The BBC report on potentially the worse split yet for Plaid Cymru, with their leadership at odds with activists on tuition fees who in turn, seem powerless to stop the coalition government going ahead and scrapping the Welsh opt out that is currently protecting home-grown students from having to pay them.
At Plaid Cymru’s national council on Saturday members passed a motion reaffirming the party’s opposition to fees in light of assembly government plans to abolish the current student subsidy. Plaid Cymru fought the 2007 assembly election promising not to introduce top-up fees. This is a promise that they are now set to break.
A motion to review this, put forward by the party’s ministers in the coalition government with Labour, was defeated. The party also used Saturday’s meeting in Aberystwyth to call for any decision on a change of policy to be deferred until after the next assembly election so that all parties could put their views to the electorate:
Speaking to BBC Wales’ Politics Show, Plaid chairman John Dixon confirmed that the party’s leader Ieuan Wyn Jones had subsequently made a statement to the party’s national council saying he would not be able to deliver the motion that was passed.
He said Mr Jones, who is deputy first minister in the Labour-Plaid government, made it clear he would not be able to persuade the cabinet to back Plaid policy.
Plaid Cymru’s Chair is quoted as saying that this conflict reflects the realities of government. In other words once they get their backsides into a ministerial limousine they abandon their principles.
What is interesting is the way that Ieuan Wyn Jones implies that this is a done-deal when the proposed changes are supposedly out to consultation. That undermines the position of some Plaid Cymru Assembly Members such as Bethan Jenkins, who have said that they will fight within the government to maintain Wales’ tuition fee opt-out.
The fact is that Plaid Cymru are in a position to protect Welsh students from this iniquitous policy. They have the votes, all they need is some backbone. We will not be holding our breath.
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