- Not Wynning ways - 21st November 2024
- Winning the race…. - 20th November 2024
- More turbulence - 19th November 2024
The candidate for an extreme Welsh nationalist party in one part of Wales has officially endorsed the Brexit Party (BP) nomination in another and the controversy has been highlighted on social media, The Eye can exclusively reveal.
The former Carmarthenshire councillor Sian Caiach is the Gwlad, Gwlad GG (Land, Land) candidate for Cardiff Central in next month’s General Election, yet is also the proposer for the BP nomination in Llanelli and the spotlight has been thrown on to the remarkable situation after comments on Twitter.
Yet Ms Caiach is no stranger to alarming news.
When the retirement was announced of her one-time council’s controversial former Chief Executive Mark James, she said: “(He is) rather arrogant and a control freak and vicious…”.
Her party (GG not BP) has also hit the headlines.
The one-time Chair of GG (which was formerly known as Ein Gwlad, EG, {Our Land}) has been faced with major problems running a charity allotment scheme and failed to file accounts two years running, and the party was created by the supporter of a paramilitary organisation which had links to the IRA.
Gwilym ab Ioan (known as Gwilym the Gardener) chaired EG and the party became GG, as it cleaned up its image to adopt a “more consensual approach”.
But it was originally founded by a retired heating engineer, who supports the 1960s paramilitary group Free Wales Army (FWA).
Royston Jones (who styles himself in documents as an ‘Investigative Journalist’), writes an acerbic right wing blog and published a picture of the leader of the FWA holding a gun.
Those same documents make clear that Mr Jones was also in charge of the website of the old EG.
The acerbic right wing blog written by Mr Jones is called Jac o’ the North, and proclaims it is: “Interpreting Wales from a Right of Centre Nationalist perspective”.
He has published on his blog a picture of Cayo Evans, pointing a hand gun at the camera, and he revels in his long-standing support for the FWA.
Mr Jones has also praised Evans as a “friend” and “comrade”.
The FWA came to prominence more than 50 years ago, 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.
Stephen Morris was ‘General Party Spokesman’ and ‘Policy Researcher’ of Ms Caiach’s party EG/GG, although as he lived in England he was barred from voting in Welsh elections, so is unable to vote for the party at these ballots.
In a piece introducing what was then EG on the Nation.Cymru website, Dr Morris wrote: “Wales is a unique country. There is nowhere quite like it.”
But Dr Morris works in Wrexham and lives across the English border in Shropshire.
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 the group Ms Caiach eventually joined, EG/GG, was clearly unhappy.
Officials sent a message to Mr Jones 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”.
Before this a ‘public’ meeting was held in Autumn 2017 and we disclosed how Mr Jones had initially pledged to create the new party by early last year, with an Annual General Meeting (AGM) penciled in for March 3 2018, but nothing happened.
EG/GG was finally unveiled at Llanelli (where Ms Caiach proposed the BP candidate) 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”.
On November 22 he wrote after an article on The Eye: “Following Phil Parry’s latest attack on me I asked for the right to reply (The Eye – there has been no such request), but he hasn’t responded. I’d prefer to ignore the irritating little git but he is now making serious and misleading allegations that have to be answered”.
More than three years ago he called Mr Parry “a lying bastard” and dubbed him “vermin”.
Mr Jones has also promoted a petition calling for social housing only for people from Wales. Families from London who took homes from a Welsh housing association were heavily criticised, and they were called perverts.
But readers have been dismayed in the past by what has appeared on Mr Jones’ blog.
She wrote: “I was looking for something. I was looking for a new party and they ended up looking for me… I feel quite comfortable within the party and I really haven’t had any negative comments from anybody locally. My family are quite happy with everything and quite a few People First members have either joined or are quite sympathetic.
