Plaid Cymru makes pitch for support from Labour voters
Plaid Cymru has made a pitch for Labour voters looking for a “progressive, alternative voice” to vote for its candidates in next month’s general election.
Plaid’s leader Rhun ap Iorwerth has today written to Labour supporters in Wales to promote the party as a progressive voice in Westminster – and an alternative to Keir Starmer’s Labour.
Mr ap Iorwerth said that after 14 years of Tory rule, the Labour party is not offering “the kind of radical change we need.”
Ambitious ideas
Labour has failed to offer ambitious ideas to rebuild the economy, speak out against Farage on immigration, nor commit to scrapping the two-child benefit cap affecting 65,000 children in Wales, he added.
“In 1997, Tony Blair secured a sweeping majority. There was a sense of real change on offer. More than a quarter of a century later, we face a similar scenario whereby a UK Labour Government seems inevitable after 14 years of a disastrous Tory administration,” ap Iorwerth said.
“There is, however, a palpable sense that the change on offer by Labour this time around doesn’t amount to the kind of radical change we need.
“The bold, ambitious ideas required to rebuild our economy after the chaos of Trussonomics, the courage to speak out when Farage and his ilk spread their lies about immigration, and the compassion to scrap the two-child benefit cap are nowhere to be seen.
“Every single poll tells us that the Tories are finished, so this election most also be an opportunity to constructively hold an incoming Labour Government to account.
“If you believe in the values of social justice, international peace, economic fairness for Wales and support the right of local voices to be heard, I ask you to consider supporting Plaid Cymru at this election.
“The more Plaid Cymru MPs we have in Westminster, the more likely it is that Wales’s voice will be heard, and our nation’s needs no longer ignored.
“If the last few weeks have left you questioning whether Keir Starmer’s Labour really speaks for you as it should, please consider voting Plaid on 4th July for a progressive voice in Westminster.”
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At last Rhun is taking on Labour, I’ve been waiting for this to happen. The Labour party’s record in Cymru is abysmal at best.
Worth remembering that the Conservative party, ‘unionist’ as always, consistently opposed devolution when its introduction was a live issue back in the 1970s, ’80s and ’90s; but that when, in its early years, the Blair government decided to enact it, mainstream ‘one nation’ Tories on the whole accepted the new dispensation and took their place in the new Welsh and Scottish assemblies. Only the ‘Tory hard right’ maintained their instinctive hostility. But now that ‘hard right’ effectively controls the Conservative party, given that after 2019 Johnson expelled many of the leading ‘one nation’ Tories and even more just departed political… Read more »
“But if, like me, you live in an area which has been a Tory/Labour marginal, maybe best to think twice before you follow Rhun ap Iorwerth’s exhortation? “ If you want to advocate that people vote Labour then make the case for Labour policies rather than hide behind a tactical voting charade. You’ve strongly criticised Vaughan Gething’s behaviour get are happy to advise others to follow your example and vote for Labour. The party and it’s leader who are responsible for Gething’ s position of First Minister and backing his decision not to resign after the vote of no confidence. The… Read more »
I’m not inclined to make any enthusiastic case for voting Labour. My primary concern is to make whatever case I can to ensure that the ability of the Conservatives – more than ever in their post-2019 Boris Johnson English nativist form – to somehow sneak themselves into office for another five years is minimized as far as is possible. I’m by no means a happy disciple of Starmerite Labour, either for the UK as a whole or in the interests of Wales in particular. During the years in which I’ve lived in Wales – from the late sixties to the… Read more »
For someone who’s “not inclined to make any enthusiastic case for voting Labour.” you’re making a right hash of it.
I’ve lost count how many times you’ve made comments arguing that people should vote tactically for Labour in Tory Labour marginal seats in Cymru.
The logic you make is that it is necessary in order to avoid a Tory government. Which given what the polls are saying about voting across the UK and what we can all see happening during this election’s campaigns seems like a logic based on denial, delusion or a remarkable lack of awareness.
I just recall 1992 when all the polls and the pundits predicted that Kinnock’s Labour were going to win and I thought so too. But as it turned out, they didn’t. I acknowledge that this time an overall Tory victory looks less likely than was the case in ’92. But we’re still three weeks off election day, and things can change in that time. It’s worth bearing in mind too how narrow the vote in favour of devolution was, back in the late ’90s. I doubt – though you can never know – that another Westminster Tory government would immediately… Read more »
‘The courage to speak out when Farage and his ilk spread their lies about immigration’.
A bit rich of Rhun to talk about courage.
Nice to see he has learnt the lessons of the debate surrounding the Brexit referendum. For all his talk what is Rhun and Plaids view on the current levels of immigration? If he is okay with around 700,000 people arriving in the UK, just be honest with the electorate and say that, put it on campaign leaflets. It would be an area where he and Westminster would be in agreement.
I used to vote Plaid before I realised they don’t support women. As a woman, I’d never vote for them now. https://nation.cymru/news/plaid-cymru-committee-quits-in-misogyny-row/ https://www.filia.org.uk/latest-news/2024/3/22/womens-rights-charity-banned-from-plaid-cymru-conference