Ex Plaid MP claims his career was destroyed because he helped oust Leanne Wood from the party leadership

Martin Shipton

Former Plaid Cymru MP Jonathan Edwards, who accepted a police caution for assaulting his wife, has claimed his political career was destroyed by an extreme left wing faction that blamed him for helping to oust Leanne Wood from the party leadership.

Mr Edwards, who represented Carmarthen East and Dinefwr from 2010 until 2024, managed Adam Price’s leadership campaign in 2018, when Ms Wood was pushed into third place.

He has also spoken about how he contemplated suicide as a result of what he considers to have been Plaid’s grossly unfair treatment of him.

His memoir Into the Abyss, which will be published on March 24, traces his life from being born into a working class family in the Amman Valley through to his decision not to seek re-election to Westminster at last year’s general election.

Adam Price

A significant theme of the book is the deterioration of his relationship with Adam Price, for whom he worked as a campaign manager and adviser before becoming an elected politician himself.

In 2020 Mr Edwards was given a police caution following an incident at the family home after he admitted assaulting his wife. The Crown Prosecution Service took the view that because the assault was a one-off incident that didn’t cause actual bodily harm to his wife and didn’t reflect a pattern of behaviour, it would not have been appropriate to prosecute him

After accepting the caution Mr Edwards was suspended by Plaid. A party disciplinary panel later expelled him from the party for a year and insisted that he take a domestic violence awareness course before it would consider readmitting him.

At the end of the year, the panel decided he should be allowed back into the party, but its national executive committee (NEC) said he should not be allowed to retake the Plaid whip at Westminster. All 38 Plaid councillors in Carmarthenshire signed a letter saying he should be allowed to stand as a Plaid candidate again, but the NEC refused to countenance that.

Mr Edwards decided to serve out the rest of the term as an Independent MP.

Dedicated

Speaking to Nation.Cymru, Mr Edwards said: “I was absolutely dedicated to fighting the Welsh cause in Westminster. I wasn’t somebody who just wanted to be a politician for the sake of being a politician, which I think is the case with far too many people who get involved in politics these days.

“I was totally loyal to the party and, obviously, an event happened in my personal life. I played it completely straight with the party expecting that to be reciprocated. I was given a whole host of assurances.

“But as the book clearly outlines, I think that contract of understanding between me and the party leadership was broken. And I consider the actions of some of the individuals involved to be a betrayal.

“Obviously, as a consequence of that, it has led me to a feeling of being completely disillusioned with the party. I still believe in the cause of Welsh nationalism, but I am not convinced that Plaid Cymru as currently structured is the vehicle that’s going to achieve those aspirations. I think there’s a very powerful and extreme left wing faction in the party that has control over the national executive, and they are factional. Their politics is extremely internally focussed.

“My approach was totally the opposite. I had absolutely no time for internal Plaid politics. I absolutely despised it from the time when I was a staff member. For me, politics is all about taking the fight to our political opponents. But I think the left wing faction in Plaid is far more motivated by controlling it as a political party than winning elections.

“When my issue happened, the leadership at the time were frightened of the political left. And I think the current leadership is still frightened, petrified of the left of the party. Well, if they’re not going to take on the left of Plaid Cymru, they’re certainly not going to take on the British state. It’s just not going to happen.”

Breakdown

Asked about the breakdown of his relationship with Mr Price, Mr Edwards said: “We’d worked extremely closely together for decades, and achieved incredible success together. I think if you look at south Wales, what we achieved in the Amman Valley has not been replicated anywhere else. We removed the Labour Party’s hegemony over a whole post-industrial community. We won every single tier of government. It’s a template for Plaid Cymru becoming the most prominent party in Wales.

“It was an incredibly tight partnership over the years.

“I have sympathy for the position Adam found himself in with his opponents within the party when dealing with my caution. Right at the start of the whole process, I think the initial penalty was extremely harsh, but that was, I think, a way of protecting him as leader. I was told throughout to trust the process.

“I think things changed when a week before the council elections in 2022 Leanne [Wood] gave an interview in which she said there was no way that Jonathan Edwards should be allowed back into the party. It was a shot across the bows to Adam. I think at that stage he decided that he wasn’t able to stick his neck out to protect me any longer. I think the political leadership of the party panicked and went along with the corruption of the disciplinary process. The Chair of the party, Alun Ffred Jones, said the disciplinary process should not be politicised, but that’s exactly what happened. He then resigned as Chair.”

‘Legitimate argument’

It was put to Mr Edwards that Leanne Wood and others would argue that simply because he accepted a caution for assault on his wife, that should automatically disqualify him from having a right to stand as a Plaid candidate. He responded: “I’ve thought about this in great detail. If that was the case, and it could be a legitimate argument, that should have been set out clearly at the start of the process. But it wasn’t. The biggest issue in terms of the way the party proceeded was that they changed the goal posts.

“Things happen. People make mistakes. Surely it’s how they respond to those mistakes that is important. Are we saying that where an individual makes a mistake, they are cast out for eternity? Or should we be signalling that if they respond to that mistake in the correct way, and show repentance, then matters are repaired and we move on?

“Writing the book has brought back a lot of difficult emotions for me. The sort of political behaviour I encountered is very dangerous. I think these individuals wanted to destroy me. There’s no doubt about that in my mind.

“I think it all points to a very dark political culture. I gave my life to Plaid Cymru, but I would never go back to a situation where I wouldn’t know which way the tigers were coming from. I thought if the party was willing to go into my personal life in the manner they did to target me, then there was nothing there for me in the party any longer.”

Asked what he thought was the motivation of his opponents in the party, Mr Edwards said: “I think it goes back to the demise of Leanne Wood’s leadership. I was a target because I had criticised her leadership, and also I’d supported Adam’s candidature. I think it’s as simple as that.”

Mental health

Opening up about the impact of the events on his mental health, he said: “I think I was suicidal for a very long period because my professional life was crumbling as well as my personal life. It was a very difficult place to be.”

Asked how life was now, he said: “Well, my golf handicap has improved and my darts average is getting a bit better. But my personal life is in a completely different place. I’ve got a wonderful partner. We’re expecting our first child in June.

“We’ve bought a house together. Fflur has very kindly agreed to come back to live in west Wales from London. But it’s looking towards the future now. The only missing link is my professional position, and I’m currently studying financial advice courses, and I think that’s maybe where the future may be for me.”

Asked how writing the book had helped him, Mr Edwards said: “I’d be lying if I said I don’t think a lot about what has happened, because politics is so important to me and representing my home communities was so important to me. And I actually thought I was doing a very good job for Carmarthenshire and for Wales. So it’s very difficult for me to accept what has happened.

“But I don’t want to be bitter. I think writing the book has been a very important part of enabling me to draw a line under what has happened. I’ve just got to accept it, and I’ve got to move on with my life.

“I think the key thing for me is I want to enjoy the rest of my life. I don’t want to be looking back over there and, you know, being angry about it or whatever. I don’t want to settle scores. It’s not about revenge.”

Into The Abyss by Jonathan Edwards is published by Cambria Books at £18. Nation.Cymru will be publishing extracts from the book, the first on March 22.