AND SO the backsliding begins.

Before last month’s Senedd election, Plaid Cymru echoed the anger and concerns of tens of thousands of people throughout Ceredigion, west Powys and south Gwynedd over Hywel Dda health authority’s dangerous and absurd proposal to downgrade Bronglais Hospital’s stroke unit. This would see patients receive only preliminary treatment in Aberystwyth before having to travel up to more than 100 miles to Swansea or Haverfordwest.

Before the election, Plaid SMs, including Mabon ap Gwynfor, then shadow health secretary, now, in government, occupying the top job, were spitting blood over the plan.

But no longer.

Last week, this column asked the new Plaid government whether, given the party’s repeated expressions of strong hostility to any interference with the stroke unit, backed by overwhelming public pressure, it would now act to ensure that downgrading does not happen.

Its reply signals utter capitulation to the health authority, and an abdication of the government’s clear obligation to take ultimate responsibility for patient well-being.

A press officer in the health department told me:“We understand the concerns of residents about the future of the stroke unit. This is a decision for Hywel Dda University Health Board as they are responsible for the planning and delivery of services for their local population. A further consultation is underway by the board and would encourage people to engage with that process to ensure all views are heard.”

In other words, on this crucial issue, we’re set on mimicking the widely condemned inaction of the Eluned Morgan government. A change of government equals an input of wisdom? You must be joking.

In a Senedd debate last October, after more than 17,000 signed one of the biggest petitions in the parliament’s 26-year history, Mabon ap Gwynfor warned that sustainability must not come at the cost of access or quality and, referring to the proposed Bronglais downgrading, said: “I have grave concerns about proposals for stroke services that I feel would lead to real harm.”

Unsurprisingly, because this widely-praised life-saving facility is the one and only such unit in the entire region.

In the same debate, he stressed that every minute counts in treating stroke, and rehabilitation is just as important in order to give patients the best chance of recovery.

He warned that sustainability must not come at the cost of access or quality and stressed that Bronglais was best placed to serve as a regional centre of excellence. Unsurprisingly, because this widely-praised life-saving facility is the one and only such unit in the entire region.

It will be surprising if voters, patients and the dedicated staffers of this stroke unit do not now see his subservience to the health authority as a betrayal.

BRITAIN’s departure 10 years ago from the European Union and its $18trn single market has cost the Welsh economy £4bn, with trade diminished by £1bn and a further £1bn down the drain through loss of EU structural and development funding.

Studies also show that, across Britain as a whole, Brexit brought about a massive reduction in market size and is reckoned to have lowered GDP per person by between 4% and 8%. As recently as last November, MSs were told the Welsh economy had been disproportionately impacted by Brexit because it was more reliant on exporting to the EU compared with the UK as a whole.

Economically, the 2016 EU referendum result has been, if not disastrous, something pretty close to it. Current moves by the Starmer government to deepen trading cooperation with Europe are very useful but may never make up for economic losses since the 2016 divorce, which saw Wales vote 52.5% - 47.5% in favour of getting out of the EU.

Economically, it has been the wrong choice, and one that is puzzling and, a decade later, still open to interpretation. Immigration posses a particular question. Before Brexit, 67% of Welsh voters wanted it significantly reduced, although population influx from overseas affected Wales only marginally. Compounding the riddle, Wales had the highest proportion of support among UK countries for leaving the EU, despite the prospect of huge financial losses from discontinuation of EU funding.

But the biggest apparent conundrum is why Welsh voters so badly disadvantaged by EU departure retain such a substantial wedge of loyalty to the politician who so clearly is one of the main architects of a deepened national impoverishment.

In last month’s Senedd election, Nigel Farage’s right-wing populist Reform UK chalked up strong voter support, coming second to Plaid Cymru in Ceredigion Penfro and Gwynedd Maldwyn and, in Wales overall, taking 34 of 96 seats.

Some people must have short memories. Either that or they have willingly eradicated their recollection of Farage’s proselytising Brexit Party of 2016 which, jointly with Boris Johnson, seemingly successfully persuaded an electorate to go like lambs to the slaughter.

This was a referendum which enabled a venting of grievances against the Westminster elite, allowed people fed up with austerity or worried about immigration to show their frustration, gave some kind of voice to those who thought EU membership wasn’t delivering prosperity. Voting generally also appears to have been driven by class, geography, culture and education.

The referendum’s fundamental flaw was that it loaded on to people untrained in economics the responsibility of plotting an entire country’s economic future - a profound and finely-balanced decision calling for an expertise which people generally didn’t have. Of course they didn’t. Who would expect a brain surgeon to help fly a spacecraft to the moon? This, then, was very risky, and the negative financial repercussions of Brexit are sharp proof of this danger realised.

Voters had to go for a simple yes or no - in or out. The leave campaign purported to have a straightforward and simple answer to Britain’s woes. It didn’t. The single question was ludicrous in its simplicity, and leave leaders consequently succeeded only in directing an entire population into a financial quagmire.

What a pity that, last month, Reform’s voters declined to consult history.