Labour pick pro-independence candidate in Senedd constituency

Labour have chosen a pro-independence candidate to fight the constituency of Ceredigion at the Senedd election.

Dylan Lewis-Rowlands is the party’s second pro-indy candidate after Ben Gwalchmai who is standing on the Mid and West Wales list. He said: “Thank you to the members in Ceredigion that supported me!”

The campaign group Labour 4 Indy Wales welcomed the news, saying: “Dylan ran in Ceredigion as a pro-indy candidate, believes that Indy Wales is the future, and that our party must step up to deliver socialism through independence.

“This is great news and we look forward to campaigning with him!”

He had also received the endorsement of Welsh Labour Grassroots.

“We need a Labour Government in Wales,” Dylan Lewis-Rowlands said on his Facebook page. “A decade of tory austerity and a year of Tory failure on the pandemic has shown us that. But we need to ensure that any Labour government would be a socialist one. I am committed to that principle.

“Though I am young, I am raised in the Labour Trade Unionist tradition. Those are the principles I would stand on. I am a native Welsh Speaker, and would be proud to campaign in both languages.

“This campaign is not just about me, it’s about us. It’s about bringing our membership together to show that there is an alternative. I would not be a candidate to stand and dictate, but to sit and listen to members, and to represent you.

“It’s in that spirit that we can provide that alternative, and represent Ceredigion.”

Welsh Conservative leader Andrew RT Davies also responded to the selection: “This has been blatantly obvious for a while, but the Labour Party has given up on the UK.

“Only the Welsh Conservatives will rebuild Wales in a strong United Kingdom,” he said.

Ceredigion is the constituency of the incumbent Llywydd, Plaid Cymru’s Elin Jones. Labour came fifth there in 2016 with 6.5 per cent of the vote. They came third in the 2017 General Election with 20.2 per cent of the vote and fourth in 2019 with 15.8 per cent of the vote.