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GWLAD’S manifesto for next year’s Senedd Election has been confirmed.

The updated manifesto was approved by party members by means of an on-line conference on Saturday, September 19.

The conference was due to be held at the Miners Institute at Llanhilleth in Blaenau Gwent, but the new coronavirus restrictions meant the meeting had to be switched to an on-line event.

The manifesto breaks new ground in the sense that all policy areas are divided into three distinct columns.

The first column asks ‘What’s wrong with Wales today?’. The second asks ‘What could be done with the Senedd’s existing powers?’. And the third column asks ‘What could be done once we achieve independence? ‘.

GWLAD’s Policy Director Stephen Morris said the manifesto was both a no-holds barred analysis of Wales’s current woes and a practical road map towards Independence.

‘We’ve always said that we’re not playing about when it comes to independence – we mean it – and that means taking a long, hard look at Wales as it is today, to see what’s good and what isn’t, and look for practical, workable solutions’ said Mr Morris.

He said that the manifesto sought, in the first place, to identify what’ s wrong at the moment, and work out how to improve things using the powers the Welsh Government already has.

‘These existing powers are wider than most people realise – but the problem is that the unionist Labour Party are reluctant to use these’ he said.

Once these powers have been properly utilised, by a nationalist-orientated government, Wales can then consider what more could be achieved as a fully independent nation.

‘So, we start in proper order – from where we are today – carefully working out policies that we believe will make a real, positive difference to people’s lives, by making better use of the Senedd’s existing powers’

‘By doing so, we hope to earn the right to demand more – and that obviously means independence at the end of the day’.

So, a new front has now been opened up in the drive for independence.

As a non-politically aligned group, YES Cymru can continue to focus on presenting the general concept of independence to the people of Wales.

With GWLAD’s political manifesto outlining what exactly needs to be done to build up to such a scenario. Now that the text has been agreed, the full document will be prepared and published in the coming weeks.