Adam and the Right

After using his latest blog post to make a bitter personal attack on Sanddef Rhyferys , Adam Price MP then goes on to comment on right wing nationalists in general:

Plaid is, of course, a “broad inter-faith community.” It is itself a political and social coalition whose philosophical glue is the love of Wales, its land and its people. However, if the party is to be relevant, it has to have something to say on the social and economic policy issues of the day and, for the time being at least, the centre of gravity is essentially social-democratic. I have always been completely welcoming of non-socialists in the party who are nevertheless democrats prepared to accept the democratic outcome of debate in the party. What I have never understood is a tendency among some right-wing nationalists that would almost prefer if people like myself had actually joined the Labour Party instead of joining Plaid. This is a bizarre position for people who are ostensibly seeking to win over Labour voters in the south Wales valleys and elsewhere. All that awaits them from the likes of Ordovicus, it seems, is a bucket of well-stirred vitriol

I disagree with a number of comments that Mr Price makes here. Firstly I don't think that Plaid is the broad inter faith community (or broad church, as most would say) that it once was. The party's membership card states unequivocally that the party is a socialist party, so quite clearly there is no room in it for nationalists who believe that socialism has harmed Wales and will continue to harm Wales. Indeed the party has expelled people, such as Guto Bebb, for holding free market economic views. Even Mr Price's comment, which might appear broad and conciliatory on first reading:

I have always been completely welcoming of non-socialists in the party who are nevertheless democrats prepared to accept the democratic outcome of debate in the party

can actually be paraphrased as you don't have to be a socialist as long as you pretend to support the socialist views of the majority.

This is of course one of the silly things that happens in Plaid these days, you have people who are clearly not socialists, like Ieuan Wyn Jones, pretending that they are socialist. I find this funny; many potential voters find it duplicitous, dishonest, opportunistic and worst of all off putting. If Plaid is to succeed the party needs to go back to being a broad church that allows people of left, centre and right to support the national cause, that is Plaid's true core value, in an open and honest way.

I have never heard anybody on the right wing of the national cause say that they wish that Adam had joined the Labour party. Most of us, despite disagreeing with his socialist ideology, recognise that he is a great asset to Plaid and is probably the most charismatic and able of the party's elected members. Personally I feel sad that his socialist colleague and contemporary in the Plaid youth movement, Alun Davies, did join the Labour party. The loss of somebody of Alun's calibre was a great blow to Plaid, despite the fact that he has always been a committed leftie.

The criticism that many of us on the right do make about the socialist in Plaid is that they too often take a British Socialist view, rather than a left wing Welsh Nationalist view and that many of them promote the socialist cause instead of rather than as well as Welsh Nationalism (I don't include Adam in this group, incidentally). If all Plaid is about is promoting collectivism, republicanism, pacifism, trade unionism etc then it may as well merge with a British left party. Unless Plaid Cymru is first and foremost a nationalist party that promotes Welsh Independence, there is no point in its existence.