Leanne Wood returns to the Senedd – as an adviser

Martin Shipton

Former Plaid Cymru leader Leanne Wood has returned to the Senedd – not as a politician in her own right but as an adviser to two recently elected Plaid MSs.

Fflint Wrecsam MS Marc Jones confirmed that he and his constituency colleague Carrie Harper were employing Ms Wood for “a couple of hours a week”.

Mr Jones, a former journalist who, like Ms Wood and Ms Harper, is on the left of Plaid, told Nation.Cymru: “Leanne is doing a great job and it’s brilliant to have her on the team. She has enormous experience and her advice is invaluable.”

Ms Wood was first elected as a member of what was then the National Assembly at the beginning of its second term in 2003, having previously been a probation officer and a councillor in her home constituency of Rhondda.

For three terms she served as a regional Assembly Member for South Wales Central, before defeating Labour Cabinet Minister Leighton Andrews in 2016 to become the AM for Rhondda.

In 2010 she had been the surprise victor in a three-way contest for the leadership of the party following the resignation of Ieuan Wyn Jones, beating Elin Jones and Dafydd Elis-Thomas.

During the 2015 general election campaign, Ms Wood represented Plaid in televised TV debates that were screened across the UK. In one exchange she got the better of Nigel Farage – at that time the leader of UKIP – when he made a caustic comment about “health tourists with HIV”. Ms Wood won praise for dismissing him with the words: “So you abuse immigrants, and those with HIV, and then complain that UKIP is being abused.”

She received messages from viewers in England saying they wished they had a party like hers to vote for.

The following year, after winning Rhondda, Ms Wood came within a whisker of being elected First Minister – ironically thanks to the votes of seven newly elected UKIP AMs.

In the first vote to elect a First Minister she tied with the Labour incumbent Carwyn Jones. Mr Jones was only re-elected days later after Kirsty Williams, the sole Liberal Democrat AM, voted for him and was in return appointed Education Minister.

How a minority Plaid Cymru administration led by Leanne Wood might have fared at that time is one of the imponderables of recent Welsh politics, although with only 12 of the 60 seats against Labour’s 29, most observers wouldn’t have given it much of a chance. At the time, however, the coup in achieving a tied vote certainly shocked Labour.

That was Ms Wood’s high point, however, and Plaid lost momentum. There was a series of internal upsets in the party, including the decision of Dafydd Elis-Thomas to leave the party. Sitting as an Independent, he was later appointed by Carwyn Jones and then Mark Drakeford as Culture Minister.

In 2018 Ms Wood faced a two-pronged leadership challenge from Adam Price and Rhun ap Iorwerth in which she suffered a humiliating defeat, coming third. Three years later she lost Rhondda back to Labour and her political career was stalled.

With Plaid Cymru increasing support, it was widely expected that she would seek re-election in this year’s Senedd election, but she decided against doing so, saying she believed she could make a greater contribution away from electoral politics, calling out Reform UK and racism. She went on a speaking tour with former Cynon Valley Labour MP Beth Winter.

Meanwhile Ms Wood had also become co-executive director of the not-for-profit membership organisation Community Energy Wales, dedicated to helping communities transition to a zero carbon future.

Centrist

Previously there has been speculation that Rhun ap Iorwerth, seen as a centrist leader, could come under pressure from the party’s left wing, which in the past has rallied around Ms Wood.

So far, however, there has been little signs of that, although it is still early in the Senedd term. Mr ap Iorwerth’s decision to appoint Sioned Williams, herself on the left of the party, as Deputy First Minister, was seen as a uniting gesture.

With Leanne Wood back in the Senedd, albeit in an advisory capacity to two Plaid backbenchers, it will be interesting to see what influence she brings to policy making and implementation.

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