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Candidates, candidates, candidates…

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. 

Mark James held a top job but was disliked by some

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 – former Chair of Sian Caiach’s predecessor party

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.

Royston Jones in his youth with the Free Wales Army (FWA)

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 – can’t vote for the party in Wales

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”.

Cayo Evans with gun as seen on the ‘Jac o’ the North’ blog

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.

There were empty chairs at an early meeting of EG

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”.

‘Irritating’

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”.

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”.
 
Mr Jones may have blamed our Editor in the past, but he has used ‘lies’ before in describing him.
Our Editor Phil Parry became angry when he was accused of being a liar

More than three years ago he called Mr Parry “a lying bastard” and dubbed him “vermin”.

Mr Jones said on Jac o’ the North:  “That lying bastard Phil Parry never misses an opportunity to twist or invent ‘facts’”
 
He continued:  “He’s a mouthpiece for the Labour Party (many of The Eye articles have been about the misdeeds of Labour politiciansand often ‘trails’ stories for Llais y Sais (we never write ‘trails’ for other organisations)
 
Social housing in Wales only for the Welsh?

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.

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?”. 
 
The ‘Full Of Shit’ award for Royston Jones

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”.
 
Ms Caiach explained her decision to join the fledgling party on the Nation.Cymru website, when she said she thought she could bring a level of political expertise currently missing from the party.
 
Should Sian Caiach have been here or at the launch of EG/GG?!

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. 

“It’s difficult when you are a new party and I think when we become more prominent, we are going around, doing lectures and presentations, and not only is that helping with our message and the feedback we are getting but also it will help people realise we are not bogeymen or strange Neo-fascists or whatever we are being accused of.”
 
Ms Caiach may now be accused of belonging to one party but officially backing the candidate of another…
 
Book poster
Phil Parry’s memories of his extraordinary 36-year award-winning career in journalism as he was gripped by the incurable disabling condition Hereditary Spastic Paraplegia (HSP), have been released in a major new book ‘A GOOD STORY’. Order the book now!

 

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