AM confirms party membership lapsed
PLAID Cymru AM Helen Mary Jones has confirmed that her membership of the party lapsed in the period before her return to the National Assembly last year – but says she is convinced no rules were broken when she took up her seat.
Ms Jones, who was a member of the Assembly from 1999 until 2011, came back to the Senedd in August last year as a regional member for Mid & West Wales. She replaced Simon Thomas, who resigned his seat after being charged with child pornography offences. He subsequently pleaded guilty and was given a 26-week prison sentence, suspended for two years.
At the last Assembly election in 2016, Ms Jones had been second to Mr Thomas on Plaid Cymru’s regional list of candidates for Mid and West Wales. Under the Assembly’s rules, no by-elections are held when a regional AM resigns or dies. Instead, the next person on the relevant party’s list of candidates usually fills the vacancy.
However, that doesn’t necessarily happen if the next person on the candidate list has left the party. Earlier this week the magazine Lol, which circulates on the National Eisteddfod Maes every year, published a story alleging that there had been a problem with Ms Jones’s membership status.
A spokesman for Lol told us: “We heard this from a number of sources, including people who work for Plaid Cymru.”
Ms Jones herself said: “It’s true that my membership lapsed for several months between autumn 2017 and spring 2018. I was moving house in Cardiff and rearranged my standing orders and direct debits. Unfortunately my regular membership payment to Plaid Cymru stopped.
“I’m not sure how that happened and I’m not sure of the dates when I wasn’t a member.
“Obviously Plaid Cymru nominated me as the new AM for Mid and West Wales when the post became vacant. Under the rules of the Assembly, I was the right person to join the Assembly because I had been number two on the Mid and West Wales regional list.
We asked Plaid Cymru for precise details of Ms Jones’s membership history, but the party has not provided it.