Ryan Thomas

Yesterday, Carwyn Jones and Leanne Wood made a joint appearance in London to launch the Welsh Government's white paper on Brexit, 'Securing Wales' Future' . Rather unorthodoxly, the white paper was developed jointly by the Welsh Government and Plaid Cymru. Presumably, the Liberal Democrat Minister of Education would have had at least some input into the document as well. The document is 63 pages long and has been praised as being somewhat longer than the UK Government's vision for Brexit . The document has prefaces by both the First Minister and the Leader of Plaid Cymru. Carwyn echoes Theresa May's message from last week's announcement, that while the UK and Wales will be leaving the European Union the country will very much remain a European country and will want to actively engage with its European neighbours. Leanne Wood takes a stronger position in her forward, expressing Plaid Cymru's desire to remain a member of several European mechanisms includi...

It was with a sense of trepidation that I entered the chamber in county hall last Wednesday. There were several items on the agenda. However, the important decision that day would be whether we county councillors would agree to discontinue the dual-stream Llangennech Infant and Junior Schools and replace with them with a Welsh medium community primary school. This would in effect end dual-stream education in Llangennech (where parents can choose whether their children receive either English-medium or Welsh-medium education) in favour of Welsh-medium only. The first important thing to remember is that the names English-medium and Welsh-medium are extremely misleading. Both streams teach the English and Welsh language, although the degree and quality vary considerably from school to school. Those in Welsh-medium education receive excellent tuition in both English and Welsh languages. There are concerns that English-medium education is not achieving the outcomes expected in the standard o...

I've been trying to write this post for a long time. Europe is a place and an idea that I am passionate about. Since my fiancé is Romanian I am probably quite biased when it comes to it as well. The reason why I have found this post so difficult is because I have been trying to justify my support for the European Union using political arguments. The trouble is the referendum campaign has descended into a playground squabble. I think the economy will be damaged by leaving and the UK will be forced to negotiate entry in the European Free Trade Area where we will end up losing more sovereignty and democracy that we currently exercise collectively as full members of the EU. The EU institutions are flawed and the commission is over bureaucratic. But there is a democratically elected parliament and a council where all national governments are represented. It's a bit hypocritical for us Brits to criticise a lack of democracy in the EU when we continue to put up with the unelected Hous...