Madam,

After some considerable reflection, I feel the record of Lord Dafydd Elis-Thomas needs to be seriously examined for the good of the electors of Dwyfor Meirionnydd.

He was re-elected as Plaid Cymru AM last year. (‘Dafydd Elis-Thomas thanks voters as he returns for fifth term’, Cambrian News, 10 May 2016), only to resign from the party (‘I’m in a stronger position to deliver now says Dafydd Elis-Thomas’, 18 October 2016) and ultimately to join the Labour Welsh government (‘Lord Elis-Thomas lands Cabinet role’, 7 November 2017).

The benefit to us of all this is that Elis-Thomas is rightly supporting the Welsh Labour government’s excellent policies and not pursuing the divisive policies of Plaid in the Senedd, and is presumably recommending the voters of Dwyfor Meirionnydd to follow suit and vote Labour.

Locally the gain appears to be a very small increase in the government grant to Gwynedd Council. Unfortunately the Plaid council’s policy of underspending means that it is only the council’s financial ‘Reserves’ bank accounts that have benefitted, rather than the people of Gwynedd.

The downsides of Elis-Thomas’s personal advancement are very worrying indeed, however. Firstly, all those who voted for Plaid in the 2016 Senedd election have been effectively disenfranchised, their commitment to the party they voted for, Plaid, completely disrespected. Elis-Thomas is not pursuing Plaid’s policy: he is supporting Labour’s policy which he campaigned against.

But there is another downside which, in my opinion, is the worst thing of all. Elis-Thomas enters the Cabinet as a Carwyn Jones shoe-in. Labour benefitted differentially from the collapse of the UKIP vote in this year’s General Election but the real momentum, the real groundswell of opinion, was for Corbynite politics, which First Minister Jones was strenuously opposing.

Elis-Thomas, in joining the Labour Cabinet, is simply the wrong person doing the right thing. Dwyfor Meirionnydd needs an AM who is a member of the Cabinet, but he or she should be a Labour Party AM who wholeheartedly supports and campaigns for Corbynite policies.

Anyone in Plaid who thinks Elis-Thomas right to join the Labour government has the right to demand a by-election in order that they may vote for a Labour Party member to do the job. Anyone, too, who voted Plaid and thinks him wrong to have deserted the party also has a right to a by-election.

Elis-Thomas must stand down to let the people of Dwyfor Meirionnydd exercise their right to vote for candidates who will not immediately change sides after the election.

Yours etc,

Ian MacIntyre, St John’s Hill, Barmouth.

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