last month, the party’s chief executive, Carl Harris, finally stepped down after it emerged he had made unwanted sexual advances to a young party worker.

When it’s like this at the top of the party – and I mean, the very top – then no one should be surprised that lower down the pecking order we find bizarre behaviour.

The image below (which I pixelated) is of someone who works for a Plaid Cymru MS showing what he proposes to do when he catches whoever is behind an anonymous ‘I know what you did!’ Twitter account accusing him of . . .

And, yes, that is a crowbar.

No wonder a former Plaid Cymru Police and Crime Commissioner recently called on party leader Adam Price to resign.

Plaid Cymru is a mess, however you look at it, and from top to bottom. To say it’s lost its way would be wrong . . . for that would suggest Plaid’s leadership in recent decades ever knew where it was going.

I think Plaid Cymru is now too far gone for the change of leadership Arfon Jones calls for to make any difference. My view is that Plaid should do the honest thing and merge with Labour.

They deserve each other.

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RUM, REGGAE, AND ‘AN UNTAINTED, LEFT-WING, WELSH ALTERNATIVE’

I mentioned earlier that Aberystwyth businessman, Gwern Evans, is CEO of YesCymru. And he’s not the only one speaking at the Brangwyn bash from that lovely town where a dashing young blade spent a weekend in the police cells.

Happy days!

For Melin Drafod Chair, Dr Talat Chaudhri is mayor of the town. Also living in Aber’ is secretary Mererid Boswell, and former chair of YesCymru, Siôn Jobbins.

UPDATE: I am indebted to Jon Coles for telling us that Colin Nosworthy is a press officer for Aberystwyth University.

And there may be others with Aberystwyth connections. Not Sam Coates, obviously; not after his chastening experience of stumbling into a gathering of the Llanbadarn chapter of the Afrikaner Broederbond.

However you cut it, Aber’ will be over-represented at this Swansea gig. And then I came across something last week, which is intriguing, but needs an intro.

There is an intermittent column in the Cambrian News by a Gareth James.

This was the piece drawn to my attention, last November. It contained this line: ‘Like it or not, mid Wales is woke, for mid Wales is about sharing mid Wales with everyone’, plus a few passages that the source interpreted as threats against those who refused to accept Wokeness.

Then, a couple of weeks later, came this extraordinary piece calling for Dyfed Powys Police to be more ‘woke’, following what the writer interpreted as racial profiling that targets his sons. (Here in pdf format.)

You’ll also see, at the top of the article ‘The View from the Vaults’, these being the Weston Vaults pub in Aberystwyth. Now renamed Irie’s Rum Bar and Reggae Lounge.

Gareth James, the man in the picture, runs the bar. This piece from the Cambrian News last September makes that clear. What you see above is something of a resurrection, for Irie’s closed in March 2016, apparently for good.

The building that houses the Rum Bar is owned by Cyngor Ceredigion. Do councils normally buy pubs? This other Land Registry title document tells us that a lease was taken out (or taken over) in April 2015 by Irie’s (Aberystwyth) Ltd.

Aberystwyth is a fairly small town, so I’d be surprised if the ‘progressives’ of YesCymru, Melin Drafod, etc, don’t frequent a bar run by a man who wants Plod to be more Woke.

A consideration that brings us to the most recent contribution from Gareth James, that appeared in the Cambrian News last week. (Available here in pdf format.) Also available on Irie’s Blog.

Another long, rambling piece, but when I read the final paragraph a light went on in my head – a new political party that is ‘an untainted, left-wing, Welsh alternative’.

Is Gareth James trying to tell us something?

Is this what Talat Chaudhri, Sam Coates and the rest have in mind? Is this what Melin Drafod is hoping comes out of the Brangwyn Hall meeting?

Whether it’s a new party or simply closer co-operation between existing far Left groups, this Independence Summit looks like another attempt by the far Left to take over the independence movement.

If so, then it becomes the duty of those of us with a broader view of Wales to challenge these people. For if it became accepted among the general public that these fanatics are the only ones wanting independence then Wales is finished.

Independence must promise, and deliver, the inclusivity the far Left always demands of others but never practices itself.

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CONCLUSION

I have warned many times before, and I make no apologies for doing so again, that what these Green-Woke-Leftists want is independence for a small country whose politicians can then be bullied and blackmailed into implementing their fantasies.

This capture from the website of Labour for an Independent Wales reminds us that, for them, independence is simply the route to socialism.

It’ll be something like the Wales we know today: a country falling apart at the seams because weak politicians are dominated by lobbyists, pressure groups and third sector organisations. But it’ll be a hell of a lot worse!

There’ll be nothing in it for you and me, Dai. For our people; or for our Wales.

Blwyddyn Newydd Dda!

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YesCymru: it must be a clean sweep

On 19/07/202130/07/2021 By JacIn Welsh Independence, Yes Cymru33 Comments

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.

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Yes, folks, this is another episode in the ongoing tale of YesCymru. Another report of damage inflicted on the independence movement by a gang of Woke-Left extremists, their assorted hangers-on, others too weak to resist, and a few who thought they could ride the wave for personal advancement.

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UPDATES

In the previous post in this series, YesCymru, light at the end of the tunnel?, I had to add a few updates, so in case you didn’t catch them, here they are. With one snippet I didn’t use as an update.

Siôn Jobbins, long time Chair of YesCymru – and after a couple of weeks AWOL – finally announced he was stepping down within hours of my previous post going live. I am not claiming cause and effect.

Rachel Cooze, one of the Central Committee members elected at the May 22 AGM, resigned after – among other things – it came to light she had used suspended Central Committee member Dr Dilys Davies’ name to offer discounts on her OnlyFans porn site.

Would-be journalist, ‘Emrys’ Price-Jones, was suspended following her very silly article in The National. A redacted version of the article is still available.

The article named Dr Davies, even though her appeal against suspension is still to be heard. ‘Emrys’ also clearly identified, but without naming, the Central Committee member elected at the May 22 AGM who has also been suspended.

I reached out an avuncular and comforting hand, but the offer was politely rejected. (Since deleted?) Though someone in the gang made a suggestion on Twitter that my approach to ‘Emrys’ was creepy, possibly sexually motivated.

Maybe somebody can find the tweet.

Just when you think there’s nothing new to surprise you about these clowns they manage to plumb new depths.

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THE PART WHERE JAC EXPLAINS HOW IT ALL FITS TOGETHER

Bottom line: There was a conspiracy to take over YesCymru. It was mounted by people I shall name below. Marxists and others belonging to the Far Left justifying what they did as being in the cause of, “progressive socialism”.

Facilitated to some degree by fools who think Communism is ‘cool’, some too stupid to appreciate the danger, and others who just proved too weak to mount any opposition.

The conspiracy has failed because too many people were involved; some of them none too bright who gave the game away, others so convinced they were on the side of the angels that they bragged about their involvement.

But over and above that, once you put the facts together – it’s just so obvious!

I shall try to lay it out in chronological order without, I hope, repeating myself too much. But if I do, then it’s justified because previously I have dealt with disparate pieces, whereas this is the near-complete jigsaw.

The genesis of YesCymru can be found in earlier posts. But it’s worth mentioning that among the founders we find Dr Dilys Davies, Siôn Jobbins and Iestyn ap Rhobert.

Inevitably, the Far Left infiltrated YesCymru early on, but an attempt at takeover was rebuffed and the plotters – or some of them – went off to found openly Marxist Undod towards the end of 2018. A group promoting ‘socialism through independence’ or ‘socialism and independence’.

Though the Undod website now reads, rather anaemically: ‘We are a democratic, socialist republican movement established to secure independence for Wales’.

About as ‘democratic’ as the long gone and unlamented German Democratic Republic. (East Germany.)

Perhaps as revenge for the rebuff the Far Left remnant within YesCymru tried to ambush Dr Davies in the autumn of 2019. It was very amateurish and she survived.

The defeat of Jeremy Corbyn in the general election later that year resulted in Momentum taking an interest in Welsh independence. One member, Harriet Protheroe-Soltani, is now YesCymru’s Campaigns Officer, while still serving as an officer of the North West and Wales region of Momentum.

Another, who returned to Wales from London following Corbyn’s fall, is Siwan Clark. It’s claimed she has more ‘sock puppet’ Twitter accounts than anyone. I couldn’t possibly comment.

To clear the way for the Far Left to take control at the May 22 AGM certain people needed to be ‘neutralised’.

In the case of Dr Dilys Davies this was achieved by @AledGwynWiliams (Single ‘l’!) travelling to her properties in Ceredigion and engineering a spat that resulted in complaints being made to the Central Committee by ‘Emrys’, @sheikyerbouti_ and Rachel Cooze. Dr Davies was suspended from the Central Committee and unable to participate in the AGM.

All explained here in ‘Hopes of Welsh independence being jeopardised by the hard left’.

But this Ceredigion foray was part of a bigger scheme.

We’ve met a number of manipulators in this series on YesCymru but one, almost overlooked, whose name has cropped up a few times recently, is moustachioed Robert Lloyd of Prestatyn, President of Labour for an Independent Wales.

Lloyd became head honcho of this group in January this year. And sources say that the plotting to take over YesCymru began soon afterwards. Plotting in which Lloyd played a bigger hand than he has previously been given credit for.

And you know me, I’m all for giving credit where credit is due.

What’s crucial for the purposes of this article is Lloyd’s role in the run-up to the May 22 AGM, his part in selecting who served on the Central Committee. And I’m sure it will interest you, as well.

Lloyd recently confessed on Twitter that he had indeed been involved in a group that brought together those of a certain ideological disposition seeking to ensure that the incoming Central Committee was to their liking.

This ” . . . very loose campaign, but ultimately a successful one” (note the use of ‘campaign’) pulled together serving Central Committee Members, retiring Central Committee members, and candidates seeking election to the Central Committee for the first time.

In the first category we find Llywelyn ap Gwilym, Elin Hywel and Carys Eleri. In the second there’s Mark Hooper. While in the ranks of the hopefuls, bright of eye and bushy of tail, were Ben Gwalchmai and Rachel Cooze.

These Signal app meetings were set up to delete everything after 5 minutes, and so that option proved unsuitable. Future meetings were held on Zoom, and a fresh initiate was Scott Mackay of Swansea. (Endorsed by Aled Gwyn Wiliams.)

It was now that ap Gwilym and Hooper pushed the “Iestyn must go” line and urged everyone to support Shane Brennan for Secretary. This proved unnecessary because Iestyn ap Rhobert withdrew from the race.

But Lloyd fits into none of the three categories – so why was he there? Who was he representing? Obviously, Labour for an Independent Wales, which I have previously described as about as convincing as DUP for a United Ireland.

Lab4Indy overlaps with Momentum and links with Undod. There are fellow-travellers in Plaid Cymru, especially its youth wing, Plaid Ifanc. There has also – believe it or not – been a Far Left takeover of Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg (the Welsh Language Society).

But YesCymru was the big prize due to its 18,500 members and the ‘reach’ such a figure gave the organisation.

Of course a membership of that size also presented problems for the Marxist plotters. Selecting and screening Woke-Left candidates for the Central Committee in secret meetings was one thing, but an open and fair election at the AGM, with all members voting, could have undone all the plotting.

To guarantee the election of those they’d chosen the Woke-Left ensured that as few members as possible would be able to vote at the May 22 AGM.

The leaders of the takeover plot were Robert Lloyd, Ben Gwalchmai, Mark Hooper, and Llywelyn ap Gwilym. Representing Undod, Labour/Momentum, and the Leannista wing of Plaid Cymru.

Some of the foot-soldiers, hangers-on and social media warriors I’ve already listed, but there were others. A few too many for the plot to succeed.

Many have justified the takeover as ‘protecting YesCymru from ‘fascism”. Just as the Soviets were fighting ‘fascism’ and ‘revisionism’ when they put down the Hungarian Rising of ’56 and the ‘Prague Spring’ in ’68.

Perhaps the biggest worry in that comparison should be that Marxism prefers big units and is invariably hostile to the aspirations of small nations unless pretending to support those aspirations can be used to promote Marxism.

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Footnote: Vice-president of @Lab4IndyWales is our old friend Martyn J Shrewsbury. A source points out that both Lloyd and Shrewsbury might have escaped prison terms.

In his case, in 2014, the magistrate was amazed that Lloyd had not been charged with dangerous driving. If he had been, and if he had been found guilty, then he might not have gone to Cardiff University.

Shrewsbury is a convicted fraudster who escaped jail. (Strangely, the link to the court case is broken.) After causing disruption in the Green Party of Englandandwales for a few years he moved to the Labour Party, and of course Momentum. Shrewsbury had quite a reputation for fake social media accounts.

Read more about Shrewsbury here, in ‘Plaid Cymru’s enemy within‘. In fact, type his name in the sidebar search box because he’s appeared on this blog a few times.

President and Vice-president of Labour for an Independent Wales both dealt with leniently by the authorities with subsequent careers as political wreckers is obviously just a coincidence.

But what are the odds?

UPDATE 30.07.2021: A link to the Shrewsbury conviction has turned up.

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THE COUP SUCCEEDS

The high point for the plotters was around mid-day on May 22, just after the AGM, when their supporters were putting out celebratory tweets like these.

It’s been downhill for them ever since.

For it soon dawned on YesCymru members that the new Central Committee had been elected with the votes of some two per cent of the total membership. (Many members didn’t even know there was an election!) Not even in the socialist Utopias dreamed of by the plotters would such a blatant con have been pulled.

Then it was one revelation after another, indiscretions followed with vile attacks as the plotters and their foot-soldiers were put on the defensive. (Did anyone really believe this woman would be an asset to YesCymru? Or was she brought in to be a wrecker?)

Where were the Minutes? Why couldn’t members see detailed and independently audited accounts?

Regarding the latter, there was a growing suspicion that YesCymru money was being appropriated by Central Committee members, or being diverted to their friends.

A suspicion that began on the day of the AGM. Encouraged by another celebratory tweet; this one from re-elected Central Committee member Tori West.

Recently, London-based West went on strike. How a Central Committee member withdraws their labour is not clear. But anyway, she’s back.

As I’ve said, the pressure on the Central Committee has been relentless, and it has increased week on week. To the point where the Central Committee was forced to agree to a meeting with the branches, which took place on July 13.

I’m not sure what purpose the Central Committee thought the meeting would serve. Was it intended to be a show of strength? An attempt at reconciliation?

I can’t answer those questions. What I can tell you is that from the Central Committee’s perspective it was a disaster.

To begin with, and in an obvious attempt to show that there were branches siding with the Central Committee, those attending the meeting were entertained by . . .

Aled Gwyn Wiliams, tormentor of Dr Dilys Davies, and a veritable keyboard samurai. (Though he’s a bit too fond of the saké and often has to do a lot of deleting the morning after.) He was there representing YesCymru Maesteg. Reports says he waffled without contributing anything.

Then there was ‘Kemp’ who set up @YesYBynie because she didn’t want to mix with all those horrid transphobes and fascists in the thriving Llanelli branch of YesCymru. This Bynea ‘branch’ is just her, and therefore should not be regarded as a branch.

Aware of this she put out a sorry tweet a couple of months ago hoping to rope in waifs and strays. I wonder if anybody answered the call?

Someone else who spoke was Central Committee member Ben Gwalchmai – on behalf of the Welshpool branch! This should not have been allowed.

The letter sent to the branches promised that two members of the Central Committee would be in attendance. In fact, they were all there. Well, those who haven’t resigned or been suspended.

Seeing as ‘Emrys’ is suspended, and his deranged deputy at YesCymru LGBTQ+, ‘George Brown’ has presumably been locked in the attic, being fed through a hatch at the bottom of the door, it fell to young Tyler Griffiths to represent this section.

He did not impress. After ranting about a suspended Central Committee member running ‘sock puppet’ Twitter accounts he didn’t really have a lot to say.

Llywelyn ap Gwilym remained largely silent and seemed to wish he were somewhere else. Whilst Elin Hywel did not enhance her reputation with a number of rather silly comments.

The good news from last Tuesday’s meeting is that most genuine branches want an Extraordinary General Meeting and fresh elections to the Central Committee.

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AND FINALLY . . .

As was reported on Politics Wales yesterday, there’s a lot of crazy stuff flying around on social media. I can state with confidence that 80 to 90 per cent of it comes from defenders of the takeover. And participants therein.

One of the leaders in the field is Rachel Cooze who put the knife into Dr Davies and anybody else she took a dislike to – including me! First, by telling my Twitter followers that I was a fascist and a transphobe, and suggesting they unfollow me. (Which about 40 or 50 did, but now I have more followers than before her attack!)

Then, she came out with a bizarre – and actionable – claim that former YesCymru Secretary, Iestyn ap Rhobert, had been feeding me confidential information. I can swear on a stack of Bibles that the claim is untrue.

I assumed that she had dreamt it up, or been fed it by one of her poisonous consœurs. But then, last week, along came @YupCymru. One of the weirdest accounts to appear in this saga.

Mention has been made of ‘sock puppet’ Twitter accounts, which are shell accounts used by people wanting to hide their identity and/or pretend that their position has more support than is truly the case.

But @YupCymru, now closed, was different.

To begin with, it was opened in 2013, before YesCymru was even thought of, and there were only ten or a dozen tweets until very recently. Yet this almost inactive account made the same allegation on April 29 of Iestyn ap Rhobert leaking me information.

So who was @YupCymru?

It’s a question many are asking because in a brief flurry of activity before closing the account @YupCymru also released confidential YesCymru documents. To wit, the Minutes of the Dr Dilys Davies disciplinary hearing held on May 5.

This hearing was a kangaroo court. The decision to suspend Dr Davies had already been taken by the plotters named earlier. She had to be removed before the AGM because she was a threat to their plans and would certainly have opposed the two motions the plotters had framed.

The Minutes are already in the public domain so I feel able to offer them here.

It’s a strange business. One minute (no pun intended) @YupCymru was fighting for the takeover gang, attacking Iestyn ap Rhobert and me; and then, by releasing the Minutes, seems to be trying to damage YesCymru.

I suppose any investigation will have to start by asking who had copies of or access to those Minutes.

For this breach of security and confidentiality is a serious business. And it’s not the only example we’ve seen recently of unauthorised or unlawful use of confidential YesCymru information.

Perhaps attributable to the fact that those who mounted the coup, and those who support them, know that their time is running out. Of course, they can’t accept that the fightback is coming from ordinary members who want to welcome everybody to a broad-based movement working for Welsh independence.

No, it has to be a fascist takeover. Because anybody who doesn’t agree with these lunatics is a fascist. That’s one of the big mistakes they’ve made – absurd slanders alienating so many decent people.

But then, when you dream of driving a Red Army tank along the boulevards of Budapest or Prague this intolerance of differing views will often betray you.

It’s alleged that ‘Arson Sam’ is one of Siwan Clark’s many sock puppet accounts. Now putting her Momentum experience to the service of the Far Left in YesCymru. Click to enlarge.

Where now for YesCymru?

It would be absurd to suggest that all those involved in the takeover of YesCymru are working for the British state. Equally absurd would be to think that the British state would ignore a movement with 18,000 members pushing for Welsh independence.

The damage done is so severe that none of those responsible for the coup or supportive of it can be allowed to stay. If they don’t resign they must be removed.

There must then be a fresh start with a more professional structure in place to ensure it can’t happen again. Otherwise YesCymru is as good as finished.

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YesCymru, light at the end of the tunnel?

On 09/07/202112/07/2021 By JacIn Yes Cymru51 Comments

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At the risk of overworking clichés, YesCymru has become the gift that keeps on giving. In fact, it is developing into a veritable cornucopia of source material.

The reason for this is now obvious. There is a group of people within (and some outside) YesCymru who have persuaded themselves that they can say and do whatever they like with no repercussions.

They have been encouraged in this belief, first, by the ease with which they were allowed to take over YesCymru, and then, by the lack of opposition from politicians and mainstream media to their insane views on society, politics and gender.

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IF YOU’RE NEW TO THE SAGA . . .

YesCymru was born ~~on a cold and gray Chicago morn~~ in 2014 out of Welsh support for Scottish independence. The group was officially launched in February 2016, and I gave it my backing in this piece, ‘YESCymru Launch Rally 20.02.2016‘.

As is the fate of all such groups, the Far Left soon tried to muscle in and subvert a cross-party and non-ideological group.

The initial attempt was thwarted, which resulted in certain individuals leaving and, towards the end of 2018, forming Undod, offering ‘Radical Independence for Wales’. It was soon clear that Undod was a Marxist organisation whose members turned up for any kind of protest.

Inevitably, Undod also attracted – and welcomed – Marxists with no real interest in Wales, let alone independence. For these, Wales was just another stage on which to perform, and independence another ishoo to exploit.

One of these recruits was Siwan Clark. For soon after her hero Jeremy Corbyn lost the December 2019 general election she left London to return to Cardiff. In this tweet, put out 11 days before this year’s AGM, she helpfully explains the genesis of Undod.

Clark is of course a member of Momentum, the Marxist party within a party that cost Labour so many seats in December 2019. And now Clark has brought her winning formula to Wales!

What could possibly go wrong?

To prepare the way for the takeover completed at the May 22 AGM certain people, resistant to the Marxists and the Wokies, needed to be removed. Among them, Dr Dilys Davies.

Dr Davies had been attacked earlier, in September 2019, for defending Germaine Greer’s views on sex and gender. (Or at least, that was the excuse used.) I dealt with it here in, ‘Misogyny, bullying? Depends who’s doing it‘.

The attack was renewed at Easter-time this year when Aled Gwyn Williams went down to Ceredigion to engineer the excuse for more complaints – from Aled’s cronies – that would be used to get Dr Davies suspended from the Central Committee.

This I dealt with in ‘Hopes of Welsh independence being jeopardised by the hard left’.

In the tweet above, from around April 23, Siwan Clark helpfully confirms that there was indeed a campaign against Dr Dilys Davies by, “Welsh trans people and their allies”. Code for, ‘Hard Left and their Woke dupes’.

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POTS, KETTLES, AND OTHER NEWS

These Woke-Left extremists do not provide much in the way of humour. Understandable, for they count many swivel-eyed fanatics in their ranks.

Which means that what laughs they do provide are entirely unintentional. Here’s a recent example from Twitter. It’s Aled again!

It’s difficult to think of any group that has posted more ‘mad shit’ on Welsh Twitter in recent years than Aled Gwyn Williams and his gang.

Though as I may have remarked in recent postings, Aled and his fan club are much less active now. They either post innocuous stuff or else their accounts are protected. The suggestion is that they’re using private chat rooms . . . where no doubt the ‘mad shit’ still fills the ether.

But wherever they are, Aled can’t kick the selfies on Twitter: ‘This is me!’, ‘Look at me!’, ‘Look what I’m doing!’.

If anybody loves Aled half as much as Aled loves Aled then Aled is a very lucky boy.

Aled’s mate ‘BVB’ has also forsaken Twitter, having lately realised that it is “vile”. This is priceless.

For when they ruled social media, when they could slag off good people with impunity, Aled and his gang thought Twitter was the best thing since Leanne Wood becoming leader of Plaid Cymru.

But now, as more and more people realise what a pernicious influence this gang has been for too long, it becomes, ‘Oooh, nasty people on Twitter answering back’.

A case of biter bit. And he doesn’t like it. Click to enlarge

Lest we forget, here are two gems put out not so long ago, on Twitter, by ‘BVB’. Did somebody say ‘Mad shit’?

In other news . . .

A bizarre article appear on The National website last Saturday. I knew it was going to be a treat when I saw that the author was our young friend, ‘Emrys’ Price-Jones, Chair of YesCymru’s LGBTQ+ Committee.

‘Emrys’ has a deputy, even more off the wall than her. I’m referring now to ‘George Brown’. Here are some of their recent tweets, to give you a flavour of this dysfunctional duo.

I have to be careful how I word what follows because lawyers are involved, and old Jac has had his fill of those buggers. Anyway, here’s the article from The National as it now reads on the site. But that’s not how it originally appeared.

You’ll see that certain comments have been deleted. This is because they addressed parts of the original article that were soon removed by The National. But not before the article, in its original format, had been endorsed and retweeted by YesCymru.

In the section taken down ‘Emrys’ was candid enough to confirm that he was one of the complainants against Dr Davies a few months back. He even spelled out that the whole charade was staged to engineer her suspension, thereby ensuring that Dr Davies could not stand for election to the Central Committee at the May 22 AGM.

The redacted section also libelled, without naming, but clearly identifying, the woman referred to above by ‘George Brown’ in such vile terms.

Make no mistake: this article was a deliberate attempt to prejudice hearings that are yet to take place; hearings involving Dr Dilys Davies and the other woman identified in the article.

Thankfully, apart from a few ‘wonderful article’ comments from a few people, including ‘BVB’, most comments were hostile. Here’s a good example.

The Central Committee member so grossly abused by ‘George Brown’ in the tweet above complained to Jess Harvey, YesCymru’s Diversity and Inclusivity Officer. The complainant was fobbed off with, “I know George from Plaid Pride. This is very uncharacteristic of them. I’ll have a chat with them!” (Note the pronouns.)

On the contrary, it’s all too characteristic of ‘George Brown’, and Jess Harvey must know it.

Yet this episode reminds us that Jessica – formerly Matthew – Harvey left Plaid Pride in April. ‘George’ left around the same time. Both seem to have decided that YesCymru offered more scope for their intolerant, cultist approach to trans issues; and gave them more freedom to slag off good people as TERFs, transphobes and fascists.

For while earlier forays had established a bridgehead for the Woke-Left, the war on diversity of opinion intensified once YesCymru had a Diversity Officer.

I’m assured that legal action is actively being pursued against those involved with the writing and publication of that heinous article, and other examples of defamation and intimidation. The police are involved.

I can understand why YesCymru Chair Siôn Jobbins has closed his Twitter account.

UPDATE: Siôn Jobbins resigned around mid-day. Here’s the statement he put out.

UPDATE: I am informed that ‘Emrys’ was suspended late this afternoon. Which I assume prompted this rather plaintive tweet.

UPDATE 12.07.2021: ‘Emrys’ has confirmed that she has been suspended. Does this mean that the lunatic ‘George Brown’ is now acting Chair?

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SLAPPERS, MINUTES, MONEY

As if YesCymru doesn’t have enough problems with police and lawyers, more problems are piling up with questions about how YC is organised and regulated. And where the money is going.

On the day of the AGM, London-based Central Committee member Tori West put out this intriguing tweet.

Suspicions grow that ‘Welsh creatives’ (and indeed, non-Welsh creatives) already had their fingers in the YesCymru pie when that tweet went out.

Such as whoever created this eyebrow-raising, toe-curling, stomach-churning, vomit-inducing little video. If you haven’t yet seen it, I suggest you sit down before watching.

We’ll deal with the images in a minute, but let’s focus first on the ‘lyrics’: “England, I know you love me / And I love you too”. What the fuck is that supposed to be saying?

Is anyone claiming the credit!

And why does ‘Wales’ have to be a buxom slapper on a night out down Wind Street?

I know we complain that Wales has been shafted by England for centuries, but did it have to be so graphically illustrated? And seeing as it was, shouldn’t it have come with some kind of warning?

Who the hell commissioned this? Who agreed to pay for it? And who made it?

The answer to the last question I’m told is BAK, a Cardiff company. They look like the kind of ‘creatives’ Tori West may have been thinking of. But there is no company called BAK. We need to look for Capsizing Creative Ltd, formed just last October.

The sole director is Memet Ali Alabora. A Turkish actor and playwright who fled his homeland – with his wife – when it was alleged a play of his had encouraged riots in 2013. He is now a British citizen.

Those involved at BAK are either Turkish or Welsh and, in fairness, Alabora and his wife seem to have taken to Wales, the language, perhaps even the independence cause. But nothing can justify that video. And how many others of that execrable standard has BAK turned out for YesCymru?

I’m even told that the singer is Central Committee member Carys Eleri. Is that true?

Finding out how much that video cost to produce, and how much YesCymru money has found its way to BAK, or anyone else, may not be easy because there are increasing claims that YC’s accounts are either unreliable or unavailable.

Similar claims are made for the Minutes of Central Committee and other meetings.

Another cause for concern might be Ymgyrch Yes Cyf. This being the private company that holds the rights to the YesCymru trademark. Until this year’s AGM the company had four directors. Two resigned because they were no longer officials of YesCymru.

This left just Chair Siôn Jobbins and Treasurer Gwyn Llewelyn. But with Jobbins AWOL this means that the company is in breach of Article 10 of its own Articles of Association, which says there must be 2 directors for a meeting to be quorate.

There are other matters being raised of a similar nature. It looks chaotic.

◊

DENOUEMENT?

The prevailing mood among members has increased the pressure on the Central Committee and that pressure is certainly telling.

A grassroots revolt, with branches demanding face-to-face meetings with the CC, resulted in this e-mail going out yesterday. It’s signed, in the absence of Siôn Jobbins, by his deputy, Sarah Rees.

It confirms that there will be a meeting of the local groups and the Central Committee on Tuesday.

You’ll note there are certain things that cannot be discussed at the meeting “due to legal reasons”. I bet there are! I just hope that whoever represents the Central Committee doesn’t use that as an excuse to clam up on everything.

And it will be interesting to see who does represent the Central Committee at Tuesday’s meeting.

The victory of the Woke-Left has been short-lived because they were too arrogant and self-obsessed to appreciate that taking over the Central Committee in a rigged AGM would be resented by the great majority of YesCymru members.

Members who want to prioritise independence, and welcome into YesCymru all those who share that view, irrespective of political loyalty and ideological alignment.

For YesCymru to get back on track most of the Central Committee must be removed. The same goes for Diversity and Inclusivity Officer Jessica Harvey, and Campaigns Officer Harriet Protheroe-Soltani (of Momentum).

Unless swift and firm action is taken YesCymru as an organisation could find itself paying – literally! – for the disgusting and criminal behaviour of a few dozen people. That would not be fair on thousands and thousands of decent people.

If YesCymru is to be saved, those wanting to save it must be ruthless. Cut the guilty loose and let them fend for themselves. They’ve already done enough damage.

♦ end ♦

YesCymru, the beginning of the end?

On 25/05/202127/05/2021 By JacIn Yes Cymru47 Comments

I’M IN SEMI-RETIREMENT AND THIS BLOG IS WINDING DOWN. I INTEND CALLING IT A DAY SOON AFTER THIS YEAR’S SENEDD ELECTIONS. POSTINGS WILL NOW BE LESS FREQUENT AND I WILL NOT UNDERTAKE ANY MAJOR NEW INVESTIGATIONS. DIOLCH YN FAWR.

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After recent postings on YesCymru it’s time to analyse what happened at last Saturday’s AGM before considering where it might lead.

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DEMOCRACY AND THE LEFT

Let me start by spelling out what happened. And then explain why.

In a nutshell: the left, operating from its bases in Undod and elsewhere, captured YesCymru using its woke ‘guerrillas’ advancing under the smokescreen of ‘diversity’.

Among themselves the leftists justify both the coup and the future direction of travel by claiming that ‘Wales is a socialist country’. A claim supported by pointing to the fact that most of us vote for Labour and Plaid Cymru. Which in turn depends on accepting that a) these parties are indeed socialist and b) all who vote for them are socialists.

Which is just one misconception piled upon another.

While Plaid Cymru could credibly be called a socialist party Labour can be anything you want it to be, certainly the Welsh branch of the party.

As for the voters, most of those who vote Labour in Wales do so out of self-interest, believing Labour will keep taxes low, benefits high, while looking after the NHS. These Labour voters tend to be social conservatives, and most voted for Brexit.

Plaid Cymru is more obviously socialist than Labour, but the distance between the party policy-makers and the party’s voters may be greater than in Labour. People from across the ideological spectrum vote for Plaid Cymru because they want independence, while others – especially in western areas – vote for the party because they see it as the party that best supports the Welsh language.

So, only a minority of those who vote for Labour and Plaid Cymru are socialists. With self-identifying socialists increasingly concentrated in an anti-Brexit, climate conscious, gender-obsessed middle class bubble that every year drifts further away from most Labour and Plaid Cymru voters.

To the point where many on the ‘Welsh’ left now identify better with the English middle class and the metropolitan elite than with working class Welsh people.

It’s important to stress that the Conservative Party does not have this problem. People know exactly what they’re voting for because it does what it says on the tin. (This greatly annoys the left . . . but they still don’t get it!)

The reality of the mismatch was brought home to the comrades in the Plaid Cymru leadership contest of September 2018, when the socialist candidate, and then leader, Leanne Wood, came a poor third in a three-horse race.

That election was open to all members of the party. The left has not made the same mistake again.

In the Plaid Cymru party conference held in Swansea just over a year later only those present in the venue – just over 500 people – were allowed to vote. (And it was ensured that the ‘right’ people were in attendance.)

I covered these shenanigans in ‘Plaid Cymru, where to now?’

Which meant that most party members were effectively disenfranchised even though a postal ballot could easily have been organised, as was done with the leadership contest the previous year.

The scheming involved was so obvious that academic and writer Seimon Brooks was moved to compare the 2019 result with that of the previous year. While Alwyn ap Huw described the machinations as a Stalinist coup.

“2021 Plaid Government”. 🤣 Click to enlarge

These Plaid Cymru votes from 2018 and 2019 explain why YesCymru did not allow a postal ballot for the Central Committee elections and motions submitted to last Saturday’s AGM.

Instead, debate was restricted to 400 or so logged in to the online deliberations. Representing less than 3% of the 18,500 members.

Yes, Alwyn, another Stalinist coup.

Though, as you know, I’m a generous old bugger, so I’ll give YesCymru a chance to explain why it couldn’t organise a postal ballot.

I don’t expect an answer because I already know it – the left cannot afford open and fair elections because it knows it will lose.

Proving that there is nothing new in all the world. For this is how the old Communist Party used to operate in places I worked over 50 years ago. Call a meeting at short notice, at a time and place awkward for most people but for which your people are ready. At the meeting, control the agenda, decide who can and can’t speak, and then – make sure you count the votes.

What the left did with Plaid Cymru in October 2019 and YesCymru last Saturday is the old Communist Party playbook updated for the 21st century.

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BRAVE NEW WORLD

You’ll get a good idea of what sort of people support the takeover from celebratory tweets put out very soon after the AGM. Here are a couple for you to savour.

To explain . . .

‘TERF’ means trans-exclusionary radical feminist. A silly and insulting term used to describe any woman who refuses to accept a man with penis and testicles as a woman. In other words, the attitude of most people in the real world.

This is the term that has been constantly used in the recent attacks on Dr Dilys Davies and Plaid Cymru’s Helen Mary Jones.

“Fashy phobes” means fascist transphobes. Because of course, in the black and white world of these fanatics, if you don’t agree with them then you must be a fascist. A transphobe is anyone – usually a man – who agrees with the ‘TERFs’. Roughly 95% of the population.

As of Saturday, who’s running the show?

Three of the four officers are: Siôn Jobbins (Chair); Sarah Rees (Vice-Chair); and Gwyn Llewelyn (Treasurer); all of whom were returned unopposed.

Though Jobbins may not be as secure as being returned unopposed might suggest. Someone sent me this tweet, posted on the very day of the AGM. As you’ll see, @thbuff98 was in an exchange with ‘BVB’, who appears in the panel above.

Jobbins may be too easy-going, and has perhaps not appreciated the approaching danger; so it might be karma if he is the left’s next victim. Though I’m sure he has no connection with the political party Gwlad.

Will this be the excuse used to remove him?

I can’t tell you a lot about Shane Brennan because his election statement to the members has been taken down. Perhaps because he became a shoo-in for Secretary after Iestyn ap Rhobert withdrew.

Though I do know that he first came to Wales to study at Aberystwyth, joined Plaid Cymru around twenty years ago, went home to England to work for a few years, before coming back to Wales to take a job in finance.

He was the Plaid Cymru candidate in the 2011 Assembly elections for the Alyn and Deeside constituency, and supported Leanne Wood for the party leadership.

Now let’s introduce the other members of the Central Committee. I shall do this by providing a link to their election statement supplemented perhaps by a comment.

Most of these statements contain a link to a video by the candidate.

CARYS ELERI (re-elected) Seems to be a performing artist with a YouTube channel.

LLYWELYN AP GWILYM (re-elected) Is the son of Eurfyl ap Gwilym (of Paxman interview fame). I don’t know if he’s in a relationship with Carys Eleri but his Twitter account carries the quote: “A wonderful human” – @caryseleri.

NIKITA JONES May be one of the more rational among the new intake. Certainly, in her favour is the fact that the wokie jackal pack turned on her just before the AGM. This is often a good sign. Time will tell.

BEN GWALCHMAI Seems to be the head honcho of that bizarre outfit, Labour for an Independent Wales. About as convincing as ‘DUP for a United Ireland’.

As I’ve pointed out before, Labour for an Independent Wales is quite clear about its objective: “Socialism through independence”. Meaning independence is only desirable if it delivers socialism.

Does that mean that if an independent Wales votes to not be socialist Gwalchmai and his mates will campaign for re-joining whatever is left of the UK? Especially if there’s a Labour government in Westminster?

TORI WEST (re-elected) Is another artist. In this ‘get to know . . . ‘ piece from Dazed digital magazine in June 2020 there’s no mention of Wales, let alone Welsh independence. Which is odd, seeing as West was on the YC Central Committee.

(But then, as a number of people have pointed out, independence wasn’t mentioned during Saturday’s AGM either.)

Soon after the AGM West put out this rather worrying tweet.

Spare a thought for “marginalised Welsh creatives”. 😥

I describe it as worrying because a possible motive for takeover I’ve avoided mentioning until now – despite numerous people suggesting it – is YesCymru’s money. The balance sheet given at the AGM showed an annual income of £365,413, expenditure of £156,792; with almost £198,348 in the bank, and stock valued at £23,500.

(As one of those “marginalised Welsh creatives” I shall of course be applying for a grant.)

ANDREW O’BRIEN Comes from Port Talbot, he’s a Swans fan (which is obviously in his favour), and seems to want independence with no distractions. Time will tell.

RACHEL COOZE Perhaps the kindest thing to say about Rachel Cooze is that she comes from Swansea. Other than that, she seems to have ordered every dish on the Woke menu. To the point where she now sees YesCymru as the agency to rid Wales of the fascists, racists, transphobes, etc that are everywhere. Everywhere!

Cooze appeared prominently in an earlier post, ‘Hopes of Welsh independence being jeopardised by the hard left’.

ELIN HYWEL Seems to live a relatively quiet life. She has written for far left Undod (not encouraging) but I can’t tell you much more about her.

UPDATE 27.05.2021: This tweet, and the fact that is was re-tweeted by Mark Hooper, strongly suggests that Elin Hywel also belongs to the woke left.

In addition, YesCymru now has two full-time officials. One, the Diversity and Inclusion Officer, Jessica (formerly Matthew) Harvey, is a transsexual woman. While the other, the Campaigns Officer, is Harriet Protheroe-Soltani, of Momentum.

They complement each other perfectly because the issue nowadays for the far left is ‘transsexual rights’. With the Labour Campaign for Trans Rights being controlled by hard left Momentum.

The AGM also agreed to create an Equality and Diversity Sub-committee.

Why no place for straight white bloggers?

Put it all together and if it doesn’t convince you of the direction YesCymru is headed, then you must be a bit dim or part of the problem.

Or maybe this will help. Put out late last night by the ‘Communalism or Barbarism’ Twitter account.

First, it somehow conflates the left’s takeover of YesCymru with the recent Senedd elections, and presents the result in the manner of a Wikipedia entry on a war or a battle.

Some of the ‘combatants’ are unknown to me, and I’m not sure that all those on the side of the left would welcome their inclusion in those ranks.

Like those behind it, it’s puerile, amusing, even superficially clever; but it doesn’t stand up to scrutiny.

Though it confirms and celebrates that the left has taken over YesCymru . . . but justifies it by arguing that YC has been saved from fascism!

For as I suggested earlier, when dealing with these extremists you soon learn that everyone who opposes them, and everyone they attack, is a fascist. So that makes it OK.

‘Fascist’ has been devalued to a catch-all term for a political opponent. I’m not sure who benefits from this devaluation, except perhaps, genuine fascists.

Here’s a link to a pdf version of the tweet.

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BEGINNING OF THE END?

Regular readers will know that I’m not a big fan of Nation.Cymru, but my attention was drawn to something published on that site last Saturday, almost certainly to coincide with the YesCymru AGM.

Penned by Ifan Morgan Jones it had the catchy title: The big question YesCymru needs to answer is: ‘What went right in 2020?’ The important section is worth quoting in full:

“I think that changing YesCymru’s central tenet as a neutral movement would be a big mistake, for a few reasons:

Firstly, while I agree that independence for the sake of it would be pointless, no kind of independence is independence for the sake of it. Any kind would transfer more democratic power away from an established political elite at Westminster and into the hands of the people of Wales. There is no independence ‘for the sake of it’ – it’s a massive constitutional upheaval in itself and will radically change how Wales is run. Either that is, in and of itself, a fundamentally good idea or YesCymru should stop campaigning now because nothing beyond that is guaranteed.

Secondly, because nothing beyond independence is guaranteed, no one can honestly promise a single vision of an independent Wales to the people of the nation. The future ideological direction of an independent Wales would be chosen by the people of Wales, at a Senedd election after the referendum, not by any promises made by YesCymru beforehand. As much as I would personally like to see a socialist, progressive independent Wales, that’s dependent not just on independence but the public deciding, in an independent Wales, to throw their weight behind socialist, progressive parties.

Thirdly, there is no guarantee that selling a particular ideological vision to the people of Wales would be in any way effective. While everyone in YesCymru may have an idea of what a post-independence Wales would look like, they’re likely to all have different ones, and backing one of them would alienate others. As Plaid Cymru demonstrated at the recent Senedd election, voters don’t necessarily want a laundry list of specific promises. In fact, the party with the vaguest manifesto of all ended up winning.”

The fraction of YesCymru members that voted at Saturday’s AGM didn’t heed those wise words. Those who now control YesCymru intend promoting a plethora of diversionary concerns, and independence will soon be relegated to just another issue, or dropped altogether.

You’ve already read Tori West suggesting that those in control start divvying up the YesCymru money among their friends. Sorry! “marginalised Welsh creatives”.

Someone else quick off the blocks was ‘Kemp’, of @YesYBynie.

Can anyone explain what this has to do with the campaign for an independent Wales? And where will the money come from to pay ‘contributors’? (And I bet there’ll be no mention of Abram Wood.)

As I’ve said before, Yes Y Bynie (Bynea) is a one-woman show, set up because she found YesCymru Llanelli to be uncongenial, as it’s membership is made up of level-headed people who want to focus on independence.

But perhaps the most important reason that YesCymru is heading down a blind alley is because of recent developments around protected characteristics and related matters.

To explain (as best I can) . . .

I’m sure you’ve heard of Stonewall. In recent years this LGBTQ+ organisation has built up a great business advising government departments, police forces, universities, private companies, and other bodies on matters sexual and gender related.

But recent developments have exposed Stonewall to be both partisan and dishonest.

The problem is one that Stonewall brought on itself by becoming fixated with trans issues. Sound familiar?

Stonewall’s promotion of ‘trans rights’ resulted in academics being ‘no-platformed’, feminists and others being hounded as ‘TERFs’ and ‘transphobes’, and lies being told about ‘persecution’ suffered by trans people.

It all came crashing down last week with a number of announcements. These included:

Stonewall had been telling lies to Essex University. This resulted in the university being forced into apologising to two academics for them being no-platformed following protests by trans extremists egged on by Stonewall.

As this article from the Spectator put it: “Both professors Jo Phoenix and Rosa Freedman have views which accord with our current laws on gender identity”. But Stonewall was deliberately misinterpreting the law to serve its trans agenda.

Other organisations severed their links with Stonewall and yesterday the Guardian, in this report, told us that the Equality and Human Rights Commission would no longer be linked to Stonewall’s Diversity Champions programme.

You know how far Stonewall has fallen when it tries to get a Black lesbian lawyer sacked.

And so it was no surprise to read that the Stonewall UK media director was standing back due to a ‘tsunami of transphobia’. The truth is of course that he’s leaving because Stonewall has been caught out in lies.

But that can’t be admitted, so it has to be ‘transphobia’. Which, if you think about it, should be a reason for staying, because isn’t ‘transphobia’ what Stonewall is fighting?

It would be reasonable therefore to conclude that Stonewall has capitulated.

At the head of this section, and in the title of this posting, I suggest that YesCymru could be heading for the rocks, and there are two main reasons for me thinking this.

First, following the AGM, YesCymru is firmly under the control of ishoo-mongers, obsessives, and the hard left. These will insist on YC fighting on many different fronts, thereby dissipating its energies and making enemies unnecessarily.

Second, the one issue that unites the dangerous and intolerant fanatics that hounded Helen Mary Jones and Dr Dilys Davies, the jackal pack that piles in on its victims, is ‘trans rights’. That’s because the hard left has weaponised this issue.

With the left having relied on Stonewall for guidance and credibility, and Stonewall now itself discredited, dismissing legitimate critics of certain trans lunacies as TERFs and transphobes will no longer work. The scam is exposed.

Put the two together and we see that the present Central Committee is now on the wrong side of history. But it’s still a tragedy for YesCymru. That said, those at the top had plenty of warnings, and time enough to lance the boil.

Perhaps Ifan Morgan Jones should start working on, ‘The big question YesCymru needs to answer is: “What went wrong in 2021?”‘

♦ end ♦

Misogyny, bullying? Depends who’s doing it

On 29/09/201916/10/2019 By JacIn Cardiff Bay, Corruption, Welsh Assembly, Welsh Independence, Welsh Nationalism104 Comments

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

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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!

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.)

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.

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’.

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?

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?

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!

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.

Click to enlarge

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.

Brexit, Boris, Nigel . . . and independence!

On 22/07/201922/07/2019 By JacIn Brexit, British Nationalism, Corruption, Devolution, Englandandwales, English Nationalism, Labour Party, Plaid Cymru, Third Sector, Welsh Government, Welsh Independence, Welsh Labour, Welsh Nationalism73 Comments

♦

CONFESSIO

Regular readers will know that I voted for Brexit back in June 2016. I did so for the reasons I set out in EU Referendum: Why I Want OUT! which was followed in celebratory mood with Brexit, Wexit: Things Can Only Get Better!

The clue to my motivation lies in my use of the word ‘Wexit’, for I believed then, and I believe even more strongly today, that Brexit, especially a disastrous and damaging Brexit, can lead to Welsh independence. And Welsh independence is my priority; more important by far than membership of the EU.

In addition to voting for Brexit I confirmed my trip to Tartarus by supporting Trump, and more recently, by voting for the Brexit Party in the recent EU elections. Then there’s my backing for Neil McEvoy, and the regular criticism of Plaid Cymru.

Oh, yes, and of course I attack the Labour Party on a regular, almost daily, basis.

So, all in all, I suppose I’ve made a few enemies.

My rap sheet is enough to reduce certain people to bouts of carpet-chewing rage. These, it should be said, tend to be Plaid Cymru members and supporters; more especially what some call the ‘Leannistas’, the woke left, currently nursing their wounds after so many recent defeats and now lashing out blindly at people like me.

Which is ironic in a way, for I am only following Lenin’s dictum, “The worse, the better”. By which he meant that the population at large will be more receptive to revolutionary change when the system they’re familiar with starts disintegrating.

It may be cruel, it may be cynical, but old Vlad was spot on. For the Bolsheviks would never have come to power if Russia had stayed out of World War One and the Czar had introduced adequate reforms.

◊

BY THE LEFT

There are no half measures with these people who attack me.

If you don’t support Extinction Rebellion bringing cities to a standstill then you’re a climate change denier. Vote for Brexit and you’re a fascist/racist/white supremacist. Refuse to accept that ‘chicks with dicks’ are 100% women and you’re a transphobe. The list of crimes people like me can commit – without even knowing it! – is endless. And these ‘crimes’ increase by the month.

Though many of my critics are happy to engage in rational debate, and there’s even banter. But then there’s the darker side, those who just want to screech at me.

Here’s a recent example from Twitter of what I’m talking about.

I don’t know who Aled Gwyn Williams is (is he the one in the cap?), and I’ve no idea what motivated him to put such ugly slanders on social media for my grandchildren to be teased about.

I shall deal with the first paragraph in a minute.

As for the second paragraph, I am none of the things he lists. Though perhaps he’s trying to say the same thing with “fascist”, “racist”, and “authoritarian & white-supremacist”. (I can almost hear the spluttering as he repeats himself.)

As for being “homophobic”, well, just ask my gay friends.

The final smear is that I am a “defender of violence against women”, but I have no idea what the hell he’s trying to say. Does he think I stand outside windows listening to domestic arguments and shouting, “Go on, pal, punch her!”

Displayed here we see the absolute self-belief of the true fanatic (political or religious); convinced that he/she is right and anyone he/she disagrees with is not only wrong, but evil.

Which makes them no different to those they claim to oppose. For the right, we’re told, is intolerant, that it ‘others’ people, who can then be vilified and humiliated. Precisely what Aled Gwyn Williams tried to do to me in that tweet.

Support for the old axiom that says there’s no real difference between the extremes of left and right. They operate in almost exactly the same way.

But yes, I did vote for Brexit; and yes, I did support Trump; and yes, I did vote for the Brexit Party in last month’s EU elections; and yes, I certainly want Boris Johnson to become prime minister: and yes, I did help form Ein Gwlad – because I want Welsh independence!

An increasing number of people across the political spectrum now agree that Brexit delivered by Boris Johnson with his head up Trump’s arse will threaten the Union.

‘Welsh’ Labour leader Mark Drakeford has said it. His predecessor Carwyn Jones conceded that the “shambles” in Westminster was making more people in Wales think about independence. Former Liberal Democrat leader and deputy PM Nick Clegg knows the Union is under threat. Former PM Gordon Brown agrees with him. I could go on, but you get my drift.

The exclusive English nationalism preached by Boris Johnson makes many more Scots, Irish, and Welsh question the English connection.

This is a good thing. As this Irish tweet I picked up over the weekend understands. (Though I’m not sure about Wales as a fifth province!)

When Johnson is announced as new Tory Party leader and prime minister tomorrow he will face a choice. Either to soldier on with a rebellious minority in his party capable of derailing his plans, or to call a general election in the hope of removing his critics and increasing his majority.

Despite the obvious discord in the Labour Party there’s no guarantee that Johnson could increase his majority, that’s because any election will be fought on the issue of Brexit, which will see certain parties standing aside to give a single anti-Brexit candidate a clear run at the Tory opponent.

His best option then might be an electoral pact with the Brexit Party. The Tories could concentrate on the suburbs and the shires, while Farage’s crew could focus on those ‘left behind’ areas that voted for Brexit in 2016.

Such a pact will confirm the split in the Conservative Party.

For as I’ve said somewhere before, in recent decades ‘Europe’ has been to the Tories what Irish Home Rule was to the 19th century Liberal Party. The Liberals split in 1886 with the breakaway Liberal Unionist Party eventually merging with the Conservative and Unionist Party.

A victory for the pact would give Boris Johnson – and his thirsty deputy, Nigel Farage – the majority needed to turn the UK into an offshore tax haven where everybody whistles The Dam Busters tune before settling down to yet another meal of chlorinated chicken.

◊

A LITTLE BIRD

While it’s difficult to understand the unprovoked attack from Aled Gwyn Williams, he is not alone. Not so long ago a very similar assault was mounted by someone called Huw Marshall who, again, is a complete stranger to me.

Ifan Morgan Jones also came out swinging with a ludicrous charge of Antisemitism over something I’d written that included George Soros. But in my piece I never mentioned that Soros was Jewish. To which I might add that, as a good conservative, I support the state of Israel because it’s an ally of the West.

But why would complete strangers want to attack me, and do so by telling lies? I mean, if you don’t like me, or you don’t agree with me, then don’t read this blog, don’t follow me on Twitter, etc. Am I that influential?

Which makes me wonder whether we are really dealing with a few individuals who’ve taken an intense dislike to me/my views or if there’s more to it.

Let’s think about it for a minute. I criticise Plaid Cymru. I helped form Ein Gwlad. I continually attack the Labour Party. I am an outspoken supporter Neil McEvoy. I regularly refer to Cardiff Bay as ‘Corruption Bay’ (or “a cess-pit”). For years I have exposed the corruption, cronyism and waste of public funding in the third sector . . .

Thinks . . . who might share my interest in those things, but from a perspective opposite to mine, and might be able to influence, directly or indirectly, people who don’t know me?

One obvious suspect is Deryn Consulting, the lobbying firm that acts as a link between Labour, Plaid Cymru, the third sector, and others that together make our country a corrupt and impoverished laughing-stock and a magnet for crooks and chancers.

At this point I should add that I’ve also attacked Deryn more than once.

To understand how Deryn operates – they are lobbyists and ‘influencers’ after all – just think of Welsh public life focused on Cardiff Bay as a web, with Deryn as a fat, hairy-legged spider at the centre.

Deryn was instrumental in the sacking of Carl Sargeant and must bear considerable responsibility for his suicide. Deryn also co-ordinates the unremitting campaign against Neil McEvoy.

If you doubt how influential Deryn is in Welsh political life then read this piece by the lawyer representing the Sargeant family at the resumed inquest the week before last into Carl Sargeant’s death. There are passages there that almost jump off the screen.

Particularly the section below.

Extract from Dr Neil Hudgell’s account of the Sargeant inquest. Some might argue that Deryn set itself up as accuser, judge and jury. Click to enlarge.

Why would Carwyn Jones make TWO phone calls to Deryn almost immediately after hearing of Carl Sargeant’s death? Was it, ‘Oh, dear, ladies . . . tell me what to do now.’

Maybe I should explain that the Cathy Owens mentioned by Dr Hudgell is the leading director of Deryn, while the other woman also figured in Guido Fawkes’ coverage of December 2018, where we read: “Jo Kiernan: Deryn employee and named at last week’s Inquest as co-ordinating a bullying campaign against Sargeant when she worked as Carwyn Jones’ chief SpAd.”

Carl Sargeant complained about this bullying at the time it was happening, in 2014, other AMs also complained on his behalf, but of course Carwyn Jones later denied that any complaints had been made. But then, Kiernan was a powerful woman, she was even allowed to deal with complaints made against her.

One of those who stood by Carl Sargeant was his friend and former AM Leighton Andrews. For standing up for his dead friend, and pointing the finger of guilt in the right direction, Andrews himself became a target for the extended Deryn network.

I’m not saying that Aled Gwyn Williams, Huw Marshall, Ifan Morgan Jones, and the rest of my critics are taking orders from the nest (or maybe it’s the bunker nowadays) but they seem to share the Deryn mindset that will not tolerate critics or divergent views.

And never forget that Deryn is a creation of devolution, prospering thanks to weak and malleable politicians in a devolved system still controlled from London. Deryn would not survive independence.

◊

‘HIS NAME IS ROYSTON JONES AND HE’S NOT ON OUR SIDE’

Is what Aled Gwyn Williams wrote in the first paragraph of his tweet.

His tweet is addressed to “Welsh Self-determinationists”, which I assume to mean those who want Wales to be independent. But I have been a nationalist all my life, check with anyone who’s been around since the 1960s.

It follows, then, that when he says I’m not on ‘their’ side, he must mean some grouping other than those wanting independence. As Williams is a hard-line socialist he can only be alluding to the comrades.

I am a lifelong opponent of socialism.

So my real ‘crime’, in Williams’ eyes, is being hostile to socialism.

Williams seems to be active in YesCymru and supports All Under One Banner Cymru. Two groups some fear have become too close to Plaid Cymru.

All of which fits together, because despite the humiliating defeat suffered by Leanne Wood in the party leadership contest last year those who share her views still control the party.

The small increase in membership in the wake of Adam ‘Soundbite’ Price’s victory may already have been offset by resignations over the party’s treatment of Neil McEvoy, which will of course only strengthen the influence of the ‘Leannistas’.

I’m not the only one who sees this drift to the left. Here’s a tweet put out a week or so ago by writer Siôn Jobbins, asking if he’ll be welcome at Plaid’s Summer School, seeing as he’s not a socialist.

Though it could be that not all the leftists trying to capitalise on the increase in support for independence belong to Plaid Cymru, there may be even more exotic elements trying to muscle in.

Below we see a picture from a recent AUOB Cymru tweet showing some kind of street furniture or utility box in Cardiff presenting an interesting display. In the centre we see nationalist hero, John Jenkins, leader of Mudiad Amddiffyn Cymru, who was sent down for 10 years in 1970 for his role in a 1960s bombing campaign.

John, now 85, has lived in Wrecsam for many years.

We also see a couple of YesCymru stickers, a football fans for independence sticker and Wrexham fans against the Sun (newspaper). But it’s the other three that intrigue me.

On the top left we see the Starry Plough of the Irish Citizen Army, led by James Connolly in the Easter Rising of 1916. This was a socialist organisation that fought alongside the larger, and nationalist, Irish Volunteers led by Padraig Pearse.

The one at the bottom right carries letters printed backwards to look Russian, a communist red star, and the slogan ‘Free Wales’.

Finally, the black one on the left reads ‘Wxm (Wrexham) Antifa No Pasaran!’ Antifa are left wing thugs who first took to the streets of the USA following Donald Trump’s victory, ostensibly ‘fighting fascism and racism’.

Now they resort to bombing and attacking anyone who doesn’t agree with them. A recent victim was journalist Andy Ngo, who wrote: “Antifa operates by a very broad definition of ‘fascists.’ By antifa’s telling, fascists include mainstream conservatives and even centrist journalists who dare criticize them.”

I know exactly how he feels.

You have to wonder what’s going on when the self-appointed promoters of inclusivity beat up the gay son of Vietnamese boat people. I hope to God we don’t have any nutters in Wales preparing to emulate Antifa.

And I’m disappointed to see AUOB Cymru apparently endorse Antifa.

So on a Cardiff street we see a collection of stickers linking independence with socialism, with some pretty hairy and intolerant expressions of socialism at that.

◊

THE CRUCIAL EIGHTEEN MONTHS

Partly due to events beyond our control Wales will soon be closer to independence than at any time in the past five hundred years. But the mood is also being influenced by what is happening here in Wales.

Our homeland is deprived and exploited because devolution has been a miserable failure. For what has devolution given us – Deryn! This realisation has resulted in the Labour Party losing credibility by the day; but I fear Plaid Cymru will be reluctant to take advantage of the opportunity presented by Johnson in No 10 and Drakeford in the Bay.

Instead, Plaid Cymru will chase rainbows and form Englandandwales anti-Tory or anti-Brexit alliances. This loss of focus is due to the party’s leftward drift coupled with the ephemeral appeal of being ‘taken seriously’ by appearing on TV with Caroline Lucas.

And when Johnson makes his move, Plaid Cymru will rush to support the Labour Party in defending ‘the devolution settlement’.

I say, fuck the devolution settlement. It wasn’t worth having in 1999 and it’s been seriously devalued over the past two decades. All our efforts now must concentrate on independence. And to achieve that goal we must reach out to as many as possible of our people.

This cannot be done by demanding a socialist feminist republic (as was heard at AUOB’s first rally on May 11). And if balaclava’d Antifa thugs start beating up people they disagree with, then any hope of independence will be lost. Wales may have a radical past but most of us today are socially conservative.

It should go without saying, therefore, that Wales needs a broad-based movement for independence that must either be ideology-free or else it must accept all ideological standpoints.

And so I’m asking All Under One Banner Cymru if there’ll be a welcome in Caernarfon on Saturday for people who don’t support Plaid Cymru, and people who are not socialist; for those who would have fought alongside Pearse rather than Connolly, who don’t obsess over a second referendum and who regard Antifa thugs no differently to the thugs who follow Tommy Robinson.

I ask because there are clearly some who feel that the drive for independence should be controlled by the left; and maybe they’ll only accept independence on their terms. Either way, it’s insulting and offensive to those holding different views who have worked for independence for over 50 years.

♦ end ♦

Jac o' the North

Tag: Sion Jobbins

Welsh Independence And The Left

YesCymru: it must be a clean sweep

YesCymru, light at the end of the tunnel?

YesCymru, the beginning of the end?

Misogyny, bullying? Depends who’s doing it

Brexit, Boris, Nigel . . . and independence!