CymruX Letter in the Western Mail

CymruX once again has a presence in the Western Mail; Cerith Rhys Jones, non-portfolio officer on CymruX's NEC today writes about Trident:

"SIR – I was heartened to see a letter from the Chair of CymruX Young Plaid Cymru, of which I am a non-portfolio officer, in the Western Mail (June 7) regarding fairness, and to that, I would like to add my full support.

Also in that edition was an article about Trident. It was said that my party’s parliamentary leader Elfyn Llwyd MP had commented that Trident should come into the Strategic Defence Review (“Plaid joins the call for ‘outdated’ Trident’s future to be scrutinised”).

While I agree with that, I find myself agreeing with Parliament’s only Green Party MP Caroline Lucas, who more or less called for the abandonment of the nuclear defence system.

We live in the modern world, and although terrorist threats are aplenty, is it not right to say that the world would be a safer place if we all said “actually, we don’t need these weapons, Let’s find a solution to our differences by diplomatic means”? There is no use in threatening other nations with our nukes, while all the while condemning countries like Iran for theirs.

I find the Liberal Democrats’ comments most interesting. The newly created lord, Mike German, former Deputy First Minister, noted that we should first take stock, before rushing into any decisions. How bizarre, considering the new Deputy Prime Minister was keen for us all to know that his party was anti-Trident in the election run-up.

The Lib Dem Welsh spokesperson, however, seemed to think that his party didn’t support a like-for-like replacement of Trident. Was it not the Lib Dem manifesto that said exactly that? I think so.

It seems to be, once again, that Plaid, the SNP and the Greens are the only truly progressive parties. I had hoped that Labour and the Lib Dems would join us three in some sort of an agreement to form a government after the election, but now I see that we’re better off out of it.

While Labour were happy to support it while in office and the ConDem government are happy to support it now, we progressives need to stand up for what is right, what is needed, what is moral: scrapping Trident.

We have bigger problems – the economy and climate change to name but two – other than shaking our ill-thought-of fists at the rest of the world.

CERITH RHYS-JONES
Non-portfolio Officer, CymruX Young Plaid"