Plaid Cymru stronghold continues for Dwyfor Meirionnydd with Liz Saville Roberts

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00:00It's the fourth term that you've been elected, how do you feel?

00:25It's exhausting and it's exhilarating at the same time, and of course the major difference

00:31this time is that the boundaries of the constituency have changed, and there's the old Dŵrfam

00:35Eirionedh area, but it's also brought in new areas of Arfon, up to Felenhely and Bethal,

00:41and of course entirely into a new county as well, the county of Denbighshire, the communities

00:45of Edernion, Wythacorwen, Llandryllon, Cynwyd.

00:49So there's been so much work really since we knew the boundaries were changing, just

00:53to try to get to know people, and it will be a massive challenge, and my duty now is

00:58to make sure that we reach out to people, that we hear their needs, that we're always

01:03in contact as best we can.

01:05So how do you plan on representing your old and new constituents in Westminster specifically?

01:14Plaid Cymru has two offices already, we have an office in Cynarfon and we have an office

01:18in Dolgellau, certainly be keeping an office in Eirionedh, and then we have surgeries.

01:24In many ways obviously people contact differently now, they contact primarily over email, but

01:29in the new areas it's really important to offer that face-to-face contact.

01:33I'm lucky I've had a fantastic staff team working with me, they will be behind us, and

01:39as they always say, the work starts now.

01:43And it's been a good night for Plaid as well, you've been rejoined by Ben Lake who's been

01:48re-elected in Ceredigion as well, what do you, Plaid, plan to continue doing or do differently?

01:55Well we will have, and this is fantastic, we will have four MPs, two of them will new,

02:00three quarters of them now will be women, and the other one of course is Ben Lake who

02:05is excellent.

02:06Our job in going to Westminster is to point out what could be done differently, and what

02:12could be done better for Wales, and where we're losing out, and that is unfair, it's

02:16our job to draw attention to that, make sure that it has a high profile.

02:20This is really important now that we have Labour in power in Cardiff, and Labour in

02:25power in Westminster, because we're very used historically to Labour complaining that they

02:30can't do things because they don't get the money from Westminster, now the buck stops

02:33with them.

02:34We've had Jo Stevens, the Secretary of State for Wales, saying two years ago, yeah HS2

02:40that should be bringing £4.6 billion into Wales.

02:43Now she's turning around and saying, oh it's not actually, well once she said HS2 didn't

02:47even exist, then she was saying that it wasn't that much money, and that they can't afford

02:51to do it.

02:52Labour have got nowhere to hide now, but it will be Plaid Cymru who put the interests

02:55of Ceredigion, Dwyfor Merioneth, Carmarthen, Carberthen and Ynys Môn, we'll be putting

03:01those first, but with that of course we're putting the interests of the whole of Wales

03:04first in a way that I think we'll now see Labour are very used to being able to send

03:09people to London because of Welsh votes, but actually what are we going to get out

03:13of it?

03:14We will be holding them to account.

03:15That's great to hear.

03:16And you've touched on this already, but the national picture, there's a return of Labour,

03:24also a rise of Reform UK, what's your take on what's happened in the country today?

03:31Well it's, democracy will produce a range of effects, everybody who is elected has been

03:38elected by a democratic means, so they have a right, so they should be respected for being

03:44there.

03:45Nonetheless, much of what reform stands for is entirely the opposite of what Plaid Cymru

03:50stands for.

03:51So on their ideas, on their policies, on their values, we will be calling them out, because

03:55we believe in an international Wales, an outward looking Wales, a Wales that welcomes migrants

04:01and appreciates the contributions that they can make, and a Wales that believes that our

04:05Parliament is best placed to make all the important decisions for Wales, so we will

04:09be taking reform on, and even more importantly, we will be holding Labour to account.

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