Plaid Councillor calls Council Terms of Engagement "wrong and slanderous"

Cllr Rhian Medi (Plaid Cymru)

In an interview in this weeks edition of the Welsh language magazine, Golwg, Plaid Cymru county councillor Rhian Medi has publicly slammed Anglesey County Council's "Terms of Engagement":

• She calles the Allliance's Terms of Engagement "wrong and slanderous" ("wallus ac enllibus");
• She claims that the Terms of Engagement go against the internal regulations of Plaid Cymru in calling for any Alliance member who doesn't support it to be disciplined by all of the leaders of the Alliance;
• The number of councillors who accept the Terms of Engagement are in the minority;
• To attack individuals and name names is a step back in the history of the Council;
• David Bowles is supposed to stop the infighting and lead the council forward, yet we have returned to personal politics;
• If things deteriate any further then the Assembly will have to take control of the Council.

Considering that Plaid Cymru leader, Cllr Bob Parry, signed the Terms of Engagement and brought his Plaid Cymru councillors into the Alliance with him, Rhian Medi's outburst is both a personal attack on him and must bring the Council one step closer to being taken over by Assembly appointed commissioners. Surely the Recovery Board will feel that an outburst like this from a member of the Alliance is indicative of serious fractures within it.

What will now happen to Rhian Medi? Article 4 of the Terms of Engagement makes it very clear what should happen:

 "Any member of the Groups within the Alliance who does not publicly support this stance, and refuses to "sign up" to the principle described in the paragraph above [i.e. isolate and publicly identify those Councillors who block progress], or whom their Group Leader  considers to have failed to demonstrate sufficient ongoing commitment to the recovery, shall be ejected from their Group". 

Bob Parry has no choice: he must now eject Rhian Medi from the Plaid Cymru grouping. However doing so could have unknown consequences for the governance of the Council as a whole.