THE retired Cardigan café owner who made British political history by becoming the first Japanese national to be elected as a town councillor has resigned from Plaid Cymru claiming the party’s policies are out of touch with the Welsh public.

Akira Shimazaki will not be seeking re-election to Cardigan Town Council and is leaving the party he has supported since arriving at Aberystwyth University as a young student back in 1969.

The 75-year-old told the Cambrian News that The Party of Wales has “wrongly” pursued socialist and communist policies and beliefs for the last 20 years “which they do not understand correctly and is not sincere”.

“Those kind of policies do not work in Wales,” he added. “Plaid have completely changed the whole meaning of nationalism – their policies are destroying Welsh culture and language.”

Known as ‘Jac Bara Caws’ in his adopted home town, Mr Shimazaki left Japan to study political science at Aberystwyth University and never returned home.

Having opened the popular Bara Caws café in Pendre in the early 1970s Mr Shimazaki went on to become the first person from Japan to be elected as a town councillor in Britain in 2012. “I am not proud to be the first native Japanese councillor in British history, but I am proud of people in Cardigan who chose me, they are great,” he said at the time.

But Catrin Miles, secretary of the local Plaid branch, expressed surprise, saying Mr Shimazaki had never expressed any concerns to them.

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