Former SNP Westminster leader ‘offering informal advice to Plaid Cymru’

Martin Shipton

Ian Blackford, the Scottish National Party’s former Westminster leader, has been offering Plaid Cymru informal advice on how to operate as a governing party, it has emerged.

Blackford, who became a familiar face at Prime Minister’s Questions when he led the SNP’s Commons group from 2017 to 2022, has been spending much of his time in Wales since standing down from Westminster in 2024 and campaigned for Plaid Cymru in last October’s Caerphilly Senedd by-election.

Blackford told The National newspaper: “I’m here to be a wise counsel if I can.

“If you think what happened in that period from 2007 [when the SNP first formed a minority government in Scotland after winning one more seat than Labour in that year’s Scottish Parliament election] to getting that overall majority in 2011, the SNP were on the side of the people of Scotland, if I can use that phrase, and I think demonstrated that we were worthy of the trust of the people. We delivered that fantastic result in 2011, that overall majority and that then led us to being able to have that debate about Scotland’s future at the time of the independence referendum in 2014.

“I think there is a very strong narrative that equally applies to Wales because there’s an enormous opportunity because of what has happened, because of the absolute collapse of the Labour support.

“The Caerphilly by-election demonstrated the effectiveness of Plaid, showing themselves to be that progressive alternative.”

Trusted

Plaid’s mission now, as Blackford sees it, is to prove to the people of Wales that they can be trusted to run the country, with their eyes set on the long-term goal of converting that approval into support for independence.

“There are lots of similarities with what we did in 2007 – I guess it’s almost a mirror image in some respects,” he said.

“I think the way that they’ve communicated that and I think the way that they’ve sort of said to people, ‘look, put us in power, give us the chance to show that we can govern, let us show that we’re worthy of the trust of the people’, and then you have that conversation as to the future of the country.”

Acknowledging that the devolved administrations were now faced with a more muscular version of Unionism at Westminster than used to be the case, Blackford said: “Of course, the circumstances are different. But what you’ve got is a dynamism, a freshness and I think that Rhun [ap Iorwerth] has demonstrated very, very strong leadership. I believe he’s got a strong ministerial team behind him.”

Blackford said it made sense for Plaid to pursue a dual strategy of making the arguments on fairer funding for Wales while simultaneously seeking to ensure “value for money” in the spending they control.

He said: “I’m sure that just as we’re doing, with the job that Ivan McKee’s been given in the Scottish Government [as Cabinet Secretary for Public Sector Reform] to get value for money to try and be more effective and I’m sure Plaid will have to do the same thing, because they’ll have to make sure that they get the best return on the investment that they make in public services.”

Alliances

Plaid is six seats short of an overall majority and Blackford said that this may lead them to seek alliances with other parties: “I would say, for the here and now, Rhun is right to govern from where he is and as a minority government,” he said. “I think over the fullness of time, Rhun will have to give consideration to the electoral landscape that there is in Wales and how that’s affected the result in the Parliament and how he makes sure that he’s got that breadth of support to get his programme through.

“You may find that there will be other members of the Senedd who can find alignment with the things that Plaid want to do.”

“The last Labour budget was passed, Plaid abstained on the vote, but I think practical politics came into play because there were really important concessions that Labour made to Plaid in terms of spending commitments, that helped them in the transition to government.”