Plaid Cymru needs to fight back rather than conform

Good read. Given me much to ponder on. thanks.

"Their core message was that they had no choice but to obey the requirements of the Planning Inspector and implement this development plan (which is essentially a plan foisted on local authorities by the Planning Inspectorate in London)." Mae hwn yn swnio mor drist o gyfarwydd. Yr un dadleuon wedi cael eu defnyddio dros gynlluniau datblygu lleol yng Ngheredigion gan gynghorwyr Plaid Cymru a phleidiau eraill yn y gorffennol. Onid yw'n bryd i gynghorau sy'n cael eu arwain gan PC yn y gorllewin ddod ynghyd a dweud na, mae'r hyn sy'n cael eu gorfodi arnyn nhw drwy'r cynlluniau datblygu yn gwbwl niweidiol? Yr hyn maen nhw'n gwneud ar hyn o bryd yw gweithredu fel biwrocrats sy'n gweinyddu polisiau oddi fry sy'n lladd yr iaith.

As a former county councillor (Bridgend) I can testify that this article hits the nail on the head. Although most councillors of all parties are well meaning people, they are ground down and cowed by the bureaucratic chiefs. These top bureaucrats have perfected the arts of persuasive arguments and veiled threats to ensure their directives are approved. Most councillors start with the intent to represent the interests of their community in the council. After a spell of indoctrination they soon start representing the council in their community. Mind you, it never worked on me. I don't know how many times bad measures passed 53 in favour, 1 opposed. Me being the 1. By and large our representatives in councils are sheep. Maybe politics just attracts the wrong type of people. Not bad people, but weak people. After all, when you join a political party the first thing you learn is that you have to stop thinking for yourself and just toe the party line. Political party structure is part of the problem. The Isle of Man, an independent prosperous island nation in the middle of the British Isles (which has never been part of the EU) is most often run by independents. Think about that. Political parties of any stripe don't run the show there, and the place thrives. (How do I know? I visit there at least once a year.) Wales needs a root and branch democratic revival. We've got the people. 52% of us defied the experts and the threats and voted Leave last year. That's quite non-conformist! We just need to get involved in the democratic process and kick out the old dinosaur parties. A new Charterist uprising perhaps?

Plaid Cymru in Arfon, most of them, and certainly the AM and MP, have been negligent and cowardly, and have almost certainly doomed Arfon to becoming a Labour seat next time around. The anger around here is palpable, and everyone knows that if the AM and MP had shown leadership then Plaid would have resisted and if the worst came to the worst it would have been implemented by force from outside - thus showing up the Labour party and showing Plaid fighting its corner. But no - they caved in when they didn't have to, and a couple of their councillors were active in actually forcing it through. The political benefits of being seen to resist and stand their ground would have been considerable. Instead they caved in and allowed a voluble Labour councillor - who opposed a medical school for North Wales and who will play politics with anything - to look like he was standing up for Gwynedd, Wales and Welsh. Plaid are amateurs, and they're also frightened, weak and hypocritical, and they'll lose a lot of votes over this. It's their unprofessionalism that baffles us up here. Here they are the etsblishment. Luckily my Plaid councillor opposed the plan and I will keep voting for them. Others up here will not.

I guess the only thing that can be said about Plaid Cymru in this is 'Brad!' But what of people on the ground, Welsh speaking people who are going to see their community destroyed by the LDP? There is no way in the world that 8,000 new houses are needed in Gwynedd and Môn, as I'm pretty sure there is already more than sufficient housing that is unused the vast majority of the year. There is no nice way to put it, this kind of craven decision on the part of Plaid Cymru councillors makes them complicit in the financial ethnic cleansing process taking place in North West Wales. If the housing were to be for local people only, at truly affordable prices, then at least the LDP would have been partially acceptable, though still far too big in terms of sheer numbers, but I suspect most of the housing will be speculative in nature, aimed at wealthy immigrants. I hope there is a groundswell of local, grass roots opposition to this disgusting and traitorous decision. Who needs the Tories when we've Got Plaid Brad Cymru?

I'd have to disagree about being governed by distant authorities... I don't think thats the issues here. Some one on Ynys Mon could easily say the same thing about Cardiff (and the culture drift adds to that!). It's about an authority that cares not for Wales - that shields itself with our apathy and as you say the conformism which has surface in recently decades. I don't think we should use the death of non-conformist religion in Wales as metre for whether Wales is becoming more conformist... I think its death was in part due to growing number of atheists - which for all intents and purposes is the new non-conformism. There was also the Brexit vote... David Cameron a Tory Prime Minister wanted to say in the EU so Wales voted to leave. I voted Remain but even i see it was probably an anti-establishment vote. I think that is probably one of Plaid's issues. They expect their voters to be supporters of Socialism and Republicanism - asking voters to conform to what they believe being Welsh is and expecting people will one day wake up and see they were right all along. Thats not going to happen. I think more of their leading figures should be invited to write here in the holiday season. Not the usual drawl... if we're reading nation.cymru we're already some breed of nationalist - we're not some random crowd on Question Time. It's about sharing thoughts and feelings with nationalists they are not winning over and in some cases losing... taking the scrutiny on issues like this and telling us why we should support Plaid's future.

Words that come to mind for describing Plaid Cymru: feeble, spineless.

If we're serious about not just maintaining the number of Welsh speakers but increasing them what about making it mandatory for every local and regional development plan to consider the effect of the proposal on the Welsh language and for there to be a presumption against any development unless it has a positive impact on Welsh? Whilst my heart tells me to vote for Plaid I simply cannot bring myself to do so whilst it remains so totally wet. Having moved back to Wales when I retired because that is where my roots belong, I have to confess I am frustrated at how subservient we have become and how there is no spirit to make us great again. I'm afraid we are badly led and that devolution has proved to be a failure.

This article is a real eye- opener for many. I think one of your respondents has also nailed it when he said that many of our plaid cymru councillors are not bad people- they are just weak people who have not really got a wide-lens awareness of what being a nationalist actually is. They are just too many in their midst who feel that they are there to represent their area- without an implicit understanding that they are also there to represent the Welsh National Interest. But then, when Plaid Cymru have virtually given up on any real nationalist mission work in our communities since 1999: is it any surprise that so many of their elected councillors are now so easily swayed by bureaucratic councilspeak?

I have argued for 30 years or more that Plaid Cymru is part of the problem not part of the solution. It is of more use to England now than to Wales. Not only because it refuses to rock the boat and challenge, as in the case of this LDP, but because it sits there, pretending to be a national party, and all the while blocking the emergence of a genuine national party. The tragedy is that we've had 90 years of Plaid Cymru masquerading as the 'national party', 90 years that can never be made up; 90 years that have seen the de-industrialisation of our urban areas and the loss of so many Welsh-speaking communities. To the point where our rural and coastal areas have no future except as England's recreation and retirement areas, while our former coalfields and other areas face managed decline or, if they're lucky, commuter belt status for Cardiff, Bristol or north west England. Thankfully, more and more people realise what Wales needs, and also realise that Plaid Cymru has nothing to offer. Wales cannot afford to put its hopes in Plaid Cymru any longer. It's becoming clear that unless Plaid Cymru can change itself in a very fundamental way then an alternative will have to be formed. But we can never make up those 90 wasted years.

There's a time and place to discuss Brexit, and this isn't either of them. The issue here is a basic one: not only is Plaid not able to be principled, it's not even able to be pragmatic without cocking it up. There were votes to be regained by outflanking Labour on the LDP, and if they really wanted to implement it they could at least have fought it and then allowed themselves to be overruled. No. Instead they let a Labour councillor appear to stand up to his party while Plaid visibly didn't stand up for itself. He'll get votes, they'll lose votes, Labour get their policy through while having a local councillor visibly looking like a maverick and thus getting votes; Plaid vote through a policy they oppose, appearing to own that policy when it's in fact been forced upon them. This is how things like People's Voice, Llais Gwynedd and Sian Caiach started: ruling parties thinking they could do anything they wanted, then realising they lost whole seats because they were neither properly principled nor properly cynical. Blinkered amateurs.

You've completely misunderstood the LDP.

Perhaps Leanne should tell the Plad councillors in Gwynedd to grow a backbone. It seems as if the vast majority of the 8000 houses, if not all will go to retirees from over the border. Theses retirees, almost 90% of whom will have pre existing medical conditions, will be a burden on Wales NHS, depriving funds for the education budget for our children all over Wales. It all comes from the Welsh budget. This number of houses is equivalent to some 150,000 houses (300,000 people) built in England for retirees from Europe, and burdening England NHS with an annual expenditure of £1,500,000,000. Does anyone think there would be rubber stamping without a huge outcry? It is almost criminal what the Planning Inspectorate gets away with in Wales. They need to be challenged root and branch. Did the councillors at least press for a local occupancy clause, or are they content that local young families are outbid by the English retirees. The planning inspectorate directed from London reminds me of the faceless bureaucrats from Brussels and the unwanted immigration much like that evident in the brexit debate. Welsh independence referendum anyone?

What the councillors who voted in favour of the LDP said is correct; the Labour Government could implement a Development Plan from Cardiff; the Government could send in Commissioners to run the Council directly and developers would rub their hands in glee at the prospect of no development plan being in place to restrict even more developments than were in the plan. Before nonconformity became the accepted religion of Wales in the 1850s earlier pioneers of the cause had been martyred, imprisoned, exiled and assaulted. If we want Plaid councillors in Gwynedd (Labour councillors in Cardiff, Tory councillors in Monmouth, or Indy councillors in Conwy etc) to be the forerunners of County Council nonconformity we must be willing to accept that our communities will suffer as a result. As much as I oppose these housing developments I am not willing to see even more houses imposed on Gwynedd or other counties because of councillors’ acts of symbolic defiance. That, of course, is not to say that nothing should be done. We need to protest about the way that these plans are forced on local authorities, but the target of our protest shouldn’t be the councils. We should focus our attack on the Welsh Government and the English Planning Inspectorate that they use to impose the plans. We should take our placards our ire and our civil disobedience down to Cardiff Bay & Temple Quay, Bristol; where they belong, not to County Hall.

Into the last heartland, just like the Romans wiping out the Druids the British government is doing the same. Voting Tory or LIb Dem got you where you are just like in the south voting Labour! Believing in the British was our first mistake not saying enough is enough years ago the second. Rise or die, it is up to all Welsh people the last ball is in your court!

Caerphilly Council last year rejected their LDP, standing up to the bullying to conform to the WG's Planning Inspectorate. http://www.southwalesargus.co.uk/news/14630612.Caerphilly_council_scraps_land_plan_for_12_400_proposed_new_homes/ No disastrous consequences, no 'direct rule' from Cardiff. Just recently, the Vale of Glamorgan supinely accepted their LDP, with a lot more house-building than even the WG projections. Plaid cllrs did vote against, but tokenist only. They failed to replicate the fight in Caerphilly and win over the independents and many of the Tories who said they were opposed - to the Labour-driven expansionist LDP.

What is going on with Plaid Cymru over there. WEAK WEAK WEAK

Hywel Williams won by less than 100 votes last election. He's a good MP and I admire him. But on this the MP and AM stood on the sidelines, and that will cost them in any upcoming election. If Caerphilly can stand up to the LDP then surely Gwynedd can. It scraped through by one vote - one! several abstained, several didn't turn up, and some were on holiday. One faction of Plaid was pushing for the LDP and one was pushing against it. To have it win by 1 vote should make a lot of us wonder what we pay councillors for. Labour will get the credit for opposing their own policy (plus the bonus of getting it passed), while Plaid will pay at the ballot box for something they opposed and forced through out of cowardice. There are votes to be had in standing up to LDPs, Cardiff Bay, etc. but Plaid in Gwynedd has rolled over for the establishment, and it's not even *their* establishment.

I admire Nation.cymru and the amount of work that seemingly goes into the project, but since the General Election, it has seemed to turn into 1) a platform for those who are not involved in Plaid Cymru to say how they would change Plaid Cymru if they were and 2) a blog driven by opinion articles and not offering a news service, as the intention was to begin with. Many of us gave funds at the beginning to contribute to a news service, not an opinion platform. The constant flow of articles by people who are not involved in Plaid Cymru noting how Plaid Cymru had to radically change was particularly tiring - as if those of us involved in Plaid Cymru were not aware of those challenges. There is space for a forum like this, and I think that it would be a great idea to have one - however, I didn't think that was the whole point of nation.cymru. The amount of traction received with the Iron Ring series for an issue in Wales was good however, despite it probably not getting past the usual nationalist bubble. Will there be an effort to move away from the constant opinion articles, preaching to the choir, and working towards a news service instead? All the best with your work!

Surel this hás to be the last straw When is a centre right nationalist party going to be set up? A party like this would put heritage and tradition above this constant deference to Labour in Cardiff Bay. It could be a properly nationalist party not afraid to stand up for Wales. It could stand for independence and a sound economy based on entrepreneurship and fully releasing all the talents of the people of Wales. When are the next Assemly elections?

I'm not sure there's much difference between a News service and an opinion platform. Articles like this encourage activity and readers... as well as opinions. Pretty much the lifeblood of any media outlet. You are correct about attention on Plaid since the election... but there's a lot of discontent and disenfranchised nationalists out there and Plaid Cymru's performance in both elections was pretty dire. Thing is... Plaid's rhetoric about being the only party of the Welsh people, the voice of Wales and the only party which puts the Welsh people first means that they are accountable when it all goes wrong. But there's not really been much out Plaid but "Keep calm and carry on" which has people understandably concerned. So ultimately... if a Welsh media outlet is not going to hold the party to account... who is?

Gweler Blog Glyn Adda: https://glynadda.wordpress.com/2017/07/30/at-wraidd-y-broblem/

This whole story is really depressing. The English authorities tried this on in North East Wales a few years ago, and lost - in an area where Plaid Cymru has weaker representation! Wales really needs to get its act together with regard to these local development plans; they are nothing less than colonialism. I thought planning issues were devolved to this country after the Senedd was established. Planning should be based on housing need, and Gwynedd does not need 8,000 new houses. If Plaid are complicit in this, they need roasting on an open fire.