Plaid Cymru Conference 2022 [Bore/Morning]

I attended the Plaid Cymru Conference in Llandudno on Friday October 21st, unfortunately due to the exhaustion and pain of the day I was unable to return for the Saturday session, but I was still able to collect the relevant information on the day's proceedings. I attended motions, speeches, debates and some fringe meetings. I'm not entirely sure how to separate this all out so there may be future adjustments to formatting.

Hopefully this will shed some light on the inner workings of the party and where they currently stand on issues outside of independence.

What follows is the notes I had taken on the conference. 

------------------------------

The day began with a minute silence as it was the 56th anniversary of the Aberfan Disaster in Glamorgan, South Wales that took the lives of 28 adults and 116 children due to a complete failing on the part of the National Coal Board.

The entire conference was primarily conducted in Cymraeg, with some bilingual speeches and maybe 2 or 3 English only speakers. As the Party of Wales (Plaid Cymru) they continually highlight the importance of the language in all things. There were non-Cymraeg speaking delegates in attendance and all Cymraeg speeches were translated in real time through headsets available on entry. It was a great chance for me to exercise my Cymraeg muscles and I did pick up some new political related vocab which was pretty cool.

------------------------------

MORNING MOTIONS 1;

The 1st session this morning was content to emphasise working class and gender representation issues. However, the equality candidates for the committee were not in attendance so it is unclear exactly their motives and opinions on the matter. There were throwaway lines throughout the introductory speeches referencing a need to include BME issues, however none were actually discussed. In terms of internal votes on issues outside of committee elections, all 3 proposed motions for the first meeting were passed

- GENDER QUOTAS: 50% of Plaid candidates put forward for the Senedd should be women. The speeches acknowledged that they would love a world where this was not an issue, where people could be elected solely on merit regardless of identity or background but believe this is a necessary step forward in obtaining that future. Nothing was said to address the impact this will have on trans and non-binary people

- CREATING COMMUNITY ORCHARDS to account for the lack of green spaces for working class families: council/affordable housing used to be built with large gardens to encourage families to grow their own food, this is no longer the case. These spaces will allow communities to obtain sustainable food sources, reduce carbon and improve air quality, reduce single use plastics, reduce harmful pesticides and create a healthier eco system, reduce food poverty and reliance on food banks.

- asking the government for CLARITY ON issues concerning AFFORDABLE HOUSING. Calling for support on those trying to create a deposit for a house, for the Senedd to define realistic affordability criteria aligned to median incomes in each locality.

We then descended into committee elections which, in a rather tory fashion, contained lots of 'there's lots I would like to do if elected' and not a lot of actual issues and proposals addressed by the candidates.

Now for the demographic of this morning's meetings. Of the 16 or so candidates for various positions and areas of the country, only 3 were young people, just under half were women, no one disclosed themselves as members of the LGBTQ+ community (as is their right, just thought it was worth noting), and not a single candidate or delegate in attendance was a person of colour. I know Cymru is around 90% white, but this is kind of ridiculous, if not entirely expected. PC pride themselves on running a campaign for a fairer, more inclusive, indy forward nation and, whilst they are getting better at addressing women's issues (Merched Plaid- the party's women's section) and inequality (Plaid Pride, Plaid BME, Undeb (trade union activists' section), time and time again there are 2 very obvious groups missing from this 'inclusion'. For the sake of time, we shall save addressing these problems and the known transphobia within the party for a later discussion.

I can only hope the meeting a little later on banning conversion therapy can shed a better light on the party's and members' positions on LGBTQ+ issues. As for POC, well who the heck knows!

I remain optimistic (but not entirely convinced) this party is equipped to create a government that can support the dream it preaches.

------------------------------

MORNING MOTIONS 2:

Well pawb, I wish I had better news for you all. The 2nd set of motions for the day concerned conversion therapy and retrofitting. While the Senedd is limited in how they can encourage Westmonster to include trans & genderqueer folk in the conversion therapy ban already secured for other members of the LBG letters of the community, we can do something for people here in Cymru. Whilst the motion to ban conversion therapy in Cymru did pass, my heart sank for several reasons. Firstly, seeing the meeting hall empty the conversion therapy motion and immediately refill for retrofitting and the meeting that followed, and the frankly terrifying amount of Plaid Cymru members who voted against the ban and abstained from voting. Transphobia appears alive and well here in the Llandudno conference of the 'progressive' Party of Wales. Plaid Cymru run on an indy platform of inclusivity, yet do little, if anything, to address the problematic and harmful views that continuously go unchecked withing their ranks. I actually ended up removing my pronouns badge from my lanyard because I no longer felt safe enough to wear it. The good thing I can tell you is the clear-cut stance of Plaid Ifanc (the youth section). There were statistics and mental health issues of trans people and trans youth addressed as well as stating that conversion therapy is not therapy but torture. They did not feel the need to debate or convince anyone and the speaker said there is no discussion here, it is wrong and we as a country need to put an end to it within our borders. As always, the future lies with the youth and I am hopeful that, as with every part of society, transphobic rhetoric and lack of awareness and education dies out with the older generations so we can build a progressive future for Cymru. While a number of older members did very quickly raise their cards to vote in favour of the ban, we do not yet live in this progressive community that Plaid Cymru are so loudly proud of creating and that we envision when thinking of independence, but just... that was more than a little shocking to witness this morning. The meeting for this motion only lasted around 5 minutes, if that, and the hall quickly refilled immediately after the member of Plaid Ifanc stepped off stage.

------------------------------

And that's that for this morning meetings. There was a debate held before we broke for lunch, but I think because of the sheer size of the notes I took that I will save that for the next part.