Labour government ‘next to impossible in Westminster’, says former Plaid Cymru leader

A former leader of Plaid Cymru has said that it’s “next to impossible for Labour to form a government in Westminster”.

Dafydd Wigley, who sits for the party in the House of Lords, said the best the party could hope for was a coalition and at worse “ultra-right-wing governments”.

He made the comments on the Hiraeth podcast, where he also suggested that the possibility of both Scotland and Northern Ireland leaving the union was also leading people from a Labour background to “come around to the pro-independence view.”

He said: “It’s next to impossible for Labour to form a government in Westminster. So, we’re going to be bound into at best coalition government at Westminster, at worst right-wing or ultra-right-wing governments.

“So, people with a Labour background are saying ‘well if we’re governing ourselves in Wales, there’s a chance at least we can do so on an acceptable social agenda with progressive economic policies that meet the aspirations and the needs of Wales’’.

‘Pro-independence’

He added: “You’ve got many people who are traditionally from a Labour background who have come around to the pro-independence view, or at least are willing to countenance it because they’re seeing with Scotland having taking decisions that will lead possibly to independence but already has led to the eclipse of the Labour Party in Scotland.

“If Scotland is going to be going its own way, and in Northern Ireland already there are people who are talking about the reunification of Ireland because of the effect of Brexit.

“Remember a majority in the north of Ireland voted to remain in Europe. If Northern Ireland and Scotland leave, leaving Wales as the only part of the so called United Kingdom left, being trampled all over by Westminster, it’s not surprising that more people are now looking towards independence and we need to show what model of independence could work, and what are the conditions necessary to make it.”