Shadow Wales minister calls on Plaid MP to apologise for offensive Twitter remarks
Labour’s Shadow Wales Minister, Nia Griffith MP has today called on Plaid Cymru MP Jonathan Edwards to apologise for offensive remarks he made on Twitter, which accused people who want Wales to remain part of the UK of loathing Wales.
In a Tweet issues this week, Jonathan Edwards the MP for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr, said: “At the end of the day unionists loathe their own country. Their ultimate loyalty is to the State.” This clearly suggested that the MP believes people in Wales who reject the notion of Welsh independence and feel our interests are best served by remaining as part of the UK loathe Wales.
This is a remarkable outburst from the leading Plaid Cymru MP, given the fact that polling results in Wales consistently show that less than ten percent of people support Welsh independence and the vast majority of Welsh voters support, so called, unionist parties.
The Twitter comments from Jonathan Edwards have caused a great deal of offence and as a result Nia Griffith, the Shadow Wales minister is calling on Jonathan Edwards to apologise and for Plaid Cymru to distance themselves from his comments.
Nia Griffith MP, Labour’s Shadow Wales minister, commenting said:
“I am appalled that in spite of being told how offensive his comments are Jonathan Edwards MP has neither apologised, nor even removed the tweet from his Twitter feed.
“Polls consistently show that less than 10% of the people of Wales want full political and economic independence for Wales: to suggest that the rest of us do not love our country is downright offensive.
“I am proud to be Welsh, and proud to be British, as indeed are thousands of people here in Carmarthenshire and across Wales. Large number of people I have spoken to in my constituency and at this week’s National Eisteddfod of Wales have told me that they find these comments outrageous. Jonathan Edwards has shown himself to be worryingly out of step with people in Wales, so it is high time he did the sensible thing and apologised for his tasteless outburst, before causing any further embarrassment to himself and Plaid Cymru.”