Calum Davies: Will the real Plaid Cymru please stand up – and not the glossed media makeover they get in Wales

Calum Davies is a Conservative councillor in Cardiff and a candidate for the Senedd in May.

In my last column, I wrote about how Welsh Labour had sown the seeds of their own demise by feeding the separatist beast, part-explaining how Plaid Cymru are cannibalising many of their voters.

But who are Plaid Cymru really? Just how devastating will they be for the future of the country?

Given it has many supporters in a rump Welsh media, being both left-leaning and nationalistic, the public’s perceptions of the party are on the more positive side by virtue of rarely being subject to the scrutiny faced by the Conservatives, Labour, and Reform.

The so-called Party of Wales celebrated it centenary last year; its foundations rooted in the preservation of the Welsh language. Its “home rule” ambitions were more diluted than the full-on independence rhetoric of the modern day but quickly moved onto that turf.

Their heartland has always been in the Welsh-speaking west, known as “Y Fro Gymraeg”, ever since winning their first parliamentary seat in the 1966 Carmarthen by-election. They have had a decent number of councillors in the South Wales valleys but only rarely and briefly reaching positions of power on councils, whilst largely relying on help from others to do so.

When the Welsh Assembly was established in 1999, they had their best-ever result in a convincing second place but, since their 2007-11 coalition with Labour have come third, second, and third again, vying with the Conservatives to be Wales’ second most popular party.

Since that coalition, Plaid aimed to outflank Labour from the political left, first, under Leanne Wood and then, Adam Price, even if this was against the instincts of their rural, small-c conservative voter base. Ex-BBC journalist – who naturally has many friends in the media – Rhun ap Iorwerth was appointed leader uncontested in time to benefit from the Starmer disaster.

As a party that has always been hostile to Conservative England but aware of the unradical nature of their voting base – Welsh independence aside – Plaid has been careful to not pigeonhole itself for most of its history but has now committed itself to a hard-left agenda.

Its leader recently said, “there’s no such thing as illegal immigration”. Its former leader said women shouldn’t go to prison. They have very much sided with trans extremists even after last year’s Supreme Court ruling.

Recent manifestos included commitments to rent controls (which are proven to actually increase rents), reaching net zero by 2035 (bringing forward the already straining 2050 target), rejoining the Single Market and Customs Union (even though Wales voted to leave the EU), and increasing benefits (which is already slowly bankrupting our unproductive economy).

They criticise Labour for governing Wales poorly, despite doing so largely in accordance with their own separatist politics and whilst being directly complicit through formal coalitions and workaround deals that were coalitions in all but name.

Together, these parties delivered for Wales the worst NHS waiting times in Britain, the lowest school standards in the UK, and the least competitive region of the British economy. Water sewage spills were four times higher per head than in England and housebuilding last year was its second lowest during the devolutionary era (beating only the Covid year by 20 units).

Meanwhile, Plaid Cymru support their hated 20mph default speed limit. With Labour, they are happy to embezzle taxpayer money for non-devolved areas such as fake foreign embassies and the Nation of Sanctuary scheme that encourages illegal immigration. Alongside Labour, they gave free school meals to primary school aged children on millionaires and are committed to doing it now for teenagers from rich families.

They backed Labour blocking the much-needed M4 relief road even after £150m of public money was spent on an independent feasibility study that said it should be built. They are, of course, the main driver behind the Senedd expansion, costing £120m despite no public mandate for doing so. Both parties complain that Wales is underfunded but make no case or attempt to generate more wealth in Wales. They oppose a begging-bowl culture in words but battle tooth-and-nail to maintain in practice.

Plaid argued that pupils should skip school to go on climate protests and that we should import American-style anti-colonial, anti-white, race-baiting education, all while its Councils remove English language education rights when the law gives parity not precedence for Welsh.

Recently, they voted to block an inquiry into child sex abuse, they argue Labour’s anti-racist action plan does not go far enough, and they campaigned against proscribing Palestine Action even after they broke into an RAF base, damaged vital defence resources, and attacked a female police officer with a sledgehammer. They are now indistinguishable from a moronic Green Party.

As a councillor in Cardiff, they have used their precious annual motion not to talk about the one rural ward they represent. The people of Pentyrch, Creigiau, and St Fagans will feel shortchanged knowing that while I, as a councillor for a neighbouring ward, have doubled bus services – from which people in Pentyrch will also benefit – and fight inflation-busting tax rises, their local Plaid representatives prioritise Palestine and devolving the Crown Estate, neither of which are the province of the Council. This is how contemptuous of the public Plaid really are.

But the rot goes deeper. They boast of the “strong link” with Sinn Fein, the political wing of the IRA, and the Scottish National Party. Plaid sent a delegation to Gaddafi’s Libya to learn from them, the regime that armed the IRA to murder British citizens and troops. Their supporters deface English place names on public signage and have a record of burning holiday cottages. Anglophobic arson is just an occupational hazard in their quest to destroy the United Kingdom.

The point is, Plaid is not some mainstream, Welsh choice. They are a radical, leftist party whose core belief is that every input and every outcome must move Wales closer to independence. They do not share the public’s priorities. The commonweal comes second to their separatist goals. Plaid wants to facilitate a woke-on-steroids agenda that goes further than the damage already done by Labour using money Wales simply does not have. The compromised media will never give them the scrutiny the public demands, so it is up to us unionists do it ourselves.

A glimmer of hope: Plaid’s ex-leader Adam Price has the support of his colleagues to push through a Bill that would ban lying by politicians at election time. Should it ever become an Act, Plaid will never be able to say Welsh independence is viable future for our proudly British nation.