Political heavyweight Adam Price has issued a rallying call to “progressives” “patriots” and “Welsh internationalists” to join Plaid Cymru and get behind leadership candidate Leanne Wood before the January 26th deadline.
In the wake of the Labour Party’s shift to the right with their consensus with the Con/Dems on public sector pension reform and opening up the NHS to the private market, the former MP for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr has written an open letter calling on people to join the only political alternative; Plaid Cymru.
People have until January 26th to join Plaid to have a say in the leadership contest.
Mr Price says: “In my view, there has never been a more important time for progressives and patriots and Welsh internationalists to join the party.
“We live in a time when old structures, old ideas and old ways of thinking are everywhere in crisis. A world and a Wales that is calling out for the new.
“Political and economic systems worldwide have failed to deliver the promised prosperity and justice and people are yearning for alternatives.
“But where is that alternative? At home in a United Kingdom divided like never before between the super privileged and the severely pressured, a Labour Party born of struggle thinks the answer now to crisis is to cut the wages of the low-paid – as the coal-owners did in 1926.
“In Wales thankfully we have an alternative, if we choose to act. We have an alternative in Plaid, if we choose to act. And Plaid has an alternative in Leanne, if we choose to act.”
He adds: “(She is a) a politician who understands that to be a progressive means turning our dreams – economic justice, ecological resilience, true democracy, a bilingual Wales, and yes, independence – into reality, making the impossible possible, daring to call the bluff of the apologists of power.
“Many of our people find themselves caught in a daily struggle to make ends meet. Any politician knows they must speak to the urgency of their current concerns, the problems of the here and now.
“But a leader inspires them to lift up their eyes from the difficulties of the present to imagine a radically different future that we can fashion together.
“Leanne Wood is one such leader. Wales and the world needs her like. But she cannot do it alone.
“For the Wales we have been waiting for,
For a world we are yet to create,
Do this now, but for the future
Join Plaid and vote for Leanne for Leader,”
Mr Price’s endorsement was echoed by Cerith Griffiths, FBU regional chair for Wales, who said: “”I know of many people that are joining Plaid Cymru to back Leanne in the leadership contest.
“Some of them are trade union members disillusioned with the Labour Party and their failure to effectively challenge the Westminster coalition over their destructive changes to the public sector pension schemes.
“She offers a very positive vision for the future of this country and she is the candidate who is best positioned to take on the unionist parties and win.”
