Plaid seeking the ‘beginning of a new Wales’ at election
PLAID Cymru yesterday launched its General Election campaign on Anglesey – a seat the party hopes it can win back from Labour.
Activists from across Wales converged upon Menai Bridge and, despite having to overturn a 5,000 majority, it hopes that Labour MP Albert Owen’s decision to stand down from the Ynys Mon seat after 18 years will offer a timely boost.
Plaid Cymru leader Adam Price, addressing the gathering of party faithful at the Victoria Hotel, said that “the people of Wales and the Party of Wales united will be an unstoppably positive force”.
Set to tackle his first General Election as party leader, he added that there was “no other party with higher ambition for Wales” and that “the solutions to Welsh problems are in our hands”.
“That pencil that we will all hold in a few short weeks could be the beginning not just of a new politics, but a new Wales, a new hope for all of us,” he said, hoping to carry on the momentum after the party came second in Wales during June’s European election.
But as well as targeting Ynys Mon, the party also face battles to retain two of its four seats – with Ceredigion and Arfon currently held on the very slimmest of margins – 104 and 92 respectively.
“It’s us – the people of Wales – that hold the key to our nation’s future,” added Mr Price.
“Europe, it’s us. Transforming our economy, it’s us. A caring country, it’s us. Ending poverty, hunger and homelessness, it’s us.
Among the party’s policies are:
■ Investing in renewables, infrastructure and digital, and creating tens of thousands of jobs;
■ delivering free social care through a new National Health and Care Service, with thousands of new medical staff;
■ universal free childcare and a new £35-a-week payment for every child in low-income families;
■ “major investment” in affordable homes and introducing rent relief for people who pay more than 30% of their income on rent; and
■ creating a Welsh justice system, devolving policing, and creating a new £50m crime prevention fund to recruit 1,600 new police officers.
The party’s Westminster leader Liz Saville Roberts was adamant that Wales should remain within “the great union of Europe”.
And Ynys Mon candidate Aled ap Dafydd said that, while Westminster looked upon Wales as “an irrelevant faraway corner”, Plaid would “turn their backwater into our bedrock”.