YES Cymru’s annual meeting went well by all accounts on Saturday, with around 140 members in attendance at Theatr Soar, Merthyr.

With over 2,000 members signed up and a war chest of £40,000, it’s all looking good for the independence campaign right now.

But As YES Cymru grows in influence, it also needs to be mindful of some of the potential problems and pitfalls ahead.

In the first place, any successful movement will attract careerists, seeing an opportunity to promote themselves and their own interests by means of such a growing vehicle.

Human nature being as it is, this is of course a general problem and as such, it is perhaps something that YES Cymru can manage, based on information and knowledge gleaned from other such organisations and parties.

But perhaps the second problem is more of a potential nightmare for the movement’s leadership, i.e that the movement is infiltrated by what’s called the ‘woke’ – people who seek to attach a range of other unrelated issues and causes to the independence cause.

The ‘woke’ are usually to be found amongst young people in their 20s and early 30s-the product of the left-liberal bias of our current school and university system.

They tend to be very judgemental in their approach to what they perceive to be the failings of modern society, constantly seeing ‘phobic’ people all around them who need to be shamed, blamed and shunned.

They also tend to be very insistent on pushing their own agenda, with a disregard for the wider picture

It was quite troubling on Saturday for example to hear such individuals coming up with statements such as ‘An Independent Wales will not be worth having if Wales is not made a completely plastics-free country’ and further ‘An Independent Wales will not be worth having if Wales is not fully part of the’ climate crisis’ fight’.

One has to wonder in how many other ways an Independent Wales will not ‘be worth having’ if such pre-conditions are allowed to grow and multiply…?

Identifying ourselves mainly as a ‘small c’ nationalist party campaigning for Independence, GWLAD has no problem with what one would term the ‘right-thinking left’. The traditional left if you like.

We would for example share their sentiments for some forms of publicly-run services in an Independent Wales(railways, water etc) and could co-operate on other issues as well.

Unfortunately, the ‘right-thinking left’ is now being tainted by their association with the woke brigade and their agenda, and there are signs that the general public is also becoming increasingly fed-up of the self-absorbed nature of the latter.

The last thing that YES Cymru needs is for this growing public perception to be attached to the Independence movement.

Time for real leadership to keep the indy ship from being dragged on to the rocks.