No.
It’s something that in an ideal world we shouldn’t even need to say. Anyone can read the articles on this blog (now approaching 400 of them) or the tweets on our Twitter timeline (over 8000 of them) or have a look at our Facebook page, and they will simply not find evidence to suggest anything of the sort.
Yet ever since we first appeared on the scene a little over five years ago, it seems that using this slur against us has been the default tactic of those who’d rather that we weren’t part of the independence movement, and who wish we’d simply go away.
Things have come to a head recently with an attempt by a group of organisations on the left wing of the movement – Undod, Melin Drafod, Cymdeithas yr iaith and Labour for an Independent Wales – to have us banned from participation in the upcoming YesCymru Conference in Aberystwyth.
Yesterday, Nation.Cymru published an excellent piece by the YesCymru CEO Gwern Gwynfil in which he gave the reasons why this attempt was unsuccessful, and why this sort of bickering within the independence movement is something we all need to move beyond.
My colleague Aled Gwyn Jôb has also written about the background to this in his article earlier this week.
For completeness and for the public record, I am here posting the full text of the response I wrote on behalf of Gwlad to answer the accusations which were made against us. The entire correspondence originally took place in Welsh, so the link given here is to a translation of the original document.
Ideally I would have liked to publish the full text of the original complaint as well, and to this end (at Gwern Gwynfil’s suggestion) I wrote to Melin Drafod at their e-mail address ‘[email protected]’ last week. I asked whether they had any objection to me publishing the text, and I also invited them to expand upon or revise its content if they wished to do so; but I have not received any response from them. They are very welcome to get back to me, and to continue the correspondence.
In the meantime, I have agreed with Gwern Gwynfil to refrain from publishing their original letter, since in effect the ‘copyright’ still belongs to them. Even so, I’m going to publish the attachment they sent with it as ‘evidence’, since this contains nothing except screenshots from posts made by Gwlad and its members. Also, my response quotes each of their points in any case, so there is not one point that they have made which has not been answered in full.
Without further ado, therefore:
Click here for the attachment they sent with the original letter (which consists entirely of screenshots of Gwlad posts).
Click here for the formal reply that I wrote.
Regarding the comment about Delyth Jewell being ‘yet another social justice warrior’ I made that statement at the time of her elevation to replace Steffan Lewis. I made it in the context that she appeared to be selected for ticking all of the right boxes and did not appear to be the best qualified to replace Steffan. She proved me to be wrong and after hearing her speak at the Merthyr rally I publically (and personally) apologised to her.
Having an opinion on her political ability does not make me (or Gwlad) right wing. It is simply a difference of opinion.
I apologised for my initial poor judgement. However I fully expect that Plaid Ifanc and other Gwlad detractors will remain silent irrespective of the facts.
S Morris letter to Yes Cymru is excellent. Deals with the objections of others in structured systematic way. No emotion or hype just plain factual presentation. Pleased that M Murphy got a good impression of D Jewell. Perhaps one day Plaid may put her in situation where she gets to deliver a service to our communities. Given their recent history that seems a long way off.