Plaid Cymru candidate deselected for ‘anti-Semitic’ social media posts
Martin Shipton
Plaid Cymru has deselected its Cardiff South and Penarth candidate because of social media posts she made last November that are considered to be anti-Semitic.
Nevertheless Sharifah Rahman will remain on the ballot paper for the July 4 general election as knowledge of the posts only came to light very recently. It was also too late to find a replacement candidate. That has left Plaid in the same position as Labour earlier this year, when its candidate selected for the Rochdale by-election was also discovered to have made anti-Semitic posts.
They gave credibility to a conspiracy theory that the October 7 attack on Israel was carried out not by Hamas but by the Israeli Defence Forces to provide justification for the subsequent invasion of Gaza. The by-election was won by veteran left-winger George Galloway of the Workers’ Party of Britain.
Withdraw support
A Plaid Cymru spokesperson said: “Plaid Cymru has regretfully taken the decision to withdraw support for its candidate in Cardiff South and Penarth with immediate effect.
“Social media posts that have come to light which reflect views on the tragic situation in the Middle East that do not reflect the views and values of Plaid Cymru.
“Plaid Cymru has consistently condemned both the actions of Hamas terrorists on October 7 and the subsequent horrific bombardment of Gaza by the Israeli Government. We reaffirm our calls for an immediate ceasefire, the unimpeded distribution of humanitarian aid and the cessation of arms sales to Israel.
“Plaid Cymru will continue to campaign for a just peace and a two-state solution – including the recognition of the state of Palestine, and a peaceful future for both Palestinians and Israelis. We condemn unequivocally any forms of prejudice and racism, including anti-Semitism and Islamophobia. It is important that Plaid Cymru is not distracted in its pursuit of peace in the Middle East.”
NationCymru has not had sight of the posts that led to Ms Rahman’s deselection. They have since been deleted.
Crowdfunder
A Crowdfunder for her election campaign was promoted by former Plaid chief executive Dr Dafydd Trystan, now a senior party activist in the capital’s Grangetown district, which forms part of the Cardiff South and Penarth constituency.
The seat is the most ethnically diverse in Wales and includes Cardiff Bay. Among those who contributed to the Crowdfunder are Plaid MS Mabon ap Gwynfor and former Assembly Member Bethan Sayed, both of whom chipped in £100. Altogether £1,070 was raised from 23 supporters towards a target of £2,000.
NationCymru was tipped off about Ms Rahman’s deselection by a source who had been told of a WhatsApp message sent to Plaid members in Grangetown by Dr Trystan.
The source messaged us saying: “Hearing that Plaid dropped their Cardiff South candidate with no time to register another. Heard it was tweets, anti-Semitic is a very good guess. This is despite the party repeatedly committing to improving their vetting processes and conducting an internal review into anti-Semitism led by [Plaid’s Westminster leader] Liz Saville-Roberts.”
Ms Saville-Roberts’ review was published in 2021 following a row over historic social media comments made by Sahar al-Faifi, who had been selected as a candidate for that year’s Senedd election in South Wales Central.
The previous year, senior members of the Jewish community in Wales had urged Plaid Cymru to reconsider its decision to readmit Sahar Al-Faifi following a period of suspension.
Corruption
They issued a statement referring to the Twitter posts for which she was suspended, which said: “[Her] posts included references to ‘The Children of Israel’ (a biblical description of Jews) causing corruption in the world, conspiracy theories about rich Jews supporting wars, criticism of Sajid Javid for attending a synagogue and support for Hamas (a proscribed terrorist organisation that calls for the death of Jews – a crime in this country). Ms Al-Faifi eventually agreed to delete or modify the posts and apologised for any offence caused.
“Subsequently, Ms Al-Faifi attended anti-semitism training in Cardiff. Some posts were deleted and the posts about Hamas and rich Jews were amended to show support for a ‘political process’. Unfortunately, Ms Al-Faifi still called for a ‘mighty victory’ for Hamas, which we asked to be clarified further to show that her support was away from the path of violence.
“This was not done [at the time]. In light of Ms Al-Faifi’s comments and her unrepentant attitude to the whole affair and investigation, we call upon Plaid Cymru to reconsider their decision.” Ms Al-Faifi issued a statement of apology and was readmitted to Plaid. She had fourth position on the party’s South Wales Central regional list and did not get elected.
Insufficiently robust
At the time her review was published, Ms Saville-Roberts said: “Plaid Cymru’s complaints procedures and structures in relation to anti-Semitism are insufficiently robust and cannot command the confidence of Jewish people in Wales.
“This report acknowledges that in full and provides positive recommendations to put our own house in order.”
She said her recommendations “provide a way towards establishing a culture that does not tolerate anti-Semitism and ways of sustaining that culture change”.
Plaid Cymru’s then leader Adam Price said he would be recommending to the party’s ruling National Executive Committee “that the recommendations are implemented in full and without delay”.
Ms Saville-Roberts’ review included a recommendation which stated: “Previous social media presence should be the subject of recorded scrutiny for all National Register candidates prior to their acceptance onto the register.
“This should take the form of a contractual agreement on the part of the candidate that they have revealed all previous social media postings which might reasonably prove problematic for the party in future.
“Failure to reveal such postings which later prove to be reputationally injurious to Plaid Cymru should be a disciplinary matter which should by default result in the individual in question being removed from the register.”
Would-be candidates have to be approved for inclusion on the National Register before they are eligible for selection by local parties.
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Why bother…
Our politicians are playing cultural roulette here and in India !
Stop it you are clueless…the punishment for your meddling can be death in many cases…
I honestly think that Plaid is just going in too deep about it cause the deselected candidates posts aren’t what they called it and ik a lot of people in Bute town area who don’t want to vote for Plaid to begin with because they aren’t that good
Apostate; original meaning ‘runaway slave’, it is punishable by death in some places today and that is only a part of it…I don’t think our politicians know enough about it to meddle…
Plaid just another Establisment party then. And Israel the good guys in all of this.
Not the same Plaid as at the outcome of Blair’s war, the only Westminster party to vote against it. Had some backbone then. Just lost my vote, sorry.despite a good MP in Ceredeigion.
If what the ‘senior members of the Jewish community’ allege about her posts is accurate, I think Plaid’s decision to deselect her was sound. But I’d feel more certain about that opinion if Plaid themselves had been more explicit about the precise reasons for this decision.
I’m not inclined to accept the unsupported judgement of ‘senior members of the Jewish community’ at face value, given that Muslims by no means have an exclusive monopoly on extremist views.
Are you suggesting Hamas are the good guys?
For shame! Anti-Semitism has no place in Wales. No place at all. None!
Define anti-semetism and how it relates to being critical of Israel’s treatment of Gazans and Palestinians on the whole? Being critical of Zionism isn’t antisemitism!
If the criticism carries an implied solution that would involve turning ten million mainly Jewish people into refugees, then yes that’s antisemitic.
If the criticism is demanding a permanent solution where Palestinians have a home they can be proud of and Israelis can live without fear then it’s not antisemitic.
Where of these most closely aligns to your criticism of Israel?
Isreal wouldn’t exist without the erasure of Palestine! The conversation starts and ends there.
The land belongs to the Canaanites and everyone since has been their guest. How about starting the conversation there.
If that floored logic was true, Most of England belongs to the Britons, Ukraine belongs Russia, China belongs to the goverment of Taiwan and on and on we go. You can’t just turn up at a house you lived in when you were child and demand it back! Or worse still a house that your great grandpa lived in. The idea that land belongs to them because of their tenuous links to it 3000 years ago is like a bad comedy sketch! The fact the people of Wales are called and call themselves Welsh tells me everything I Need to… Read more »
Wow, imagine being from Wales and supporting the colonists and thieves against m the native population. We have forgotten how we were and still are treated so no surprise we now support the agendas of Anglos and their Eastern European Brethren!
Are you out every Saturday singing “From the River Severn to the North Sea, Cymru will be free”?
No need! Being aware of said atrocities is enough. As long as we continue to exist, we win! This is why we are so hated. Britons are still here and always will be. Whether the plastic taffs and their English betters like it or not. And hopefully, the Palestinian natives will be in a thousand years too. God bless them! And am their struggle to regain their homeland from the Zio Thieves.
Withdrawal of support is the only way. Worrying that those with extremist jihadi views are infiltrating our political establishments.
She was dumped because the Daily Telegraph discovered she liked quite a few tweets from Nick Griffin (ex leader of the BNP). One was Griffin having a chat about how bad Zionism was with another fascist, Jayda Fransen, and there was a tweet which accused the UK of giving Israel its land illegally. Other likes were describing Hamas as “the resistance”. Plaid may be a broad church but this obviously crossed a few lines.
Are you really claiming Zionism isn’t bad? They believe they can take land from an already formed nation and call it something else while erasing the native populace. Oh wait, We have been in the Uk for 300 years and have done nothing against those who did the same to us. No wonder the people of Wales support Zionism! Our ancestors would be ashamed of us!
Are you proposing repatriating 50m Germanics to Germania?
Politics is broken if political parties continue to run scared of such minor things as ‘liking’ the wrong person’s tweet. When I saw Plaid’s candidate was a Stop the War activist, I was delighted (I have no appetite to vote for Starmer loyalist Stephen Doughty in this election). Plaid has now left us without an opposition in Cardiff South and Penarth.