Senior staff member leaves Ambulance Service following Welsh language ‘apartheid’ comments
A senior member of staff has left the Welsh Ambulance Service after he compared the treatment of non-Welsh speakers to “apartheid”.
Disciplinary action was launched against James Moore after made the comparison on Facebook in response to a story about plans to introduce more Welsh medium education in local schools.
The Welsh Ambulance Service has now confirmed that he is “no longer an employee”, but refused to confirm whether he had been sacked or not.
When he made the comments, Moore was responsible for Organisational Design and Development at Health Education and Improvement Wales (HEIW), which sits within NHS Wales. He’d been working on a secondment contract for 18 months.
However, shortly after a backlash to his remarks, he left that post on February 28, following “internal discussions” with his former employer.
He returned to his “substantive employment” with the Welsh Ambulance Service, which announced that it was launching “disciplinary” action against its then employee, which have now concluded.
In a statement to Nation.Cymru Claire Vaughan, Executive Director of Workforce and Organisational Development, at the Welsh Ambulance Service, said: “We do not comment on internal processes that involve individuals. However, I can confirm that James Moore is no longer an employee of the Welsh Ambulance Services NHS Trust.”
The Welsh Ambulance Services NHS Trust have previously described Moore’s comments as “ill-judged and inflammatory”, adding that they “fly in the face” of its “commitment to the Welsh language”.
Moore, who is from Sheffield, but lives in Llansteffan, suggested that it was time for non-Welsh speakers to “stand up to the oppressors”.
‘Segregation’
He compared Welsh speakers to white people in South Africa during the time the country was under a system of institutionalised racial segregation, which ended in the 1990s.
Moore also asked if non-Welsh speakers “should use different buses” or “different drinking fountains”.
Nation.Cymru contacted James Moore for comment but have not yet received a reply.
Carmarthenshire Council was preparing for a consultation exercise over proposals to introduce changes to Model Church in Wales School in Carmarthen and Ysgol y Felin in Llanelli, which would have seen them move towards introducing more Welsh medium education from September 2022.
The council later scrapped the consultation with the Model Church in Wales School following a backlash from staff at the school, along with trade and teaching unions.
When the disciplinary process was launched, a Welsh Ambulance Service spokesperson said: “We are aware of ill-judged and inflammatory comments by a member of our staff who until recently had been on secondment to Health Education and Improvement Wales (HEIW) for 18 months.
“We neither condone nor support these comments, which fly in the face of our commitment to the Welsh language and our role as the national ambulance service of Wales. The appropriate action has been initiated in line with the NHS Wales disciplinary policy.”
In response to a story about plans to introduce more Welsh-medium education in schools, James Moore said: “The English language is the single most important export from the UK and gives us all a huge advantage in the world. Anything that undermines this in the cause of meeting nationalist zealotry harms us all.
“Just imagine if you changed the word English to ‘black’ or (historically in South Africa) ‘coloured’… perhaps non-Welsh speakers should use different buses? Maybe different drinking fountains?
“As was the case in South Africa where the whites were a small minority, is it time for the 80% non-Welsh speakers to stand up to the oppressors to stop the ongoing apartheid?!”
He added: “Bilingualism is great in many parts of the world; however, narrow mindedness, insularity and petty nationalism (which seems to be entirely linked to the Welsh language) opens your mind only to yourself…leaving Wales trailing even further behind in an increasingly global world.”
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Glad the prick is sacked, now he deserves a punch in the mouth for his xenophobia and fascism. w****r.
What on earth makes you think he was sacked ? Most likely, after a long and tiring discussion they contrived to secure Moore’s resignation in return for a generous severance package that has become the norm in our public services. He will turn up to grace yet another public sector body within a matter of months or hop off to join one of the many firms of consultants now feasting on the public purse. The scandal goes on without any comment or attempt to rectify.
Yes very true
That would be reducing yourself to his level. He has been exposed as a bigot who has no place in modern Welsh society and is now hopefully unemployable in any Welsh public body. I’ll settle for that.
Correct about prison, but the word you’re looking for to describe the comment-giver is “angry”, not “bigoted”. Or, more accurately, “justifiably angry”. The only bigot in this scenario is our friend from Sheffield.
What a brave keyboard warrior you must be…
I take it you don’t like facts getting in the way of a good story!?!
These anti Welsh comments are unfounded and the truth is -the Welsh are always considered, by the English, to be second or even third class citizens.
James Moore The Welsh language is the first language in wales 🏴 not English ok bye
It’s idiots like him is wye we
In wales 🏴 must be Free it’s time for a new wales 🏴
Read some Welsh history
Who the hell employed this bigot in the first place?
Very good point
Why was there a ‘backlash’ from unions to moving the school towards more welsh medium education in september 2022? 🤔. Surely that’s a story worthy of an article by Nation Cymru in itself? Would seem Mr Moore isnt the only anti welsh language bigot in the area ☹️.
Being that the school is in Carmarthen town , I assume that many parents would be against introducing more Welsh . That’s what people’s attitude is like in Carms towns. Unfortunately these people are Welsh, do not speak Welsh and their kids cannot speak a word, despite it being taught at school. Because the 2nd language Welsh type of teaching is unfit for purpose and fails 80% of the time. So Labours brag of a million speakers is b******s
Are you english? Or just a welsh English speaker ?
He doesn’t realise that without the support of a great many non Welsh speakers the language would already be dead. They don’t hold his colonial opinions about Welsh. It’s not a case of 80% wanting to get rid of Welsh. You only need to see the number of children in Welsh medium education who are from non Welsh speaking homes to realise that the good will of many non Welsh speakers (including non colonist minded English people) is helping to keep the old language going. The irony is that if he actually believed his own arguments, that Welsh speakers hold… Read more »
A friend of mine moved to Wales from Romania with her little boy. When he started school, he went to a Welsh-speaking school, a language that she didn’t understand at all.
Her response? She started to learn to speak Welsh herself.
Foreigners like her have far more respect for the Welsh language than many of these English bigots
English exceptionalist bigots
Gwynt teg ar ôl y brych
Yn union! Gwynt o’r gorllewin i’w chwythu nol i Sheffield lle bydd y Gymraeg ddim yn ei boeni mwy…
The ignorance of this bigoted idiot to compare his privileged life coming into contact with a language of Britain, to uncounted & untold suffering of black South Africans under apartheid?
Just another exceptional saesneg w⚓
Typical English arrogance. Perhaps all the Welsh language haters should f-off back to Little England. We’re not forcing you to live here. You wouldn’t expect to secure a job in Germany or Japan without some level of fluency in that country’s first language.
Top tip: Welsh language lessons are freely available.
He wouldnt get residency in france you have to have an understanding of the laguage
How I feel sorry for you with your vindictive nasty bullying. He merely said that English is important in Wales. Having read the original comments, he responded to some bigot who said none Welsh speakers should leave Wales by asking that person if they thought non-Welsh speakers should be treated in the same way that apartheid did for non Whites in South Africa. Clearly this was meant ironically to show what a ludicrous suggestion it was. I happen to know that he moved to Wales with his Welsh speaking wife nearly 20 years ago so that their 3 young children… Read more »
At best, this is unbelievably lazy and very poor journalism. At worst, it has all the overtones of a nasty totalitarian state persecuting someone who shares a fact that you disagree with…
I’m sure James will sleep easy at night, but can you?
Typical of many, and an insult to the many who have settled here in Wales and have done a great job in mastering our language.
With his attitude, one may as well complain that people in France who speak French or people in Sweden who speak Swedish are narrow minded nationalists.