A guy I once worked with was utterly
shocked (along with the rest of his family) when his sister was killed by her
husband; they hadn’t known that there were any issues at all between the pair.
I remember his words to me at the time: “No-one ever knows what goes on
behind closed doors”. When it comes to domestic violence, there are only
ever two people who really know what happened, and even they will have
different versions of events. Plaid seems to have got itself into more than a
little bit of difficulty in its response to the assault by MP Jonathan Edwards
on his wife, and the party’s response seems to have led to some uncomradely
comments, not to say bitterness and dispute, amongst the members, judging only
from the public comments I’ve seen on Facebook and elsewhere. Bearing in mind
the words of that erstwhile work colleague, I don’t know enough about the
detail of what actually happened to comment on the original event. There are
some general political issues, though.
Firstly, it seems that Plaid’s
disciplinary rules don’t actually allow the party to distinguish, in the way
that the NEC attempted to do, between re-admission to the party and re-admission
to the parliamentary group. From my own past extensive involvement with the
party’s rules, that doesn’t surprise me: there are always new situations which
those drawing up the rules failed to foresee and allow for. It’s why the rule
book ends up as a lengthy and unwieldy document as new rules are invented to
plug any gaps identified. In principle, though, expecting higher standards from
those representing a party – any party – as a candidate for public office than
are expected of ordinary members is not at all an unreasonable position to
take. It’s part of the reason parties, including Plaid, use some sort of
selection or vetting process to ensure that only suitable individuals get
selected as candidates, even if such procedures can never be perfect.
Secondly, society as a whole often seems
to apply dual standards to the question of domestic violence. It’s hard to
imagine another violent crime in which the forgiveness of the victim (even
if later regretted) is considered to be some sort of mitigation which
diminishes the seriousness of the initial assault. There are power differentials as well as genuine feelings which can drive 'forgiveness' in such circumstances. No violent assault by one
person on another is ever, or should ever be, ‘just a matter for the
individuals involved’. It is understandable that, in a domestic situation where
the police believe that reconciliation is possible, attempts are made to
resolve the issue by issuing a caution rather than a prosecution in order to spare
families the trauma of a court case, but it is wrong to assume that the issue
of a caution in itself somehow makes the case less serious. The decision
between a caution and a prosecution isn’t simply based on the perceived degree
of seriousness of the offence. And a perpetrator doesn’t somehow become a
victim if the offence affects his or her future career, although that’s what some seem to be arguing.
Thirdly, parties need to be wary of trying
to hold other parties to a higher standard than they expect of their own
politicians. Arguing that a man fined for breaking lockdown rules should be
forced out of office, but a man cautioned for domestic violence should be
allowed to ‘move on’ and get back to normal is not a good look.
There is a debate to be had, of course,
about whether someone committing a crime should have that held against him or
her for ever, or whether society should be prepared at some point to forgive
and allow the individual to return to normal life, particularly where
contrition is genuine. I’ve always been in the latter camp on that question,
but returning to normal life as an accepted member of society isn’t necessarily
the same thing as going back to what the individual was doing before. There are
some roles where different criteria are going to be applied, even if those roles
aren’t formally identified, and the criteria aren’t written down anywhere.
Ultimately, it’s a matter of opinion and judgement, and people will make
different judgements. That difference of opinion seems to be at the heart of
the uncomradely comments to which I referred above.
I haven’t been a member of Plaid for the
last 12 years, and I no longer have any involvement with the rules or processes
which the party applies, so there’s a sense in which it’s not my business. I
do, though, live in the Carmarthen East constituency (the boundary with
Carmarthen West is at the end of our drive) and I, like others, will have to decide
at some point for whom to vote. It would be naïve for any party, or any
individual, to believe that the events which have transpired will not affect the
decisions made by individual electors.