The new CEO of YesCymru has said members need to keep their "sh*t" outside the tent and focus on increasing the independence campaign group's membership.
Gwern Gwynfil, 48, gave a fascinating wide ranging interview to WalesOnline as he took over the reigns at the pro-independence campaign group. He honestly reflected on the challenges facing the organisation, which was mired in internal debates for over a year, as well as the ways in which it could forward its goal of an independent Wales.
WalesOnline: Welcome Gwern and congratulations on the new role. Tell us about your background.
Gwern Gwenfil: A long time ago, I did a history degree. Then I did a couple of things. I researched some Welsh history, did some landscape archaeology, I then made a conscious choice not to take a job in the city in London because for my generation, that is what you did.
I came back to where I'm from, which is Tregaron, Aberystwyth in North Ceredigion and I utterly failed to find employment because it was impossible to find a job. I will never forget one particular interview when I was in my early twenties, where the chairman of the panel afterwards and said 'we haven't given you the job, you're overqualified', and put his arm around me and he said, 'why don't you go to London, and go and get yourself a proper job'.
It was indicative of what the world was like back then in Wales, there was no Senedd. I'm not entirely sure now that that was the right course of action at the time, but that is what I chose to do. So I ended up doing a lot of helping out for the family business, then working for a property investment company for a while and set up and run my own translation business as well as trying to get some other businesses going such as a construction company. So I've got no political background as such. I hope because I am politically neutral it will be useful in this role. It's an umbrella organisation, which lost its way and umbrella sense, briefly, and I'm very, very determined to get it back on track as an umbrella organisation with a single strategic goal of independence.
When did you first come down to the idea of independence yourself? Was there a moment? Or is it something you've always believed in?
Always, since I was a child. A very early memory for me, was watching the opening ceremony of the Olympics, in black and white and turning to my dad and saying why isn't there a Welsh flag. Where's the Welsh team?
My position in the mid 90s, would have been less focused on independence than it is now. The difference being that in the mid 90s devolution looked like as though it could be a workable, functional middle ground. And it's transpired that it isn't, because you're always at the whim of Westminster and Westminster's ability or desire to just take away whatever they've given. Ultimately over the long term, the only answer is independence, because otherwise you're never ever going to have priorities set according to Wales's priorities.
Surely there are ways to reform the UK where the prioities of Wales could be reflected where it is possible. You see that with Canada and Quebec. Support for independence in Quebec has declined quite significantly because of reforms, concessions and a workable status quo.
I do take your point about Quebec, but I think the problem in the United Kingdom is that that isn't really practical. And I know a lot of people bear a huge grudge and are quite aggressive in their independence and paint Westminster is a big bad guy and a big bad wolf. I genuinely don't blame Westminster. If I was sitting in Westminster, there is no way that I am going to set my priorities based on the needs of 3 million people in Wales, when I have 50-60 million people that I have to prioritise first. And that imbalance is always going to be there, and it will always stay there. And that's not really the case in Quebec, Quebec is a much larger part of Canada. So there's more balance in Canada.
Some would argue there are ways to reform the UK to make it more workable but to stop this going into specfics let's talk about your new role. What are the biggest internal and external challenges facing YesCymru.
My hat is off to the team that have restructured, rebased and rebuilt Yes Cymru. It used to be Yes Cymru Association, that is effectively wound up now. A new YesCyrmu is in place with different articles. It's a much more mature and grown up organization. They've done an awful lot of that work. So I feel that my role now is to hammer home the message of an inclusive, unified organization campaigning for independence for Wales, without being sidetracked by other political programs. There are still some challenges within that, because there will be parts of the organization where what has happened historically may have left a bad taste in the mouth. Certainly, there has been some personal conflict amongst some quite leading members of the organization, which is unresolved. Bringing them back into the tent, without those hang ups, and with their focus returning to independence, rather than their own particular personal political agendas - that will be a challenge. I'll have to be at my diplomatic best to pull that off.
Ultimately, one of the things that is key is if we grow the membership to the kind of levels that I'd like to be without being harsh about them, those small cliques and groups become far less important or less significant. And they can be far more easily dismissed. That growth of membership is key across the quiet middle. The indy confident, but not politically aggressive. That is where I need the growth of membership. It is that growth of membership that gives YesCymru the voice that it needs to be the organization issuing the clarion call for independence.
I'm fairly confident that I can shape the centre core of the organisation to be competent and capable in its messaging and its communications, and to stick to the party line once I got the structures in place. We need to maintain the nuance and to understand that, in talking about Wales post independence, something we have to do is not talk about a particular position from “the possibilities of”.
Let’s say, we're sponsoring some longer term academic research over three years and the result of that research isn't quite what we wanted it to be. We just have to accept that and, you know, take a longer term view and say, ‘yes, okay, it's not going to be great, or this part of what we're looking at may not be great’.
If all 3 million plus people in Wales are talking about independence than I am happy, even if more than half of them are disagreeing, if that talking about it, then then I am happy. And that is the key, getting that conversation and broadening that conversation. Over the following six to 12 weeks, we're going to slowly drip feed some more information out to the members and some tips and tricks and do's and don'ts on how to talk to people. And I really don't want people to go out and say, 'I support independence, you have to support independence, because of this, this, this'. I want my members to do is to go out and challenge people to think about independence for themselves because the arguments in favour of independence now, and the first half of the 21st Century, are overwhelming
Do you think it's going to be quite hard to get people to have a realistic debate about independence given the misinformation out there such as being able to balance the books on the back of selling water?
I don't think it's hard to have a realistic debate about independence. I think the challenge is different demographics. Whatever you're discussing, different demographics and different age groups and different levels of education will approach things in different ways. Some really don't care about the detail. Some people will just just appeal to the heart. Some give it an immense amount of thought and will want to have a really high level debate about it. And the thing is, we have to have all of those debates.
We absolutely have to convince the leadership of Wales. And I mean, on every level, the leadership of Wales, business leaders, political leaders, social leaders, we absolutely have to convince them of the practicalities and realities of independence and potential it has to add value to all of Wales. But at the same time, we need to convince Joe public regular Welsh people who don't really give a toss about politics anyway.
In Yes Cymru, you have a lot of disparate groups who have the YesCymru banner but have acted quite autonomously. Is it going to be a priority for you to try and keep everyone on the same message?
It'll have its challenges. But there are some things that I do need to tighten up. I mean, they've done really good work. And, you know, the articles and infrastructure that they've created and laid out is very good. They don't actually have a sufficiently strong nuclear option if someone does something which brings the YesCymru brand into disrepute and to throw them out immediately. So that will be in place within the next few weeks as one of the first things I wanted to put in place. I want it in place not so that I can use it, but let's say you're the head of a Yes Cymru group somewhere. and you do something which has the potential to be damaging to the YesCymru brand or can undermine the campaign in some way. I just need to be able to pick up the phone to them and say 'you've done this. I really need you to step down now, walk away for a few years and if you don't, we're gonna trigger the nuclear option and we're going to kick you out anyway'. I have to I have to have the option of throwing them out. With an appeal that has to happen within seven days. Crisp, clean, move on.
Within that context, though, I do want those people who may have political views that are not helpful to the broader YesCymru debate I do want them to stay within the tent when it comes to the argument about independence. Because they are independence supporters, what they're going to have to learn to do is to leave all their other shit outside. And if they argue about it outside, then they can go and argue about it outside, not when they're in the YesCymru tent.
What does success look like for you in this role?
In six months, success is measured by if we have momentum, and the membership is growing, that's success. 12 months down the line, we have membership growing, a little bit of momentum, a much more audible voice in terms of a media presence. Possibly we won't get there in 12 months, but certainly in 18 months, that we've got to the point where, let's say Question Time are coming to Wales, they cannot not approach someone from YesCymru to ask them to be on the panel because we have created enough of a noise that they have to be spoke to.
If we could also persuade Welsh Labour to officially make independence an open question within Welsh Labour, which they haven't done yet, to try and get one leading Welsh Labour figure to break cover and come out in favour of independence once that has happened.
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