Independence? It's stupidity of the first degree

Among the endorsements that Dafydd Elis-Thomas has chosen to put on his new website in his bid to become leader of Plaid Cymru is this statement from Gwilym Owen:

Yn ôl rhai mae o'n euog o fod yn anwadal ei genedlaetholdeb a hynny yn fwy na dim am ei fod o'n ymwrthod a'r gair hwnnw "annibynniaeth". Dyna'r gair bellach sydd ar wefusau'r rheiny sy'n credu ei bod hi'n bosib ail adrodd stori'r Alban yng Nghymru. Ond twpdra o'r radd flaenaf ydi hynny wrth gwrs – ac mae Dafydd El yn ddigon hirben ac yn ddigon onest i gyhoeddi hynny.

Mae gan Blaid Cymru swyddogaeth bwysicach a hynny ydi cydweithio gyda, a sbarduno'r Llywodraeth Lafur i gynnal economi Cymru drwy gyfnod o galedi mawr. Mae gweithredu felly yn anhepgor y dyddiau hyn – ac mae gan y Cenedlaetholwyr ddyletswydd i wynebu'r her honno.

According to some he's guilty of being fickle in his nationalism and, more than anything, this is because of his rejection of the word "independence". That's the word which is now on the lips of those who believe that it's possible to repeat what's happening in Scotland in Wales. But that of course is stupidity of the first degree – and Dafydd El is shrewd and honest enough to say that in public.

Plaid Cymru has a more important role, and that is to co-operate with and spur on the Labour Government to support the Welsh economy through a period of great hardship. Working in this way is indispensable in times like these – and Nationalists have a duty to face that challenge.

Gwilym Owen in Golwg, 5 January 2012

There are two things about this endorsement that I'd like to focus on: first independence and second leadership.
 

Fickle about independence

Let's look first at independence and the idea that the narrative in Scotland is different from that in Wales. I don't think it is, and neither does Dafydd Elis-Thomas.

Before his professed conversion to the cause of independence for Wales, Dafydd certainly didn't think there was that much difference between Scotland and Wales. Of course he never believed in independence for Wales, but perhaps some people reading this won't remember that only a few years ago he was equally against independence for Scotland too. This is what he said in September 2004:

This week the SNP gathers in Inverness. Last week, the former leader of the Welsh nationalists spoke up about the SNP's failure to adjust to devolution, commenting: "There is still a role for them but not as a nationalist party."

He added that the SNP’s only chance of government was to cease to pursue "Scottish independence as if this is the real issue" and transform itself into a "party of government within the devolved set-up."

Scotsman, 22 September 2004

This was at a time when the SNP were at a low point, rather similar to the position that Plaid Cymru is in now. They had done very badly in the elections to the Scottish Parliament in 2003, and people were saying that they needed a change of direction in order to become electable.

But thankfully Alex Salmond refused to take Dafydd's advice and in fact laughed off the idea that the SNP should backtrack on the idea of independence.

I was amused by the Scottish press who ran the piece just before our conference and they said, "Dafydd Elis-Thomas doesn't believe in independence anymore."

"Well he never believed in independence anyway."

When asked whether there was any merit in Lord Elis-Thomas's arguments, Mr Salmond said, "Most of the criticism of the SNP actually comes from those who say we have lost sight of the vision of an independent Scotland by getting involved in devolution and getting wrapped up in the day-to-day running of politics.

"We have to do both. Where I disagree with my distinguished colleague is that you have to have a successful national party. You have to have a vision of independence galvanising support and the promise of what independence can deliver linked to a social and economic vision that you want to deliver. The job of the SNP is not to substitute the constitutional debate with the social and economic debate or vice versa but to link the two."

Western Mail, 12 November 2004

And that of course is the whole point: it is wrong to think that the debate is either to talk about constitutional matters or to talk about social and economic matters. The point is that we can only deal with social and economic matters in Wales to the extent that we can make decisions about these things in Wales. It is a question of whether we are content to let a government in Westminster make these decisions for us or whether we are prepared to take on that responsibility for ourselves.

Alex Salmond realized that the SNP had failed to make an electoral breakthrough because they had lost focus on what they existed for as a political party. But by sticking to their core aims, and by not being afraid to even mention the word independence in the way that Plaid Cymru has avoided it over most of the past decade, the SNP were able to form a minority government in 2007, and then went on to win a spectacular overall victory in 2011.

The lesson is obvious. If a political party is ambivalent about what it is for, it will get nowhere. The public won't tolerate two-faced politicians. But they will listen and respond positively to a party that wants independence for their country if that party is honest and open about it.

After being proved to have been so humiliatingly wrong, it is little wonder that Dafydd has had to change his tune in recent months. If we believe what he said to Martin Shipton, he has now become an enthusiastic supporter of independence for Wales. I was prepared to give him the benefit of any doubt about whether he was telling the truth or whether he was lying through his teeth to try and prolong his political career by a few years.

But now? All I will say is that he has done himself no favours by putting this endorsement from Gwilym Owen on his website. He's simply reopened an issue which it would surely have been wiser for him to let rest. Put simply, he's still trying to have it both ways at the same time. Dafydd clearly wants one group of people to believe one thing about him on the matter of independence for Wales, but wants others to believe something else.

Put more bluntly, he's being two-faced. But what's new about that?
 

Clueless about leadership

The second thing I want to look at is what Dafydd would do if he were to become leader of Plaid Cymru. For the second part of the endorsement he has put on his website maintains that the "more important" role Plaid Cymru should fulfil is to co-operate with the Labour Government.

But why?

Is the main reason for Plaid Cymru's existence to lend a helping hand to the Labour Party? Is this the limit of Dafydd's ambition for the party? Labour are our political opponents. In order for Plaid Cymru to form the next Welsh Government in 2016 we will need to take seats from Labour in their own heartlands, and we won't do that by positioning ourselves as nothing more than Labour's little helpers. Besides that, Labour don't need our help ... they have enough seats to manage on their own.

So the whole premise of Dafydd's strategy is misplaced. All he appears to want is to put a few more years of life into a political career that's been dead on its feet for a long, long time. Other candidates (well two of them, anyway) have put forward a vision of where they want Plaid Cymru to go under their leadership, how to take Wales forward instead of continuing the slow downhill slide under Labour. The best I can find on Dafydd's new website is this page on what the job of leader is and what he will do. It's just a cut and paste from the Assembly's own rules but with nothing new, nothing special and nothing unique to offer.