Dydd Gŵyl Dewi Hapus!

The Heritage and Destiny team – two of whom have Welsh ancestry – wish all our readers a very Happy St David’s Day!

Born on a Pembrokeshire clifftop during a fierce storm in 500 AD, St David – grandson of the King of Ceredigion – became a renowned preacher and founded several monasteries, including (by some accounts) the abbey at Glastonbury as well as the original settlement which is now St Davids Cathedral in his native Wales.

The past 12 months have seen a surge in Welsh patriotism, partly linked to the World Cup. Despite the results in that tournament (!) and despite all difficulties that Welsh patriots and our fellow Europeans face in 2023, we should take heart from the words of St David’s final sermon before his death aged 89: “Be joyful, keep the faith”!

Dydd Gŵyl Dewi Hapus!

A Very Happy St David’s Day to all our Welsh readers!

Brexit Party AM declares Masonic membership

David Rowlands, a Brexit Party member of the Welsh Assembly (now officially known as the Senedd), and Robin Swann, former leader of the Ulster Unionist Party and now a Stormont MLA and Health Minister of Northern Ireland, are the only two parliamentarians in the UK to declare their membership of Freemasonry.

The new grand secretary of the United Grand Lodge of England has recently given numerous press interviews, indicating plans “to take the organisation into the 21st century”.

On its inception the Welsh Assembly not only insisted that members had to declare any Masonic affiliation – they even made it a criminal offence to fail to do so.

A senior Welsh Freemason complained at the time: “We had the ridiculous situation that, as a freemason, if I wanted to become an AM, I would have to declare my membership. But a member of the Ku Klux Klan or Meibion Glyndwr would be all right.”

The original regulations were changed after a Human Rights Act challenge, and failure to comply is no longer a criminal offence, but the Welsh Assembly (unlike the House of Commons) still requires members to register membership of any “private societies”.

David Rowlands was elected for UKIP in 2016 as an Assembly member for South Wales East: he later defected to the Brexit Party.

Robin Swann was leader of the Ulster Unionist Party from 2017 to 2019 and is MLA for Antrim North. He is the only Stormont member to declare himself a Freemason and is a prominent member of the Orange Order and Royal Black Preceptory.

Brexit Party struggling in by-elections

The Liberal Democrats have won yesterday’s parliamentary by-election in the rural Welsh constituency Brecon & Radnorshire, further worsening the parliamentary arithmetic for new Prime Minister Boris Johnson, making it less likely that he can achieve Brexit without a general election.

Brecon & Radnorshire was also bad news for Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party, whose candidate was a distant third with 10.5%. A crumb of comfort for Farage was UKIP’s embarrassment at finishing bottom of the poll with 0.7%, behind even the ‘Monster Raving Loony Party’!

Regular H&D readers will be very familiar with our long-running analyses of UKIP’s poor performance in local by-elections, which indicated a long time ago that the party was in big trouble.

Now of course UKIP is dead, and is widely seen to have been superseded by the Brexit Party, founded earlier this year by former UKIP leader Nigel Farage.

The Brexit Party achieved extraordinarily good results at this year’s European Parliamentary elections: 30.5% of the nationwide vote, electing 29 MEPs – easily the largest UK party at that election.

The jury is still out as to whether the election of self-proclaimed Hard Brexiteer Boris Johnson as Conservative Party leader and (for the time being at least) Prime Minister will end Farage’s adventure.

What does seem clear is that (like UKIP before it) the Brexit Party is struggling to turn its potential support into actual votes in local or Westminster (as opposed to European) elections.

Last week in Gloucester the Brexit Party contested two city council elections for the first time. The good news for Farage is that his party finished way ahead of UKIP. The bad news is that they finished a poor third in one and fourth in the other.

In Podsmead ward – exactly the sort of White working-class estate where the Brexit Party ought to be threatening Labour (according to many pundits) they were fourth with 16.4% (UKIP polled just 1.6%). Labour did indeed lose the seat – but to the very pro-EU Liberal Democrats, not to Farage.

In a very different part of Gloucester, Barnwood ward – equally White but far more affluent – the Brexit Party finished third with 10.5% (UKIP managed a microscopic 0.4%). Again the Liberal Democrats gained the seat, this time from the Tories.

And tonight the Brexit Party has finished a distant third in its second attempt at a parliamentary by-election. The Liberal Democrats are again the winners, but perhaps the more important story is that the Tory candidate – despite having been convicted of a criminal offence, causing this by-election in the first place – finished well ahead of the Brexit Party candidate.

It’s too early to talk about a crisis for Farage, but just a couple of months after his great Euro-election triumph, the Brexit Party is badly in need of a good result somewhere. As things stand, Boris Johnson must be tempted to call a general election – at which Farage could be sunk without trace.