NEIL MCEVOY IN LLANELLI UPDATE

Please note that Llanelli Town Councillor, Sean Rees, will also now be speaking at the event tomorrow.

 LLANELLI

THE TRUE STORY

Over 25 members have resigned, both long-standing activists
and Plaid Ifanc members – more may follow

Leadership attempts to bully remaining members into silence

Disaster for Llanelli follows imposition of Mari Arthur by Leadership

18/4/17 Snap General Election announced.

20/4/17 Plaid Leadership offers Sean Rees conditional membership of the Official Plaid List of Approved Candidates for Westminster and Assembly Elections, i.e.he is permitted to stand in Gower or Swansea (who already have candidates) but not in Llanelli, his home town.

21/4/17 Tŷ Gwynfor announces choice of Cardiff-based Mari Arthur (MA) who was not on the list of approved candidates at the time (also a breach of Standing Orders 3.1 that specify that “an applicant must have been a member of the party for a continuous period of one year or more”).

21–23/4/17 About 20 new members, mainly with addresses in Trimsaran or Cardiff, are registered by Tŷ Gwynfor in Llanelli Constituency, with the right to vote at the hustings.

25/4/17 Hustings, Glenalla Hall There are two local candidates and MA. A leaflet is handed out showing an image of MA and Leanne Wood. Yet MA fails to win nomination (SR obtains 46 votes and she 42), and she accepts defeat verbally and with a handshake.

27/4/17 Members are summoned to a pre-arranged meeting by Leanne Wood. She refuses to accept the Constituency choice, listens to no interventions from the floor, and in essence says “Like it or lump it”. But she does promise to meet with members within days of the Election “to sort things out”. Members are still waiting.

8/5/17 In an unusual campaign, MA recruits a former North Wales Labour councillor, prominent Llanelli Labour activist and later Green Party officer, who had just stood against a local Plaid candidate in the Council elections. In MA’s campaign, he was involved in data processing. Very little time was spent campaigning in Llanelli Town (which has most of the population), ending in Plaid’s worst result in over 25 years (third behind the Tories).

18/7/17 In a chaotic Constituency AGM, MA becomes Secretary thanks to relatives and associates recruited prior to the hustings (most of whom have since ceased to be members). Her home and business are in Cardiff, over 50 miles away.

16/8/17 MA gains complete control of access to TŷBres (a building jointly owned and funded by Plaid members in Llanelli for over 30 years). Both outside doors were changed without prior notice. Since then members, councillors and branch officers have had access only to the meeting room downstairs, but none to the office facilities upstairs. As a result, members have withdrawn financial support for upkeep of the premises.

21/8/17 Formal complaint about the conduct of MA and others is submitted to Tŷ Gwynfor by 26 members. To date, no action has been taken.

25/8/17 MA still fails to engage with members other than a small clique. The office is almost always empty; mail, phone messages and deliveries do not reach councillors; campaigning resources are locked away upstairs. On this date however, MA happens to be seen going into TŷBres with some other people by two members (both over 75) who wanted to speak to her. When she saw them approach, she deliberately slammed the door in their faces. They rang and knocked repeatedly, but got no answer. There were several witnesses.

19/9/17 Alun Ffred Jones attends Constituency meeting in Llanelli. After repeated failures to comply with Party standing orders by the inexperienced Chair, Deris Williams, which were pointed out from the floor by Gwyn Hopkins, Chairman Jones failed to give any guidance nor to uphold the standing orders. Eventually Gwyn left, together with about half the members present. Remaining numbers were insufficient for a useful meeting, and no minutes have been circulated.

3/10/17 Llanelli Town Branch adopts a resolution to be forwarded to the next regular Constituency meeting on 17 October, requesting distribution of the keys to TŷBres to all elected officers. By order of Chairman Jones, this Constituency meeting was subsequently cancelled without explanation, and no properly convened meetings have been held since.

4/10/17 Meilyr Hughes and Gwyn Hopkins are notified by Gareth Clubb that Chairman Jones has unilaterally suspended them for an unspecified period, for an undisclosed reason, with no appeals procedure given.

21/10/17 An emergency motion at Conference gives the Party Chair unilateral and retroactive powers to act against any member in the way he has just done in the cases of Gwyn and Meilyr. Did Conference realise the implications of granting such powers to stifle criticism and punish critics?

19/2/18 Deprived of a forum for normal debate, Llanelli Town Branch calls for a full and independent investigation, mainly into the extraordinary behaviour of MA and her associates. The entire Town Branch is then suspended, presumably to make an example of Llanelli for standing up for democracy, justice, freedom of speech and the principles on which Plaid Cymru was founded.

26/2/18 Meeting called in Llanelli by Leadership. Chairman Jones demands the minutes of the Town Branch meeting of 19 February. This is refused by the Secretary since there had not been a subsequent meeting at which these could be formally adopted (the Branch having been suspended). In addition, it was suspected that the Leadership wanted access to the names of those present in order to target them for victimisation. This has been followed by repeated harassment of the Secretary and the minute taker (including a written request by registered letter).

28/2/18 Two Constituency officers resign from their posts: Dyfrig Thomas, Data Officer, who was honoured with a lifetime achievement award to Plaid and Wales at the Spring Conference in 2017; and Councillor Sean Rees, Press Officer, a committed Party activist and former local campaign manager.

ALL WE ASK IS JUSTICE AND A FAIR HEARING

 IF YOU TOLERATE THIS, YOUR BRANCH COULD BE NEXT!