Plaid Cymru leader Adam Price won’t resign following election disappointment
Plaid Cymru leader Adam Price has said he won’t resign following a disappointing Senedd election campaign.
He said his party had “laid foundations for the future” and that his “job is to lead” and “not to give up at a set back”.
His party won 13 seats, one more than the election in 2016, but was beaten back by Labour in many of its target constituencies.
It has also slipped into third place in the Senedd, behind the Conservatives, which achieved its best ever result with 16 MSs.
Plaid’s former leader Leanne Wood also lost her seat in the Rhondda to Labour.
But Price insisted his party’s message of “hope and change” was the right one, and said that people did respond to it.
‘Hope’
He told ITV Wales: “My job is to lead, its not to give up at a set back or disappointment. My job is to sustain the hope – all those young people who voted for Plaid because they were inspired by our message of the potential we believe is there in Wales to deliver a decent society for our people.
“I firmly believe that we have sown a lot of seed at this election. A lot of young people in particular who did come with us this time has laid the foundations for the future which I think will set us up for growth in the years to come.”
He continued: “I’m not in politics for Plaid Cymru, I’m in politics because I want to change the lives of the people of Wales and unfortunately we’re not going to be able to do that to the extent we would have liked.
“That’s a disappointment but what do you do? You carry on because the vision we set out is still the right one. We shouldn’t accept that this is as good as it gets.
“We need radical transformational change and my job, and our parties job, is to carry on with that message of hope and change that many people did respond to.”
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The message of hope and change is so essential for human life going forward especially for the people in Wales that we should all embrace it
Adam you deserve the support of everyone that lives in our nation
I’m repeating this in the vain hope someone in Plaid is reading. Plaid’s difficulty in gaining a foothold outside its heartlands is as plain as the nose on someone’s face. It needs to decide whether it is the party of the Welsh language or the party of the Welsh people, the overwhelming majority of whom do not speak Welsh. In northeast Wales and southeast Wales in particular, Plaid are seen as the party for Welsh speakers. And it’s no mystery why people in those areas don’t vote for them. This does not mean they can’t continue to promote the Welsh… Read more »
Alan Plaid Cymru have previously made inroads into Predominantly English speaking Constituencies. At the first Assembly elections as it was known In 1999 Plaid Cymru won in Rhondda and Iswyn and believe it or not even came close to winning Swansea East and Gower. This in my opinion was down to the leadership of Dafydd Wigley. Plaid Cymru have never recovered from the days of Wigley and even when they have had their chances they have pressed their own self destruct button. Again at the previous Senedd elections they were within winning In Cardiff West and Blaenau Gwent. They failed… Read more »
I hardly think Gwlad and Propel have shown any signs of being anything other than flashes in the pan, if even that. McEvoy is a seriously dodgy character, rampantly homophobic for a start, and Gwlad is a proto-fascist movement in the tradition of the Monty Pythonesque Free Wales Army. McEvoy’s stance on Covid where he clearly doesn’t believe the scientists that lockdown was necessary hardly portrays him as a particularly bright spark either. Gwlad and Propel were wiped out. I would be very surprised to see them reappear. In terms of Plaid being first to have an MP what is… Read more »
The SNP had a similar problem back in the 70/80s Then it was a sort of Tartan Tory millstone that they wore – shortbread and whisky wrapped in tartan. It was only after Salmond took charge and targeted the Labour vote that things began to move in our direction. He realised that the party had to be relevant to modern politics and the whole of the country not just to those attracted by culture, history and romanticism. I have been so excited by the recent renewed rise of self-determination in Wales including the rise of Yes Cymru and even the… Read more »
Agree 100%. The SNP woke up to needing to be more than a cultural cliche. Plaid still haven’t. The support is there, not to the levels of Scotland currently but it is definitely there. Yes Cymru has proven that . Personally I think it has to look at how it can appeal to the bulk of Welsh people who, after all, are not Welsh speakers although the bulk of them, thankfully, do want to protect and support the Welsh language. Also, history would point to the desire for Welsh independence actually being stronger among non-Welsh speakers. Anyone who doubts that… Read more »
Much of this is a misconception. There were many good ideas in Plaid”s manifesto and not an awful lot about the Welsh language. It”s more to do with an incorrect perception of Plaid”s aims in some areas. Perhaps Plaid should prioritise the name Party of Wales in predominantly English speaking areas in the future?
Plaid’s history is chequered with turning their backs on the Welsh people when it suited them. They were among the loudest denigrating John Jenkins for example and running down other more militant Welsh independence supporters. They have also wavered greatly over the years about what they actually want. There’s a lot of the “Western Mail” about Plaid. An academic elite lecturing people on what it means “to be really Welsh”. It’s also not solely down to perception. Even if it were, that’s Plaid’s responsibility, not the people’s in those areas. It’s a bit trite to say simply using the English… Read more »
Building for the future was what Leanne Wood was doing before being stabbed in the back in 2018. It will take plaid at least 10 years to gain a foothold in the valleys again. Plaid has lost it’s greatest asset.
It doesn”t necessarily have to be like that. I believe it would be a really good idea for Leanne to stand against the deeply unpopular Chris Bryant at the next general election (which could be just a couple of years away). It really wouldn’t surprise me it she managed to beat him and even if she lost by a narrower margin than the majority by which Bryant won in 2019, it would set her up nicely to regain the Senedd seat in 2026.
Of course he should not resign. He is brilliant. He is also the Nemesis of the Yoons! He demolished Abolish without breaking a sweat.
I would agree with other posters that Plaid need to win over the Wenglish heartlands of South Wales and the Borders to grow. As a monoglot, I regret being unable to speak my own language and I voted Plaid. But Plaid are still often percieved as being more keen on the language than independence. This is a message that I know Plaid can get across. Leeanne Wood did originally. Study what happened there and replicate