Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and Plaid Cymru leader Adam Price both visited Bangor on their campaign trail this weekend, in a final push for votes before Thursday’s General Election.
Arfon is the closest marginal seat in Wales, being held by Plaid Cymru in 2017 by just 92 votes.
The Liberal Democrats have withdrawn their candidate in Arfon after agreeing a ‘pro-EU electoral pact’ with Plaid Cymru and the Green Party. The pact means that candidates will stand aside for each other in 11 of the 40 seats in Wales, to increase the chances of a Remain-supporting MP being elected.
Adam Price visited the Belle Vue pub in upper Bangor on Friday afternoon. He was joined by Plaid Cymru candidate for Arfon MP Hywel Williams and Assembly Member for Arfon, Sian Gwenllian. He talked to local residents and students.
He then joined Plaid Cymru members Arfon Hywel Williams out on the streets of Bangor canvassing for the election.
Mr Price has challenged the Labour party’s record in Wales. Writing in the New Statesman he said that Labour had been in government in Wales for twenty years but had failed to deliver ‘real change’.
Citing worse A&E waiting times than England, rising homelessness and a decline in life expectancy, Mr Price said that Labour was “not part of the solution in Wales” but rather the “source of the problem”.
On Sunday afternoon Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn addressed a meeting of over 450 people at Pontio in Bangor. He was joined on the stage by Mary Roberts, Labour candidate for Ynys Mon and Steffie Williams Roberts, Labour’s candidate for Arfon.
Mary Roberts welcomed Mr Corbyn to Bangor and told the audience: “The job of the government is to work for the people, and right now that isn’t happening.”
Thanking volunteers and activists she added “we can get the Tories out”.
Steffie Williams Roberts addressed the audience saying: “I can’t believe I’m standing here, I’m a kid from Maesgeirchen who was told I would never succeed.”
She added: “I’m in politics because I was lucky to grow up under Labour government.
“Over the years, we have seen it getting worse and worse. We have Welsh Labour protecting Wales despite the Tory cuts.
“There is another way. The Labour way.”
Jeremy Corbyn told the audience he wanted to “invest for the future” and that he’s fed up of living in a country where a million and a half food parcels are given out each year at food banks. “I want to see people properly supported in their hour of need and not have to rely on the charity of others by using food banks” he said.
Mr Corbyn attacked the “cruel” Universal Credit and reinforcing his pledge to compensate so-called Waspi women, the Labour leader said “poverty has been imposed on this country because of austerity”.
The Labour leader added: “In 2010 a political choice was made. They [the government] could have invested for the future. Instead they decided to cut for the present and damage the life chances of a whole generation of people across the UK.
“The price of austerity is not paid by the rich. It is not paid by the billionaires, by the 150 billionaires in Britain.”
Instead, he said, it was paid for by the homeless, those going through mental health stress, younger generations and the “under-funding of public services all over Britain”.
Mr Corbyn said the “wrongs of the past have to be righted”, adding: “You can’t cut your way to prosperity, you invest your way to prosperity.”
The Brexit Party have named Gary Francis Gribben as their candidate for Arfon and the Conservatives will also contest the seat after announcing that Gonul Daniels will stand for election.
Photos: Plaid Cymru Leader Adam Price with Hywel Williams in Bangor and (L-R) Mary Roberts, Jeremy Corbyn and Steffie Williams Roberts at Pontio in Bangor (Photo George Turner)
