As I say in my Rhondda Leader column this week, you would think that in an economic crisis like the one we have now everyone would be welcoming the prospect of new jobs coming to South Wales.
That’s why the Labour-led Welsh Assembly Government is working hard on the plans to bring the Defence Training Academy to St Athan. Two years ago the campaign chaired by Rhondda’s Labour MP Chris Bryant saw off the competition from England, and the UK Labour Government awarded the contract to Wales.
There are a potential 5000 long-term jobs and 1000 jobs in the construction phase of this project.
Many people in the Rhondda have worked at St Athan over the years. The commuting distance isn’t far and it has provided well-skilled jobs with good rates of pay.
The Defence Training Academy means a big investment in South Wales. That’s why the Labour-led Assembly Government is supporting it.
That’s why I find it astounding that Plaid Cymru’s MEP for Wales, Jill Evans, is campaigning against these jobs coming to Wales. She and her friends would rather celebrate Plaid Cymru members who carried out an arson attack on a RAF base in North Wales in the 1930s than support jobs for Rhondda workers. Indeed, she went to North Wales to celebrate that attack and to oppose the Defence Training Academy coming to South Wales just a few months ago.
She said at the protest:
"We will not accept anything at any price, such as St Athan, for the sake of jobs alone.”
More recently, Plaid Cymru members launched a website calling for Wales to be independent.
They want to cut Wales off from the rest of Britain.
They threaten jobs coming to Wales.
Over recent years they have said that Wales should be an independent country, like Iceland.
Well, we know what has happened to Iceland in the current global economic crisis.
It is bankrupt.
An independent Wales would be bankrupt very quickly, cut off from UK and international investment.
Such policies would wreck the chances for international investment and good jobs coming to Wales.