Dafydd Iwan and the Rebecca Rioters

Contrary to some views aired on the social media pages of Owain Glyndwr’s new best mate and legend from Laaaandaaan’s latest LIVE, the Rebecca Riots and Llanelli Railway Strike of 1911 has no similarity at all with the events unfolding at the Stradey Park Hotel. The claim is as spurious as the detritus mounting up outside the hotel.

In recent weeks the police have been dealing with a growing number of people some local some not who have upped the ante to the point where on an evening where the hotel they were so keen to tell us they wanted to save was set ablaze while those gathered played Great Balls of Fire by Jerry Lee Lewis at a volume people in Felinfoel could hear.

Videos on social media show the hotel police (not Dyfed-Powys) the balaclava brigade stopping a doctor and a dentist both of whom were assumed to be illegal immigrants because they looked like most dentists and doctors in Wales (from ethnic origins). Papers please, ID please. It’s like the clip from the Great Escape when the prisoners are attempting to flee. Why are they going in there when we cant get to see a doctor or a dentist? It really could only happen in Llanelli. If only that were true. It is happening across Europe where the seeds of hatred towards fellow man are being sown because of the colour of skin, the place of birth along with the fact that they are fleeing their country of origin. No wonder the two gentlemen looked bemused and scared when confronted with a mob such as this.

Some claim to be comedians. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Mocking someone’s disability because they could not get their own way is not funny. I can’t wait for the next episode of LIVE at the Stradey Park Hotel with special guest Katy (Far Right Pundit) Hopkins and none so nice as Tice.  Then again  I might opt for having all my teeth pulled out by those dedicated professional gentlemen who have worked so hard to get where they are having not spent their days sat on their behinds in a blanket sipping tea and eating sandwiches surrounded by national flags of which signify none of the diatribes issued thereabout.

Dyfed-Powys police come in for criticism and sometimes that is justified. But to see so many officers at a hotel is worrying when they really could be out addressing the very issues the comedians and their captive audience are ranting about as a result of the nasty migrants/asylum seekers lurking in a Travel Lodge somewhere near Ebbw Vale ready to wreak havoc on Llanelli.

The Rebecca Rioters were local people opposed to toll charges. There were a series of protests made by tenant farmers against the payment of tolls (fees) charged to use the roads. During the riots, men disguised as women attacked the tollgates. Tolls were a big expense for small farmers, who used the roads to take their crops and animals to market. The people of west Wales did not want to pay to use their roads. It was about unfair charges.

In August 1911  the Llanelli Railway Riots took place. On the eve of the strike, Thursday 17 August, the 500 or so Llanelli railway workers held up the trains at one of the town’s level crossings, joined in a show of solidarity by their marginally better paid colleagues from the tin works and coal mines. It was about  pay, low wages and enforced overtime they faced while the railway companies were making huge profits.

In an ill-thought-out attempt to take control of the situation, the troops were ordered to shoot into the unarmed crowd by their commanding officer. Two men died.

Dafydd Iwan’s anthem Yma o Hyd has little to do with events at the Stradey Park Hotel and he has objected to the song being used by people gathered there. Iwan was clear as to why he wrote the song. He said: “It was a terrible time and the Thatcher regime hit Wales heavily. Coal mines and steelworks were closed and I was in the middle of a terrible divorce. Yma o Hyd is about how we’re still here, despite everything and everyone and even ourselves.” It was not intended as an anthem for far right extremism.

Iwan along with many other Welsh Nationals was and is concerned about the possible threat to Welsh culture specifically the language. It will not be lost on most who know their Welsh culture that Wales embraces cultural differences and celebrates the vast cultural collective at the National Eisteddfod. The National Eisteddfod is the largest cultural festival in Europe, held in a different part of Wales every year. It is here and wherever people celebrate the culture not alienate cultural differences that you will find Iwan’s song being sung word for word with gusto.

What have we become in Llanelli. A mob culture? An anarchistic autocracy? Do we fear voicing our opinions, our opposition? Do we accept that there is only one voice of Wales albeit a handful of people as far removed from Wales as Dai from Dunedin.

By pure coincidence I had a conversation with a well respected Llanelli businessman recently who dared to voice his concerns regarding the toxic culture outside the hotel. He warned that the burning down of the hotel was imminent and that those who were whipping up the flames would be long gone leaving those taken in by the agenda of hate left looking over their shoulder at an approaching police force hell bent on bringing them and them alone to justice.

What of the politicians. We can be sure from the claims that the town which voted in Nia Griffith and Lee Waters on a large majority will now be represented by a Reform UK MP and MS. PAPERS PLEASE!