Campaign group hold protest at National Eisteddfod Wrexham

Stephen Price

Welsh language campaigners held a disruptive protest outside the Welsh Government unit at the National Eisteddfod in Wrexham in an attempt to ‘wake up’ the Government to the ‘crisis’ facing Welsh communities.

Cymdeithas yr Iaith say that the protest, which involved sounding alarms, blowing whistles and beating drums for five minutes, was held as a result of the Welsh Government’s ‘lack of response’ to the report of the Welsh Communities Commission, which presented recommendations to the Government about the future of Welsh communities.

The Commission presented its report in August 2024, and after ten months of consideration, the Government responded to these recommendations in May 2025, and Cymdeithas yr Iaith has criticised the response, labelling it as ‘lacking vision’.

Cymdeithas’ ‘Nid yw Cymru ar Werth; (Wales is not for sale) campaign has been holding rallies, protests and conferences for four years to pressure the Government to introduce a Property Act to give local communities control over their homes and their future.

White Paper

Areas with high numbers of Welsh speakers will get extra support to strengthen the language, after Welsh Ministers accepted recommendations from a report published last summer.

After a two-year study by the Commission for Welsh Speaking Communities led by Dr Simon Brooks, the Welsh Government has accepted several proposals to protect Welsh as a community language.

Welsh Language Secretary Mark Drakeford announced the plans at the Urdd Eisteddfod in May 2025, confirming the government will:

• Give support to areas with higher concentrations of Welsh speakers to target support
• Make sure residents in these areas, and across Wales, can access Welsh-medium education
• Provide more guidance about the language across a range of policy areas

Recommendations have been accepted across policy areas including economy, housing, community development and education. The Government will coordinate with local authorities and partners to discuss and implement the recommendations.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Cymdeithas yr Iaith (@cymdeithas)

Mr Drakeford said: “Cymraeg belongs to us all, and to every community across Wales. I am grateful for the Commission’s hard work on this report, and I hope that by accepting their recommendations, we can strengthen Welsh in all our communities.”

“We agree in principle that areas of linguistic significance should be designated and will now progress this by working with partners to create tailored policies that respond to the specific needs of Welsh-speaking communities”

The recommendations were criticised by Cymdeithas yr Iaith at the time, who have given a mark of 33 out of 100 to the Welsh Government for its response to the recommendations of the Commission for Welsh Speaking Communities.

The group say the response recognises the crisis facing Welsh-speaking communities, but does not offer a vision or show a willingness to take real action.

Plaid Cymru spokesperson for the Welsh language, Heledd Fychan MS also said: “The Government have had almost a year to respond to the recommendations and plan how they will be implemented, so the lack of detail today is disappointing in terms of how the work will be undertaken and funded.

“We must get clarity on this, and promptly, if we are to succeed in preventing further decline of the language in Welsh-speaking communities.

“With so many challenges facing our language, Plaid Cymru is clear: we need more than just words of support – the findings of the Commission together with voices in Welsh-speaking communities must lead to action from the Welsh Government.”

“Talk without action”

Following the demonstration at the Eisteddfod, and on behalf of the organising committee, Osian Jones explained the purpose of the protest. He shared: “It is clear that our Government is not alert to the crisis of our Welsh communities as there is a lot of talk without action.

“A White Paper on Housing was published last year, and the Government has not taken any legislative steps following that.

“The Welsh Communities Commission spent two years drawing up a report and tens of recommendations.

“After 10 months of consideration, the government has decided to do nothing except for more discussion.

“It seems that the Government is sleeping, has lost the will to do anything. Symbolically we are therefore creating a loud alarm sound outside the Government unit on the Steddfod field in order to wake them up.”

The Welsh Government said: “We have responded to the Commission’s recommendations and have already acted on many of them, including providing more funding to our key partners in growing the language and supporting our Welsh speaking communities.”