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A senior official for an extreme nationalist Welsh independence party created by the supporter of a paramilitary organisation which had links to the IRA, lives in England and cannot even vote for his own party in Wales, it has emerged.
Stephen Morris is ‘General Party Spokesman’ and ‘Policy Researcher’ with Ein Gwlad (Our land/country) EG, founded by a retired heating engineer, who writes an acerbic right wing blog and published a picture of the leader of a paramilitary group holding a gun.
In a piece introducing EG on the Nation.Cymru website Dr Morris wrote: “Wales is a unique country. There is nowhere quite like it.”
Yet apparently there is somewhere better than Wales to live.
Dr Morris works in Wrexham but lives across the English border in Shropshire.
He has also written: “Never underestimate North East Wales. People in the rest of Wales tend to forget that WE(our capitals)’re here…”
In the Nation.Cymru article he declares that Wales is “a different country. A country which has often led the world in technological and social development…”.
But Dr Morris is barred from voting in Welsh elections so he is unable to vote for his own party which claims it would return Wales to being a leading country.
EG was founded by Royston Jones, who writes ‘Jac o’ the North’, which proclaims it is: “Interpreting Wales from a Right of Centre Nationalist perspective”.
He has published on his blog a picture of Cayo Evans, the leader of the 1960s paramilitary group, Free Wales Army (FWA), pointing a hand gun at the camera, and he revels in his long standing support for the organisation.
Mr Jones has also praised Evans as a “friend” and “comrade”.
Evans was the leader of the FWA, and it has been reported that the Official IRA (OIRA) gave or sold, most of its weapons to the organisation as part of its turn away from political violence.
Despite this, Dr Morris describes the founder of his party as “venerable”.
The disturbing news about him comes hard on the heels of other worrying issues concerning EG highlighted exclusively by The Eye.
Reporters say they have been unable to contact the party and campaigning before a possible UK General Election has been invisible.
The EG website is still active and states: “FOR NEWS, REVIEWS & OPINI0N ON THE POLITICAL FRONT IN CYMRU (WALES)”, but other engagement is minimal.
One journalist told us: “It is incredibly difficult to get hold of Ein Gwlad for a comment. Nobody seems to know who to contact”.
But this is not the first time EG has been engulfed by problems.
Following our revelations about Mr Jones’ connection with Evans, and news on The Eye of his publication of him with a pistol, a hotel where he was to announce the formation of EG sent a message to him saying: “With regards to … concerns, we have now cancelled your meeting room with full refund of payment”.
He then advertised on his blog a new venue, with the words: “I am delighted to announce that a meeting has been arranged for November 18th (2018) in Aberystwyth to discuss the formation of a new political party to defend Wales’ interests”.
EG was finally unveiled at Llanelli later last year, but another nationalist blog had ‘reported’ earlier that a first ‘conference’ was to be held before the end of 2018.
Meanwhile Mr Jones’ support for the FWA and Evans, as well as previous statements have been questioned, and it seemed our Editor had become something of an irritant.
On November 19 Mr Jones had written on his blog: “The meeting yesterday went very, very well. I was delighted with the turnout and with the enthusiasm shown…perhaps the one disappointment – given the interest he’s shown in the new party – was that Phil Parry of The Eye wasn’t there. You could have had a scoop, Parry – ‘Shock! Horror! irritating little git thrown out of meeting”.
Plainly, despite our factual revelations, Mr Jones was troubled by our intervention, and wrote on his blog: “He (another critic of the plan) used the lies peddled by Phil Parry on The Eye”.
Evidently Mr Jones is unaware of legal rules because these comments are highly-defamatory, and as they have been published, they fall within the remit of libel laws.
The equal treatment of disabled people is viewed by commentators as a progressive mark of civilised countries, and it is seen as important to address debilitating illnesses, but it seems Mr Jones does not agree. One of the lines by him on Jac o’ the North which caused particular offence was: “Am I alone in thinking there’s an element of a Victorian freak show in the Paralympics?”. A post on the Republic website concluded: “(Royston Jones was) awarded …that week’s Full of Shit award. It was well merited (as this was a) primitive attitude to disabled people.”
But readers have been dismayed in the past by what has appeared on Mr Jones’ blog. One commentator on The Eye said: “The man (Royston Jones) and the knuckle draggers that follow him are fascistic ethnic nationalists end of and don’t really deserve the air of publicity except to say that wales has an alarmingly high number (of) far right supremacists who have convinced themselves they have oppressed status so think its okay to demonise ordinary people like retirees from English cities who’ve moved within their own nation state”.
After all he is the ‘Party Spokesman’…