Lord Elis-Thomas, energetic Welsh nationalist who took a pragmatic approach to devolution

Yahoo

07-02-2025

Lord Elis-Thomas, who has died aged 78, was a mercurial Welsh nationalist who served 20 years as Plaid Cymru MP for Meirionydd, left active politics to chair the Welsh Language Board, then re-engaged to become the devolved Welsh Assembly's first Presiding Officer.
Slight, blond-haired, impulsive and a self-proclaimed Marxist, Dafydd Elis Thomas (he hyphenated his name on becoming a peer) was a pragmatic nationalist, concerned with the realities of power rather than Celtic romanticism. Despite having a PhD on Eulogies in Medieval Welsh Literature, he saw the language as of essentially practical value, notably in communicating with his constituents.
Elis Thomas did once make a speech in Welsh to the Commons' Welsh Select Committee. But he warned against the National Eistedfodd becoming 'an introverted cultural ghetto'. Nor had he any time for Welsh-language extremists, and when English-owned holiday cottages were being torched he urged Margaret Thatcher to give the police resources to apprehend the arsonists 'before anyone is killed'.
As president of Plaid from 1984 to 1991, Elis Thomas worked hard to heal the breach between the radical Left and party traditionalists, and persuaded the party to abandon its historic commitment to a completely independent Wales.
He also forged links with the Scottish National Party, Irish nationalists and separatists on the Continent. Over time, he came to envisage a Welsh identity being established in a European rather than British context, through a 'post-nationalist' Green alliance of small states. In the 1989 Euro-elections he stood for North Wales, finishing a strong third.
Unlike some in the party, he refused to deal with Sinn Fein, condemning Gerry Adams's visit to Wales in 1987 as an affront to the relatives of servicemen murdered by the IRA.
For most of his time at Westminster Elis Thomas was one of two Plaid Cymru MPs, the other being the more moderate Dafydd Wigley. He tabled questions on an industrial scale, winning concessions from successive governments over economic support for the principality and use of the Welsh language. He gained compensation for disabled slate workers and was instrumental in saving the Cambrian Coast railway from closure.
He also took a keen interest in mental health – being vice-chairman of the all-party group – and in the welfare of animals involved in medical experiments.
Elis Thomas caused little surprise with his announcement in 1991 that he would not stand for the Commons again because Parliament was almost beyond reform – 'a club for fat, tired and unfit old men who are getting less and less capable of intelligent analysis'. But there was bewilderment in his party when he accepted a life peerage, members finding this hard to reconcile with his protestations of disillusionment.
The narrow vote for Welsh devolution in the referendum of 1997 brought Elis Thomas back on to the political stage as one of nationalism's senior figures. Elected in the first Assembly elections of 1999 for Meirionydd Nant Conwy, his old Westminster seat, he was elected its inaugural presiding officer.
It was ironic that the most explosive moment during his 12-year occupancy of the chair should be his expulsion from the chamber of Plaid's future leader Leanne Wood in 2004, for referring to the Queen as 'Mrs Windsor' and refusing to withdraw the remark.
Elis Thomas served in what by then had become the Senedd until 2021. He left Plaid Cymru in 2016 to support Carwyn Jones's Labour-led Welsh Government, joining it in 2017 to serve for a year as deputy Minister for Culture, Tourism and Sport. Latterly he sat as an independent.
Dafydd Elis Thomas was born at Carmarthen on October 18 1946, the son of William Ellis Thomas, a Presbyterian minister, and the former Eirlys James. He grew up in a Welsh-speaking home, first near Llandysul in Ceredigion and later at Llanrwst in the Conwy valley. His family background was a mixture of the Left-of-Labour ILP, Liberal and Plaid.
From Ysgol Dyffryn Conwy, he read Welsh at the University College of North Wales in Bangor. After a brief stint as a reporter on the Western Mail, he became in 1970 a tutor in Welsh Studies for the Open University and Coleg Harlech. He also worked as a freelance broadcaster for BBC Wales, HTV, Radio Wales and, later, S4C.
He continued his academic work after his election to Parliament, lecturing in the English department at Bangor, gaining his PhD at the University of Wales in 1988 and subsequently lecturing there. In 1990 he was given a fellowship at St Andrew's University to work on a book entitled Post Nationalism.
Elis Thomas was active in the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and the Labour Party before joining Plaid Cymru in 1967.
He drafted the party's 1970 election manifesto Action for Wales and fought Conwy, receiving 11 per cent of the vote, mostly from Labour supporters attracted by his socialist zeal. His showing enabled the Conservatives to oust the sitting Labour MP.
From 1970 to 1972 he was Plaid's director of policy. Then he was selected as candidate for Merioneth, in place of Wigley, who had moved to Caernarfon, having pushed the Liberals into third place.
At the snap February 1974 election Elis Thomas pulled off the biggest upset in Wales, ousting Merioneth's Labour MP Will Edwards by 588 votes.
Arriving at Westminster the baby of the House at 27, he appointed himself Plaid Cymru's chief whip – Wigley, who also won a seat, becoming leader. He declared: 'Two is a party' and demanded official recognition as such.
This 'new party' enjoyed unanticipated political influence, as the survival of Wilson's government depended on support from the smaller parties. Elis Thomas immediately offered it, provided the Government satisfied 'the constitutional aspirations of the Welsh people'.
In that year's second election, in October, when Plaid won a third seat, he quintupled his majority to 2,592. He would retain the seat – redrawn in 1983 as Meirionnydd nant Conwy – by larger majorities at three further elections.
In his first year, Elis Thomas was the Commons' most prolific questioner, tabling 748. He campaigned hard for withdrawal from the EEC in the referendum of 1975, urging that Welsh votes be counted separately.
As Labour prepared to legislate for devolution he pressed for Wales to have the same degree of autonomy as Scotland. In November 1978 he guaranteed James Callaghan Plaid Cymru's three votes in return for compensation for ailing slate quarrymen, support for the Welsh language and an early date for the referendum.
Elis Thomas took the outcome of the referendum, on St David's Day 1979, badly. Only 20 per cent voted for a Welsh assembly, and having invested heavy emotional capital in the campaign he reacted fiercely, declaring: 'The only way forward is direct politics.' That December he urged a Welsh general strike to save the steel industry, and a year later worker-occupation of factories threatened with closure.
When Argentina invaded the Falklands, Elis Thomas, as Plaid Cymru's vice-chairman, failed to convince the party that they should be handed over. He went on to launch an ill-defined 'community socialism' programme that was blamed for Plaid's subsequent poor showing in the Gower by-election.
Wigley had beaten Elis Thomas to the party presidency in 1981 when the veteran Gwynfor Evans retired. In 1984 Wigley stood down, and Elis Thomas was elected in his place; one of his first actions was to pledge support to Arthur Scargill's striking miners.
In 1986 Plaid came out against a new nuclear power station to replace the Magnox plant at Trawsfynydd, one of his constituency's biggest employers. Elis Thomas supported the decision, having worried about the potential for leaks of radiation, but urged the Government to plan for new jobs when the Magnox plant was decommissioned, as happened in 1991.
Elis Thomas attended Tony Benn's Chesterfield 'socialist conference' in 1987, and the following year tabled hundreds of questions for CND. In January 1991 he voted with Labour's hard Left against the Gulf War.
Giving up his seat in 1992, he sat initially as a crossbencher in the Lords to reflect his chairing a public body, but took the Plaid Cymru whip after his term at the Welsh Language Board ended in 1999.
In the Welsh Assembly, his duties as Presiding Officer – with David Steel initially his counterpart in Scotland – kept him out of active politics until 2011. He was AM for a redrawn Dwyfor Meirionnydd constituency from 2007, and returned to the fray as Plaid Cymru's spokesperson for Environment, Energy and Planning before transferring to Rural Affairs, Fisheries and Food in 2012.
From 2011 to 2014 he chaired the assembly's Environment and Sustainability Committee, and in 2015-16 the Welsh Government's Future Landscapes Working Group.
Elis Thomas was at various times president of the anti-fascist organisation Searchlight Cymru; chairman of Screen Wales; a member of the Arts Council for Wales; and a governor of the Church in Wales and the British Film Institute. He was president, then chancellor, of Bangor University from 2001 to 2017.
He was appointed a privy councillor in 2004.
Dafydd Elis Thomas married Elen Williams in 1970; they had three sons but the marriage was dissolved in 1987. For several years until 1992 his partner was Marjorie Thompson, chair of CND. In 1993 he married Mair Parry-Jones.
Lord Elis-Thomas, born October 18 1946, died February 7 2025
Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.