Syniadau a Wylfa B

Dydi blogiadau Saesneg ddim yn gyffredin ar Blogmenai - er efallai bod y sawl yn eich plith sydd efo cof da yn gallu dwyn i gof un neu ddau yn y gorffennol gweddol bell.  Mae yna resymau tros y blogiadau hynny - i wneud yn siwr bod rhywun neu'i gilydd yn eu deall ydi'r rheswm gan amlaf. 

Dydi awdur y blog Syniadau, Michael Haggett ddim yn rhugl ei Gymraeg eto, felly mae'r ymateb isod i'r blogiad yma yn y Saesneg.

The initial thing to say is that I have a certain amount of sympathy with some of the points Michael has raised - especially the inappropriateness of elected Plaid representatives attacking the concept of independence.  Independence is a core nationalist principle. 

However   the exact method by which electricity is generated isn't a core nationalist principle or indeed a nationalist principle of any description.  A blanket refusal to countenance the production of energy with a nuclear reactor might be party policy, but the party is made up of human beings & humans don't agree on everything.  The party isn't a bee hive, & a hive mentality isn't  healthy for any organization.  Attitudes to independence & electricity production shouldn't be conflated. 

If you live in the North Western corner of Wales - as perhaps 40% of Plaid members do, the nuclear issue is problematic.  On the one hand there's party policy, &on the other there's real politics - and real life.  Quality employment is scarce & our base is made up of the ordinary working people who live around us - friends, neighbours, acquaintances - real people with real families to keep, with real mortgages to pay with real household budgets to manage.  Our base, our people - the people we need to protect & look after.  Incidentally - & it is incidental - there's a real election to fight in a real constituency which has for a number of generations had a nuclear facility as one of its main sources of employment.  This might not be satisfying from the point of view of an ideologue, but that's how it is. 

Now most  people on the ground understand this.  There isn't uniformity within Plaid ranks in the North West regarding WylfaB, but people from both sides of the argument understand the lay of the land.  Now I hesitate to outline Rhun's position for him, but he probably believes that WylfaB presents Ynys Mon & the wider North West region with economic opportunities, but recognizes that questions need to be answered before the development goes ahead - questions about future costs, waste, linguistic & community impact etc. He also believes that any benefits that accrue from any development should impact locally.  This is a logical position as well as a principled one. 

As I've suggested before I find it regrettable that the Syniadau blog is intent on focusing a far wider campaign on the one issue Labour wants to fight the campaign on.  This is the sole area they are able to gain any traction - having  a parachuted candidate who's got the thankless task of defending a decade & a half of Labour ennui, failure & incompetence.  Yet the author of the blog spends  his time looking for press interpretations of something or other that Rhun said or something written on  a 140 character format to indicate that he's rabidly pro nuclear - & on finding what he wants to find  having an almighty public strop about it.

The personal nature of some of the latest comments is even more regrettable.  Rubbishing the views of the candidate on a specific issue is one thing, rubbishing the candidate personally is quite another  - & it's very difficult to imagine why any party member would do such a thing in the middle of an important election campaign.  Everybody who knows the man understands him to be decent, intelligent, principled & hard working.   At no point during this debate has anybody made vicious personal comments about the author of Syniadau, & I very much hope that situation continues. 

Now there are various side issues which are relevant  to this argument - the failure of the very large Northern membership to fully engage in internal party debates & make it's numerical superiority count, the appropriateness of having an old fashioned blanket anti nuclear stance in an environment where dependence on fossil fuels needs to be cut & renewable sources are unpopular being just two.

But the issue I'd like to focus on is this - there's little we can learn from Labour, but discipline is an exception.  They have their arguments in a room & they pull together in public.  Some of us  have a great deal to learn from that.