Plaid Cymru candidate deletes ‘nasty’ ad after criticism

A Plaid Cymru candidate has deleted a video of an advert from Twitter after being criticised by political opponents.

Carrie Harper, the party’s candidate in Wrexham, posted the public electronic billboard advert on social media which read “Don’t want a Tory for a neighbour? Vote Plaid, not Labour.”

However other parties branded the advert “nasty” and “an insult”. Labour said it was uncomfortably close to a racist slogan used during the notorious Smethwick by-election of 1964.

“Either Plaid are naive and don’t know what this sounds like or it’s a dogwhistle and they don’t care,” Welsh Labour said. “Riffs on Smethwick 1964 slogans should stay in the past.”

They later added: “It should be removed and there should be an investigation into how it was signed off by Plaid Cymru.”

Health Minister Vaughan Gething said: “I can’t see that the candidate @CarrieAHarper or @Plaid_Cymru have posted anything to explain or apologise for yesterday’s political message inspired by the racism of Smethwick. Pretending it hasn’t happened won’t make it go away.”

A spokesperson for the Welsh Conservatives told Nation.Cymru: “This is an insult to over a half million people who voted Welsh Conservative in 2019.

“If the people of Wrexham want change after 22 years of Labour Government in Wales, and a decent, hard working local MS, they should vote for Jeremy Kent.”