Plaid Cymru leader Adam Price was prepared to ditch his party’s support for the UK staying in the European single market and customs union in return for unspecified concessions from then Prime Minister Theresa May, an MP has claimed.
Writing in his regular column for the Carmarthen Herald, Jonathan Edwards, the MP for Carmarthen East & Dinefwr, told how in 2018, shortly after he was elected to the party leadership, Mr Price was granted a meeting with Ms May.
At the time she was leading a minority government, having lost her majority in the ill-judged general election of 2017, and was desperate for a deal with the EU that would secure Brexit.
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Parliament was in chaos at the time, with several factions in the Conservative Party insisting on different outcomes to the negotiations, and with disagreements between Labour MPs too. Mr Edwards was one of four Plaid Cymru MPs in 2018.
He was removed from the party in 2020 after accepting a police caution following an incident in which he assaulted his wife, and now sits at Westminster as an Independent.
In his newspaper column Mr Edwards states how in the first meeting of Plaid’s parliamentary group after Mr Price took over as leader "he proclaimed that he wanted to do a deal with the Theresa May government in which our four votes to support her Brexit policy would be exchanged for concessions.”
He adds: “What those concessions would have been, I have no idea. To put it mildly I wasn't best pleased with this proposed change of direction, primarily as his intention would throw away two years of opposition to leaving the single market and customs union, but also because Plaid Cymru MPs would end up being the handmaid of a British nationalist project aimed at undermining devolution - all for the sake of a photo op.”
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Mr Edwards added: "To be fair to him, Price had form. In panic during the 2017 snap general election campaign, which he was chairing, the party pivoted from an anti-Brexit party to a 'vote for us to make Brexit work party' a few weeks before polling day."
Mr Edwards told us: “I made it clear at the meeting of the parliamentary party that I could not support Adam’s plan to give up Plaid’s support for remaining in the single market and customs union in return for unspecified concessions for Wales.
“He knew then that he couldn’t bargain with our four votes, and the meeting with Theresa May therefore turned out to be a damp squib.”
The MP concludes his newspaper column by stating: “UK politics now seems divorced from reality. Brexit is proving to be a complete disaster.The biggest single act the British government could take to ease cost-of-living pressures would be to realign economically with our European partners.
“Yet no opposition political party, even proud pro-European parties such as Plaid Cymru, are willing to state the obvious and place it at the front and centre of their offer.”
A Plaid Cymru spokesman did not take issue with Mr Edwards’ comments directly, but stated: "Before, during and after the EU referendum, Plaid Cymru has always highlighted the economic harm posed by Brexit to Wales and continues to champion membership of the Single Market and Customs Union.
“That is why, after the Tories refused to countenance a soft Brexit, Plaid Cymru campaigned for a referendum which would have allowed a final say on whether people favoured a deal or continued membership of the European Union.
“As the Westminster parties turn a blind eye to the economic disaster which Brexit is proving to be, Plaid Cymru will stand up for Welsh communities who gained so much from European funds and a strong trading relationship with our closest neighbours."
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