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Nation•Cymru A news service by the people of Wales, for the people of Wales.

Opinion

Don’t put your faith in Corbyn – he doesn’t care about Wales

By NationCymru
Picture: Chatham House (CC BY 2.0)

Benjiman L. Angwin

Jeremy Corbyn visited Bangor and Aberconwy over the weekend, where Labour fancy their chances having come within 92 and 635 votes of toppling the incumbents.

Corbyn is lauded by many on the Left but the truth is that he is a wolf rather than a shepherd; he does not have Wales’ best interests at heart.

When Corbyn comes to Wales and calls for fundamental change in the NHS, education and social care, he’s attacking his own party’s track record.

Either he doesn’t care enough to have educated himself about how devolution works, or he’s trying to take advantage of the public’s ignorance about how it works. May I suggest the more insidious latter?

He also has done nothing to fight against a rock-hard Brexit which will be ruinous for Wales economy.

It would certainly be ruinous for Bangor, a University City, its economy dependent on its researchers’ ability to work within the EU and thousands of international students.

We also had the spectacle of Albert Owen telling the assembled crowd that Plaid Cymru were “the establishment” and that it was time to get rid of them.

Labour have won a majority of MPs in Wales since the 1920s and have been in government in Wales since 1999. Plaid Cymru have never been in charge.

It’s a very Trumpian tactic – to try to project your own political weaknesses on your opponents.

The irony is that Arfon’s current MP, Hywel Williams, is more of a socialist and internationalist than many within Labour’s own ranks.

Neglect

It’s clear that Corbyn wasn’t here because he cares about Wales; all he wants is another obedient Labour MP who will put Corbyn’s own ideological crusade first. What’s best for Wales is a long way down the list.

Corbyn’s politics is British socialism, which sees Wales’ unique culture and language as a barrier against the UK ‘coming together’ as a collective.

But the truth is that the real barrier against ‘coming together’ in this way is:

  1. The fact that the UK Government has been consistently neglectful of Wales, a tradition that Corbyn is sticking to with his demand for a Hard Brexit
  2. A lack of respect for Wales’ cultural differences. Bangor is in an area where 65% speak a minority language which British Socialism has shown little but antipathy towards

The Welsh will never move on until they stop believing that British politicians will give Wales’ economy or well-being any consideration at all.

Corbyn talks a good game but he is ultimately a London-based, career politician who has spent his entire working life inside the Westminster bubble.

Corbyn doesn’t care that by winning Arfon, Labour would strike a deadly blow against Plaid Cymru, and to use Gwynedd’s motto, ‘cadernid Gwynedd’ (the might of Gwynedd).

If Labour is actually a socialist party, then its blatant effort to knock out another socialist party—and the only party (socialist or aligned with other economic ideologies) consistent in its efforts to put Wales on the political agenda at Westminster and Europe—is hypocritical.

Those on the Left of the Labour party deplore colonialism overseas but have a blind spot for their own colonial attitudes within Wales itself. What’s best for Wales doesn’t matter.

We are simply votes to be harvested so that they can continue an ideological war with the Tories in which Wales is just collateral damage.

Don’t be manipulated by Corbyn’s populist British socialism. He isn’t Wales’ Messiah; if we ever get our own ‘mab darogan’ (son of prophecy) it will be someone who actually cares about Wales’ culture and acknowledges it as a country.

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25 comments

Cofi Dre

I agree entirely with this article, and what it says is self-evident, but I'm afraid Plaid has made this threat worse by fighting the last election, thanks to whoever was in charge of their manifesto and campaigning, on a 'If you want Corbyn's policies, vote Plaid' ticket, so this cack-handed slogan has come home to roost: why shouldn't Labour come in and try to sweep up? If Plaid treat Corbyn as a political ally, the don't be surprised your voters vote for him rather than you. Labour is the enemy, Labour is the establishment in Wales, and Labour take from Plaid and end up giving Plaid nothing. There may be a progressive alliance in time, but only when Plaid is strong and has cards to play - the last election was a catastrophe because Plaid forgot the key rule: if they don't treat Labour as the enemy, Labour will devour them. It is happening now at grass roots level, and Plaid have no-one to blame but themselves. Whoever at Ty Gwynfor thought they could get a few votes on Corbyn's coat-tails should pay the price. I know what they were trying to do - exploit divisions between Corbyn and his MP's - but in the end the message was: there's good Labour and bad Labour, vote Plaid and you'll get the good Corbynite version. Crazy tactics, impossible to fulfil anyway, and a massive turn-off to potential Plaid voters who want neither the stagnant Carwyn-Labour or the Brit-Nat hard-brexit Corbyn.

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Dafydd Thomas

Corbyn attacking Wales NHS, it's about time more people started attacking the Welsh labour government on this mater and the cause of failings. We have an elderly population in Wales which our first minister thinks is positive. Well is it positive for the NHS Wales! Surgeries close (Carmarthenshire) with nowhere for people to go and this due to a preponderance of aged immigration. In 2011 the immigrant figure from England show that of those that came 26.2% were over 65. The Welsh population and including the small number of immigrants from all over the world were only 16.3% over 65. Corbyn should consider why Wales NHS is having difficulties rather than coming out with half baked nonsense like our first minister. Moreover the situation since 2011 has got worse, with more elderly moving into Wales and social cleansing from England adding to our woes.

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Gareth

"He also has done nothing to fight against a rock-hard Brexit which will be ruinous for Wales economy." Please remind me how hard Leanne Wood fought for for the remain vote before the Brexit referendum?

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Dafydd ap Gwilym

English Labour Leader is a Unionist just like our Welsh Labour leader - a Unionist! Neither for Wales! Simple!

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leigh richards

"Either he doesn’t care enough to have educated himself about how devolution works" yes Jezza's poor voting record on devolving powers to wales would certainly seem to suggest this ben https://www.theyworkforyou.com/mp/10133/jeremy_corbyn/islington_north/divisions?policy=6708

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Cymru Rydd

I was at the rally. Corbyn is a great public speaker- but no interest at all in Wales. What enraged me most was First Minister Carwyn Jones's introduction. In Bangor, within the heartland of the Welsh language in the north-west: one paltry, and throwaway comment about the weather in Welsh and all the rest in English. Apparently, this happened exactly the same at the first world war commemoration service in Belgium as well. He can spout away with the best of them about how awful Newsnight were and so on- but when it comes to practicing what he preaches, and leading from example- oh No! The man is a complete hypocrite.

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Gregory

I completely agree with this posting. I have been suspicious of Corbyn ever since the 1980s and even though in principle I agree with many of his ideals - an essentially socialist independent Wales is my ideal - once you read the fine print its all Westminster politics underneath. He belongs to a type for whom Wales is a source of MPs and holiday cottages and retirement escapes to the country, and nothing else (Wales would be so nice except for those PEOPLE, so Welsh don't you know...and we've tried to change them for their own good...). A lot of my friends (we are all essentially socialists) are taken in by him and the rose coloured glasses did not shatter even with his utterly useless stance of the EU and Brexit. As far as I am concerned he's just another Boris Johnson and Wales would be wise to be very very wary of him. He may want to lead people to a promised land but its not going to be ours.

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sibrydionmawr

That's essentially the kind of Wales I'd be happy living in, and I think you'r spot on with your analysis of the way Wales is viewed from Millbank. This is where we are also severely let down by the likes of Plaid, who seem to be extremely reticent in fighting Wales' corner on these very issues, probably because they seem utterly incapable/unwilling to deal with the resultant accusations of 'racism' from the serried ranks of BritNats within the Welsh Labour Party, and the mainstream British party. Why is it that anyone who even so much as voices mildly separatist notions immediately suspected of some form of extremism? I remember many years ago visiting a friend in Manchester, and staying with him at his parents house. Upon hearing that I had sympathies towards Plaid Cymru, his mother voiced her hope that I wouldn't burn down their holiday cottage on Llyn. I've never condoned the burning of anything, but I can understand the kind of frustrations that could lead people to commit such desperate acts, and by Welsh standards, they were desperate acts, and so I've never been someone who would condemn such actions either. In many ways, those kinds of desperate actions were caused by the utter failure of Plaid Cymru to stand up for the interests of the Welsh people. That Corbyn can come along and suggest that Labour is the way forward in places like Arfon, where Plaid has slipped from an almost unassailable position in the 70s and 80s under Dafydd Wigley when it was one of the safest seats in the UK, with increased majorities every time, (plus well over 50% of the votes in every election) to the present where Plaid is literally hanging on by the skin of it's teeth, with a majority of a mere 92 says it all. I also consider the complacency of both Plaid Cymru and Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg to be very worrying. Neither organisation has really delivered on their potential, and could have been expected to have achieved far more in the past half century. Iniitially it looked very promising, what with the historic Carmarthen by-election that saw Gwynfor Evans elected, and a year later the passing of the first Welsh Language Act. And though something of a negative achievement perhaps, the charade of the 1969 investiture was an indication as to how seriously Wales was being taken by the Westminster government of the time. There were, of course, other things happening in Wales at the time, and though the PR antics of the FWA were just that, they did attract worldwide attention - I can remember reading about them in an Observer magazine article as a child when we as a family were living in Norway. Though now I would never hold that the FWA reflect my views, the events that the FWA were acting as a front for had an immense impact on me. I'm completely convinced that the activities of both the FWA and MAC, as well as the early actions of CYIG had the effect of boosting Plaid Cymru membership and support amongst vast swathes of Welsh people who would never have considered more extreme actions, who felt they could support the national movement through constitutional means. Post devolution, the performance of both main national organisations, (Plaid and CYIG) has been, to my mind, pretty dismal. We've had pretty much two decades where CYIG have eschewed direct action against government bodies, and the situation of the language stagnate in terms of being able to use it as part of one's daily life. Legislation does not equate any kind of real change unless the legislation is enforced, and to be quite blunt, it just isn't being enforced. Plaid has seemingly rejected any real pretence of standing up for Welsh communities under threat, and appears to have more interest in sidling up to Welsh Labour and the British liberal left, who will only despise them for their apparent sycophancy. Even when, in 2001 a viable, and badly needed pressure group, Cymuned, erupted onto the scene with an imaginative, and popular and for once relevant agenda, both Plaid and CYIG wasted no time in stabbing the new movement in the back. Wales needed this new movement, as the organisations claiming to stand for those communities that Cymuned represented had become increasingly stale and detached from a grass roots who felt they had been abandoned. What did Plaid do? Supported Labour in their condemnation of Seimon Glyn and others who had had the audacity to speak out in in support of their communities. I suspect that CYIG's position was more engendered by their concern about being undermined by a grass-roots organisation that threatened to usurp CYIG's self appointed position as exclusive protectors of the Welsh language. However, CYIG has always been an organisation of the bourgeoisie more than it has been that of y werin bobl. I don't know what happened within Cymuned, but I was saddened by it's demise, and suspect that being stabbed in the back by Plaid and CYIG did nothing to help it sustain itself. I was as sceptical as the next person when it first arrived, contraversially, on the scene, but once I'd read their manifesto I joined without hesitation, as there was nothing that any genuine, caring human being could object to. Comparing their manifesto with what appeared in the press, and was communicated by the comments of politicians, one could have thought that two completely different organisations were being described. We are living in interesting times, and we would be wise to be wary of people like Corbyn. I'm sure he's sincere, but as he clearly doesn't seem to understand, or care, about Wales as anything other than as a playground for England's major conurbations, we need to radically re-think our allegiances to any, and all political parties. Time is running out fast, and if we want a Wales to exist in 50 years in anything but name we're going to have to do something to make that happen.

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Martin

Plaid Cymru has never been "unassailable in Arfon". Wigley's seat Caernarfon was different and included Pen Llyn and Eifionydd. When Arfon was created it was a notional Labour hold, shorn of those areas which went to Dwyfor Meirionnydd.

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Communist & WelshNash

Looking forward to your next opinion article tearing into Theresa May and the Tories! In the meantime, another angle on Comrade Corbyn http://www.aledgwyn.co.uk/432844318

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Dafydd ap Gwilym

Agree with you on next article!

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Dafis

Don't waste your brain or your time on May &Co they are an utter mess and we know it already. Patriots in Wales need to focus on getting shot of Westminster/Whitehall domination and their Red Tory puppets down the Bay. Focus energy on clarifying policy options and priorities for Wales to get off its backside and start to thrive on its own 2 feet.

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Emma Thomas

What a dilemma I liked côrbyn for uk up until now and I m unsure if this is how he feels about wales .. yet when it come down to Tory versus labour it has to be labour cannot someone just educate him a bit better because he's missing something g if he thinks plaid are not socialist s I would now hope someone works on this harder because the heart of the man I see as good-

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Capitalist and Welshnash

'Faith' is the key word. The socialist Left has become the new Christianity. If you are you not with us your, 'toxic, immoral, evil, fascist, selfish' and so on. Corbyn (and populism Left or Right) is a cult. This cult is being aimed at our young people, just like Jihadism, because young people are succeptable to surrendering the ability to question ideologies. I sincerely hope Plaid will distance itself from this ideology based upon saying anyone who does not agree with us is an immoral person. It's nothing more than religion dressed up in suits.

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sibrydionmawr

These kinds of things only happen because our 'education' system disables the young from questioning things, and it is the needs of capital that has cause this as much as anything. Young people are discouraged from actually thinking by the state education system as capitalists want a docile workforce who will not question. It's no accident that young people leaving university are saddled with enormous debt, as that tends to make them docile workers who won't speak out for fear of losing their jobs, should they be so lucky as to have one fitting in with their qualifications. As soon as an education system starts to produce people who can and do question, who are free of the oppression of debt that makes them docile, it's people such as you who will start screaming that education has been infiltrated by the far left! However, I agree, religion is toxic, and I would, as a start, abolish all faith based education, and make it strictly secular, with no religious symbolism allowed. What adults over 18 do with themselves is up to them, but minors need to be educated to be able to make informed decisions, and they can't do that if they are handicapped by religious, or political indoctrination. This of course does not mean no education about religion, or politics as a subject taught within civics within a secular context, but it would help in delivering self-regulating individuals. Trouble is, they might all become anarchists!

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Capitalist and Welshnash

Become infiltrated by the left? Universities (especially newer universities) are almost complete dominated by the left. They already are infiltrated (though i admit your word jnfoltrated is a tad harsh). I would rather use 'unknowingly indoctrinated'.

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Euron

Voted for him last time and happy to do it again.

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Keith Parry

This is Wales! Corbyn is an English imperialist. He believes that London should rule Wales. As in 2017 vote Labour to keep the Tories out. Result Tory Government. Nothing so stupid in Wales as the Brit Left.

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Anarchist and Welsh Nash

Corbyn is a top-down Socialist with Messianic tendencies. What we need in Wales is to develop our country along anarchist lines: i.e no top down politicians with their big egos. Rather, society working together on the same level to create the kind of nation we all know Wales can be. Wales is small enough and communal enough to do this.

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Dafydd ap Gwilym

Agree with A&WN a new country a new concept controlled from the streets, every neighbourhood, parish, hamlet, village, town upward making everyone responsible. After a while it will be second nature to be involved as communities used to be. This way you have greater control of local authorities, organisations and agencies to ensure they deliver what they are supposed to and prevent anyone working toward self interest. A new concept would mean new and no harking back to those 'isms' that have already been, tried and failed.

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Colin Cheesman

It might be useful to have some background on the writers of such pieces to gauge our response.

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Tame Frontiersman

Devolution and the fact that Labour have been in power for 18 years in Cardiff Bay stands in the way of a simple narrative for the Westminster Labour Party. When the big guns of Westminster politics visit Wales to press the local flesh they are no doubt hoping they can get out a sound bite to reinforce their core messages that will be heard and resonate with voters far and wide, and most of those voters live - in England. NHS funding is of course a devolved matters and spending on it is proposed by the Welsh Government in its budget and approved or rejected by the Senedd. If one argues that the block grant from Westminster does not represent what Wales should fairly receive then it can indeed be argued that Westminster does exercise an influence over healthcare funding in Wales. When Westminster politicians talk about increasing expenditure on the NHS (for example), what exactly are the implications for Wales- assuming they’re not just talking about England? Let us consider the following example. Back in 2016 the UK was promised 350 million a week of extra spending on the NHS if it voted to leave the EU. Based on Wales’ share of the UK population, that is £840 million a year more for Wales or a billion (say) if one made a needs base assessment Ignoring the probability/certainty that there won’t be one extra penny made available: would this mean Wales could expect an increase in the block grant or would there be some sort of ring-fenced funding, perhaps with priorities which are not those of the Welsh Government? Wouldn’t Westminster ring fencing priorities in this way –rather undermine devolution?

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Trailorboy

The key thing must be that Labour has set out it's stall to take Arfon at the next election which could be sooner than many expect - that is I suspect what Corbyn is banking on. Labour is on the crest of a wave with a slick machine now and Plaid is probably spent out? From the outside looking in it sounds like the Battle for Bangor and the student and academic population, maybe health workers and other public sector workers etc. The weakness suggested in that Corbyn is not interested in local issues, is relevent, but only to people who have their roots in the area - maybe less important for many students, academics and lot of people working the health and teaching professions?? It's obvious that agreeing with much of what Corbyn is saying is not going to work and neither is attacking him on any of those issues - difficult to set-out the battlke lines I guess. I suppose mobilising as much people as possible who care about the fact that Corbyn doesn't really have an affinity for Welsh culture and discrete Welsh politics is vital, but doing so in a way that doesn't rule out winning over some natural Corbyn voters is tricky to say the least. One thing that might be key is finding out where the mobile voters - students etc are registered to vote and where younger voters who have moved to Universities outside the area have decided they will vote. It may not be close next time, but if it is clsoer to the last time then 60-70 voters might swing it. I think Corbyn pulled a blinder with things like railways last time - it gave a vision that many hooked into. Tuition fees etc also play a part. What vision is Plaid offering locally and are there any blievable carrots they could wave? It sounds like Plaid have to make the next election about Arfon - losing this could be terminal

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Capitalist and Welshnash

Quite well spotted. This is literally a battle for Bangor. Students and movers in from from England are about to take one the last Welsh heartlands away from us by becoming the majority in the eastern end of the Arfon constituency. We cannot let Bangor fall to demographics which care naught about the local issues, not Wales as a country.

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Trailorboy

Looking at the constituency (which is recent and a marginal because of boundary changes, which have brought Bangor into it) and the only three elections to go on - it seems that Plaid actually did well initially in taking the lib dem vote in 2015, which has now collapsed and is pretty much non-existent, while UKIP stole some of the Tory vote initially and possibly got more people out to vote in 2015. UKIP dissapeared last time around and their voters seemed to have split 3:1 in favour of labour, with the rest going Tory. Plaid got pretty much the same number of voters as it did in 2015 -so held its voters in the main, but failed to capture any of the new voters which seemed to appear this time around. The Turnout increased by about 1600 voters this time around and they all look to be new Labour Voters. The thing about Bangor is that it is a city in trouble. It is a city of 18,000, with 10,500 students. The university is in dire straits, with student numbers enrolling this year set to drop by as much as 30% and a lot of university staff likely to lose their positions. This is going to effect the economics and the atmosphere of the city massively. This will have a negative effect on house prices, and I doubt that those with houses will relish that. This will be compounded with news of new housebuilding, which is ikely to make the area awash with houses that will be harder to sell. The party that says the right things here is going to be the winner. What can Plaid do?. It can criticise housebuilding as being irresponsible in this climate and not needed. It could commision research and ideas into how to solve the problems that are coming and try hard to get the word out that potential young plaid voters going to universities in England should consider registering to vote in Arfon - Arfon needs them?

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Looking at the constituency (which is recent and a marginal because of boundary changes, which have brought Bangor into it) and the only three elections to go on - it seems that Plaid actually did well initially in taking the lib dem vote i...

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