Welsh Conservative candidates criticised for leaflet promising to ‘oppose divisive Welsh language demands’
The Welsh Conservatives have been criticised for a leaflet promoted by candidates in the local election promising to “oppose divisive Welsh language demands”.
The leaflet was sent out by Jonathon Martin, Stephen Senior and Adrian Lang who are standing in the Panteg Ward, Torfaen.
In an article penned for the website Cwmbran Life late last month, the candidates had voiced their opposition to what they called a “nationalist” linguistic agenda.
They said: “Conservatives know that most people here do not want more requirements for Welsh Language. In pushing this, Labour supports the Plaid Cymru Welsh Nationalist agenda.
“Why are applicants being asked about Welsh for jobs that don’t require it? Why do children have a narrower range of GCSE options than those in England because of Welsh Language and Welsh Baccalaureate requirements?
“We know that these are examples of important questions that get little coverage because it’s a topic that is rarely discussed in public.”
You thought the mentality of the Blue Books was a thing of the past? You haven’t reckoned on @WelshConserv “divisive Welsh language”! pic.twitter.com/ZjngTBIxDp
— Morgan™️ 🐝 (@CantreBreiniol) May 2, 2022
The Welsh Conservatives’ local government manifesto does not mention the Welsh language but last year’s Senedd manifesto promised to “promote and support the Welsh language with one million Welsh speakers by 2050”.
Some social media users asked the Welsh Conservative leadership to step in and ensure that the local candidates aligned themselves with the national policy.
Carwyn J. Thomas called on Welsh Conservative leader Andrew RT Davies to “redact” the pamphlet “immediately”. “Or are welsh speakers now a target for Welsh Conservatives?”
Rhian McCarthy asked: “Does the Welsh Conservative party condone this type of electioneering? This smacks of the Welsh Not of past generations.”
Nation.Cymru has contacted the Welsh Conservatives for comment.
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This is out and out bigotry from another countries political party. Surely writing this is classed as hatespeech and the police should be involved.
welsh conservatives.surely an oxymoron.or maybe just moron!
Plenty of people in Wales are conservatively minded. THIS party are barely Conservative and very Unionist. Not an oxymoron, but take away the oxy…
Tory voters, stay at home, protect the NHS, and save lives.
Dic Sion Dafydds.
This leaflet and the candidates need to be reported to the police under hate speech legislation
English supremacists should be banned from standing for election in Cymru… They want taxpayers to pay them a salary for ethnically cleansing their country.
Why do people use the term ‘Welsh conservatives’? There’s no such party. They are English conservatives standing for election in Wales. Wake up and smell the coffee… As the saying goes.
Good ! They are out in the open. Bigots in Gwent can be identified. Be a good thing if the rest of the Tory slime showed their true colours and bigotry all across Wales instead of hiding behind bland useless statements.
The people who published and distributed this offensive pamphlet are the last vestiges of a mindset that is no longer prevalent in anglophone regions of Wales. They are only comfortable with the notion of a monoglot Brit-loyal Wales that may have existed for a few decades after the war but which has minimal support in a country where the majority, old or young, Welsh-speaking or not, are now well-disposed towards, or at the very least tolerant of, the native language of this country.
I wish I could believe you, but here in Pembrokeshire even the idea of Wales as an entity in and of itself is anathema to a significant proportion of people, young and old, Welsh born or immigrant. It depresses me to think it, but I’m inclined to believe this is much more common than we imagine. To be honest, though, a lot of it is ‘Wales is too small to (whatever)’; an astonishing number of people believe every independent state has at least 50 million people living in it. Like England. Thestate of general knowledge of the world is truly… Read more »