Rhun ap Iorwerth warns of ‘clampdown’ on Wales’ international links

Luke James, Brussels

Plaid Cymru leader Rhun ap Iorwerth believes there is “no reason” for the UK Government to get involved in Wales’ relations with other countries – but said he will be “pragmatic” if he becomes First Minister.

In an interview with Nation.Cymru during a visit to the European Parliament this week, ap Iorwerth said he is braced for a “further clampdown” on the Welsh Government’s international outreach.

His comments come after Plaid Cymru obtained a memo from the Prime Minister to his Cabinet which said UK Government officials “must attend devolved government ministerial meetings” held abroad.

Former First Minister Mark Drakeford has previously criticised the UK Government for taking a “big brother” approach to the Welsh Government’s international engagements, which included refusing him use of an official car on a visit to Brussels due to diverging positions on Brexit.

Asked whether he would accept the rules set out in the leaked memo, ap Iorwerth said: “Will I accept the principle of it? No. Will I accept that it may happen because that’s what we inherit? I guess there’s an element to the reality of foreign affairs not being devolved.

“But I will make the case, and we will be seeking our bilateral relations still with other nations, because the UK government needn’t get involved, and there’s no reason for them to get involved.

He added: “I’m a pragmatist. I want Wales to be able to run its own international affairs. But I also recognise that there are benefits in some ways of working with partners in Scotland, with partners in England, and in doing so through the British embassies at times. But as a matter of principle, it should be Wales that’s able to define the way it believes its best to work.”

The Plaid Cymru leader said the Welsh Government’s approach to international issues is one of the “dividing lines” at the forthcoming Senedd election. He said a government led by his party would take Wales’ international relations to “a new level.”

Reform UK, who polls show are vying with Plaid Cymru for first place in May’s election, have promised to “scrap all international aid spending in devolved budgets.” In particular they criticised the £270,000-a-year spent on planting trees in Uganda through the Size of Wales charity as part of efforts to tackle climate change.

The Welsh Conservatives say they would save £4.7 million a year by closing the Welsh government’s 20 international offices, which they described in their manifesto as “Labour’s overseas mini-embassy network.”

‘Dividing lines’

“It’s one of those dividing lines that’s emerging in Welsh politics currently,” said ap Iorwerth.

“We have now Plaid Cymru representing the progressives and Reform representing the populist right. It is a two horse race. One wants to be internationalist. But the other one wants Wales to know its place and wants Wales to lose its presence internationally, wants Wales to not have ideas above its station. Well I believe that people in Wales want us to build those international links.”

While the Welsh Government’s international work may have become controversial with some at home, it has won praise abroad. The Taith youth mobility scheme introduced when the UK pulled out of Erasmus was seen as an olive branch by EU policymakers and the European Commission has credited the Welsh Government’s Future Generations Act for inspiring its own recently-launched Strategy on Intergenerational Fairness.

Ap Iorwerth said a Plaid Cymru government would “build on the positive elements of what the outgoing government has done”, but added: “We want to take it to a new level in terms of the seriousness that we attach to international links.”

Visiting Brussels for the first time since becoming party leader, he said: “I thought it was really, really important in the run-up to these elections that I did come here in order to make sure that those links that we have, those contacts that we have still in the European Parliament, within the European Union, ten years after Brexit, can form the basis of strong working relationships should we be able to form a government after May.”

‘Closer ties’

The party this week vowed to “forge closer ties with our European neighbours” with a view to rejoining the customs union and single market. However, Plaid’s European allies in the Green/European Free Alliance group are highly critical of the direction of the EU under what is widely considered to be the most right-wing European Commission ever formed.

It has launched a deregulation ‘Omnibus’ focused on watering down environmental legislation to lift ‘bureaucracy’ it says is holding back European businesses. The Commission’s proposal for the next long-term EU budget would centralise power over how funds are spent at the expense of sub-state governments. And, on the day of ap Iorwerth’s visit, the Commission launched a controversial plan known as ‘EU Inc’ that critics say would introduce loopholes into national tax and labour law.

Ap Iorwerth put the developments down to the “growth of the populist right” in Europe, including in Wales. He said: “It is a matter of concern to me. But being the optimist I am in politics, you have to believe that we can redress the balance. Currently there is a centre of gravity that’s shifted within the European Parliament, as in politics globally.

“We have to bring that centre back. And I believe in collectivity, I believe in acting internationally and building links with people who can hopefully lead to changes on a European level in the same way as I want changes on a UK level.”

Welsh laws

Asked whether this context changed Plaid’s proposal to voluntarily align Welsh laws with those of the EU, he said: “I still believe firmly that the benefits far outweigh the negatives of close alignment with the European Union for Wales. I think for a small nation in particular, it has been proven that when you measure up all those economic opportunities with those areas where maybe you are having to compromise, it is still in our best interests to do what’s necessary to be in the market.

“Europe is complex. Europe is complex for large states. It is complex for small states too, but I am firmly of the view that that alignment works for us when you balance things against each other.”

The Plaid Cymru leader’s international ambitions go beyond Europe. Prior to Brexit, the Welsh Government had a strong focus on improving relations with the United States. Former First Minister Carwyn Jones spent St David’s Day in New York and Washington DC four times between 2012 and 2017.

Welsh diaspora

Ap Iorwerth said he would reinvest in North America, although he stressed that did not necessarily mean spending more money. Instead, he said he will take inspiration from his parents, who frequently travelled to the United States of America to teach Welsh, to mobilise the Welsh diaspora around the world.

In 2022, the father of the Plaid Cymru leader, former primary school headteacher Edward Morus Jones, was awarded the annual prize of the North American Welsh Foundation, which described him as “a beloved transatlantic leader of Welsh American life.”

“I think the United States is very, very important to Wales,” said ap Iorwerth. “On a personal level, I’ve had experience of dealing with the Welsh diaspora in the United States through work that my parents used to do in teaching Welsh.

“I was able to attend some of those over the years, and I’ve had that firsthand experience of people who, you know, perhaps were born in Wales, and who maintain very strong links, and who want to use those links as platforms for investing in Wales. I’m currently working with some people now who want to make significant investments in life sciences in Wales precisely because of their links, because they were born in Wales.

“I’ve also chaired the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association in Wales for the last ten years, looking at those diaspora links throughout the Commonwealth, in Australia, in New Zealand and so on. I just think there’s much more that we can do to engage with that diaspora and use it in a strategic way because people want to engage with where their roots are from, or where they are from, or where they studied, or a country that they admire.”

The Welsh Government had a diaspora engagement action plan which ran between 2020 and 2025. Dr Huw Evans, a lecturer in law, last week accused the government of “abandoning” the diaspora by failing to renew the strategy.