THE LEANNE WOOD INTERVIEW
Plaid Cymru leader Leanne Wood tells Political Editor David Williamson why she should still lead the party, how the party can change and whether she’d join a Tory coalition
LEANNE Wood is in the fight of her political life. In the 2016 Assembly elections she pulled off a personal triumph by winning the Labour heartland seat of Rhondda for Plaid Cymru.
Now she faces two leadership challenges, with Carmarthen East and Dinefwr AM Adam Price and Anglesey AM Rhun ap Iorwerth wanting to take the top job.
But Ms Wood has set herself a challenge beyond hanging on to the party leadership. She has pledged to quit if she does not become First Minister after the 2021 elections.
There has never been a Plaid Cymru FM in the history of self-government in Wales and she wants to achieve this goal without having to join forces with the Conservatives.
She has no deficit of ambition. Wales will soon discover whether she has the support she needs to stay as leader.
The Rhondda AM sees the 2021 election as an opportunity to win “the most AMs that we’ve ever had” and she says she will stand down if she does not lead the next Welsh Government.
She said: “I’ve said that the next election is First Minister or bust for me. I’m literally putting my job on the line for this.
“I’m potentially in a strong position to go into that next election as the most experienced leader with the highest profile of all the other party leaders...
“I think that stands us in good stead to deliver success in the Assembly election in 2021. I’m standing on my record, but I also recognise there are things that we need to change in the party and I’m ready now to take it to the next level, and I want the party membership to step up to the next level with me now and do what we need to do in a collective way.”
Ms Wood scored one of the biggest upsets of the 2016 Assembly election when she ousted Labour big beast Leighton Andrews from Rhondda with a majority of 3,459.
She argues that the lessons of the Rhondda campaign can be replicated across Wales, and stresses the need for face-to-face campaigning and grassroots organisation.
“We need to identify those seats where we can make gains and then we need to make sure we have the organisational structure within them to communicate with as many people face to face as possible,” she said.
“I always emphasise the importance of face-to-face communications. Where we’ve won elections in the past it’s been on the basis of that hard work, speaking to people in their own communities.
“It’s a two-way process. It’s listening to people about their own concerns and then taking those up in the forms of campaign and action at a local level.”
She sees communities at each end of Wales where she believes the party can win – but cautions against thinking victory is all about who leads the party.
“If you look at our former industrial areas north and south, they are very similar profiles to the constituency that I represent, she said.
“As long as we can get really good quality candidates – and we’ve got a wealth of talent and experience within Plaid Cymru... then I really believe if we are prepared to put the work in then we can do that.
“But we have to realise as well it’s not just the leader who delivers all of that, everybody has to pull their weight.”
It was hard to imagine Ms Wood ever joining forces with the Tory group when it was led by diehard Brexiteer Andrew RT Davies, but could that change with interim leader and Preseli Pembrokeshire AM Paul Davies at the helm?
She had a one-word answer: “No.” But she is determined to see Labour out of power in Wales.
She said: “We’ve had 20 years of a Labour Government as of now, and it’s not working, it’s not delivering for people, so there’s no doubt we need to end Labour Government. I want to govern on a Plaid Cymru platform and we have to win the election – there’s no shortcut.
“We have to persuade enough people to back Plaid Cymru and Plaid Cymru’s programme and we have to win enough constituencies to be in a position where we at least run a minority government. And I want to do that with Plaid Cymru alone.”
Ms Wood sees a new negativity in politics in recent years.
She said: “Politics can be about a robust exchange of ideas and debate and discussion, but I really think there’s no need for it to get nasty. I think that politics over the last couple of years [since the Brexit referendum] has been quite difficult.
“There’s been a lot of unpleasantness in the online world and also there’s the usual tit-for-tat between parties... I would say all the negativity and the personal attacks are the aspects of the job I like the least.”
Ms Wood has long been seen as on the left-wing, republican wing of the party, and she was unequivocal in her support for people who will protest President Trump’s visit to the UK.
She said: “I know he’s the President of the United States and I have respect for the people of the United States, but I certainly don’t have respect for the politics that has come from the office of the President of the United States... We do need to stand up and say that politics is wrong, and I fully support the protests.
“Whether I’ll be able to make any of them, I’m not sure at this point in time, but they’ll have my support and solidarity in spirit, if not in person.”
Leadership challenger Adam Price had called for Plaid to have a man and a woman as co-leaders, arguing such a system had been adopted by parties ranging “from Green parties everywhere, to the Left Party in Germany, to the Kurdish HDP and the Maori Party in New Zealand”.
Explaining why she did not run with this proposal, she said: “I’m generally supportive of the idea of job-sharing and I’m a collective leader anyway, and I’ve always worked on the basis that my shadow cabinet works as a leadership team, as opposed to me being some kind of dictator.
“It’s an interesting proposal, I just think it came quite late in the day and it’s difficult to see how, unless you begin at the very start of the process as two people on a shared platform [there won’t be] all kinds of
problems in terms of what happens when they disagree, how are those issues resolved; there are practical questions around how those positions are elected and so on and held to account.”
If she feels aggrieved that she faces two challenges, she refuses to show it and insists the group will have to work together after the contest.
She said: “Plaid Cymru is one of the most democratic parties you could have... The position of leader comes up for election every two years.
“Now, it does make sense if there is to be a contest for it to happen now, because in two years’ time we’ll be too close to the elections to do it. We’d be daft to change the leader at that point.”
She also wants to move on from the controversies and dramas that have rocked Plaid on her watch, which have seen South Wales Central AM Neil McEvoy suspended from the group and Lord Dafydd Elis-Thomas become an independent AM and take up a position in the Welsh Government.
“I’m really keen to draw a line under some of the negativity that has come with all of that and to move on,” she said.
“We’ve spent quite a lot of time discussing negative issues and we’ve got so many good things to say and communicate with people.”
With left-winger Jeremy Corbyn at the helm of the UK Labour party, is it time for Plaid to abandon any attempt to outflank its rival on the left and instead zoom to the centre ground?
Ms Wood has no interest in pointing Plaid in a rightwards direction.
She said: “I think they are very British arguments.
“In Wales the political centre is held by Welsh Labour, so it’s a crowded field in Wales.
“When we talk about the centre, in my mind I see Liberal Democrats, Tony Blair, Nick Clegg – it’s not a place where most people are finding their attractions, I would argue.”
She added it was a mistake to position a party in relation to “another political party’s leader”, saying: “That can change at anytime, so do we reposition ourselves when Labour turns back to being led by a right-wing leader?
“You’ve got to decide where you stand on questions and for me it’s all about Wales...
“I think those parties that try to move about all over the political spectrum don’t gain the respect of the electorate.”
Her goal remains leading a party of grassroots activists who not only put Plaid in power but change Wales itself.
She said: “Together, stronger, we can all put together the effort that’s needed to build a new nation.”