Plaid Cymru call for alliance with SNP to break up the UK

The SNP should work in parallel with Welsh independence campaigners to break up the UK, the new leader of Plaid Cymru Adam Price said yesterday.

Price has recruited former SNP Westminster leader Angus Robertson to help with his party’s election strategies. The Plaid Cymru leader, who took over from Leanne Wood last week, is among the speakers at the SNP conference in Glasgow.

He said Robertson will review his party’s campaigning structures and strategies. “That is going to be invaluable to us. What we are looking for is that great breakthrough moment that the SNP were able to achieve in 2007,” Price said, referring to the SNP getting into government.

Price said he hoped to emulate the SNP’s achievement. Should he get into power in 2021, he said Plaid Cymru and the SNP would be in position to take advantage of the “opportunity” for independence offered by Brexit.

He said: “We hope to be in a position in a little over two and half years’ time to lead the first government in our history. In that situation it would be an incredibly powerful position that our two sister Celtic countries and our sister parties are able to defend our countries in the context of whatever mess we have been delivered by the UK government. Ultimately the only sustainable solution in Scotland and Wales is independence, if we can go on a parallel journey step by step together I am sure we will gain inspiration and confidence on both sides.”

He claimed support for independence was growing in Wales. “There are growing numbers of people who would never define themselves as nationalists that have not been traditional supporters of our party, but are open to this question. It mirrors an earlier shift in Scottish public opinion. We could be in a position very shortly where the United Kingdom ceases to exist because of a series of events which would be triggered by this incredible ideological approach to Brexit which is hellbent on wreaking all kinds of economic destruction.”