The Welsh Conservatives need to embrace their Welshness, or face another wipeout

damn this is crazy good

Never mind the tories, every one knows they're anti Wales and would suck up to Westminster and give away our devolved powers in an instance, people should be worried about reform or whatever farage calls his limited company now, They have The Senedd in their sights, I have the misfortune of knowing several people who are/were vehemently anti inglish yet voted for reform. I just can't handle the cognitive dissonance that's going on with them, they are no longer friends of mine,

Oooo! Somebody woke up realized that even the Welsh who are Luke warm about devolution have noticed that the Conservative and Unionist party in Wales is just that. An irrelevant outpost of an English party. I don't know how they got away with it for so long. Becoming WELSH first and Conservative 2nd is their only hope. I also think the same applies to Labor. Just to a lesser degree.

I think the Welsh Conservatives' challenges stem from more than just 'welshness', as there are much broader issues within the party which are why they lost all their seats in Wales. There are core issues in the conservative party as a whole, from leadership to policies, and the welsh conservatives cannot escape from being associated with all which comes with the Tories as a whole - their overall reputation, criticisms of all their past leaders. There is a reason they also lost in England, part due to reform stealing the vote, which just shows overall there is a lack of trust within the conservatives in the whole of the UK, let alone Wales. They have a lot more issues to address than just welshness.The suggestion to collaborate with Plaid Cymru, as former Welsh Secretary David TC Davies advocated, forgets about the ideological differences between the parties, hence why they are different parties in the first place. The social politics of a welsh conservative voter and a welsh plaid voter could be quite different. I know of a lot of progressive left-leaning young people who support plaid and oppose the tories, so this could lead to further fragmentation of both voter bases.By embracing more distinctly Welsh policies, they'll just alienate their core voters who align with UK-wide Conservative principles. Most people who vote conservative in Wales are probably not at all concerned with Welshness, and side closer with the side of the English Conservatives. Many current welsh conservatives may turn to reform if the stance on devolution is changed, and they'd end up even more ruined. I feel as though they could identify with 'welshness' in more ways than just a stance on devolution, as not even that many welsh people voted for devolution in the first place, it's certainly not as popular as independence in Scotland was, and they're still not independent. There are issues facing wales like the closures of rural schools, merging of colleges, access to healthcare, etc etc etc, that affect the average person much more than the independence of the country. An interesting perspective, though!

Don't those sellouts Andrew RT Davies & David TC Davies understand this simple premise. You can't embrace what you don't have. Welshness. The English Conservatives, and let's give them their real title, are a political party made in England , controlled by England , for the benefit of England. Truth be told.

I wonder what Nick Bourne thinks of all of this. I am a liberal democratic socialist and I don't find too much in common with conservativism, even when done competently. However, I do recognise that Wales does have people on the Right of politics and that we must rebuild our nation together. The Welsh Conservatives under the useless blowhard Andrew RT Davies have made themselves unelectable. He has consistently played to a small but noisy minority. His bluster barely masks his incompetence as an opposition leader. Moreover, he cut a ludicrous figure as an apologist for abjectly dreadful Tory Prime Ministers. Worse still, he has championed a destructive brand of British Nationalism. What the Welsh Conservatives need to do is stop trying to impose a fake British nationhood on the Welsh nation and champion British Pluralism. What is needed is a renewal of what it means to be British on these isles. I happen to think that the idea of being a family of nations is perfectly fine. It's the UK State which is the problem. Sadly, the Tories are intertwined with this State but they need to be disentangled. We were part of another family of nations prior to 2019 and a fine thing that was too. Britishness is as the broader European-ness. It is about our broader connections. British pluralism allows us to reset the relationships between the British nations and eventually with our European friends. That pluralism is based upon the nationhoods of Wales, Scotland and England. It requires mutual respect and a new constitutional settlement. That is Britishness the Welsh Tories should espouse - but they need to remember their Welshness first.

Someone in the Conservative Party in Wales needs to look carefully at the way the organisation has a relationship with the public. It’s like they are permanently in a coma and only come to life if someone stirs. Let’s have more of a relationship with the public, sit around a table and LISTEN to voters .

We need to remember that the words Wales or Welsh are English derogatory terms to describe people of this country as 'outsiders'. The original and correct 'Cymru' is now increasingly used with regard to native people, but maybe we can retain the Welsh / Outsider term for those people who reside in this country but have no empathy or respect for the country.

They should speak to David Melding. He had some great ideas. His essays on the future governance of the UK, as a kind of federation, were a very interesting read.

Hmm. What about the aricle 29 July showing results for Wales using the new Sennedd voting system. Labour 25%, PC 24%, Conservatives 16%, Reform 16%, Abolish assembly 7%, Greens 6%, LD 6% others 1%. The article points out it is difficult to make predictions on seats but the best attempt gives Labour 28.7 seats, PC 28 seats, Reform 16.2 seats, Conservatives 15.1 seats, Green 3.1 seats, LD 3 seats, Abolish 1.8 seats. The most interesting aspects of these results are how poorly the Greens are doing and how the LDs are also very lowbeing I would argue neither left or right wing. This is not a Tory wipeout by any means

So they should embrace their foreigness to these shores? We only identify as Welsh because we were forced to speak English. A term that wholeheartedly denies out entire history on this island.