It’s been 25 years since devolution began and self-government returned to Wales. Devolution started with the Welsh Assembly and developed into Wales having its own national parliament, which will be comparable in scale to those of similar-sized countries from 2026 onwards, when it expands to 96 members. Wales took an important step on the road to becoming a sovereign state.

That goal is one of the reasons Plaid Cymru was formed in 1925. But the party’s aims have evolved: the focus was on the Welsh language at first, more so than home rule. Many associate Plaid Cymru with the independence movement, but it was long ambivalent on the issue, and campaigned for the UK to leave the Common Market in 1975. By 2014 the party’s constitution included the aim of securing Welsh independence via a referendum, and it now wants a free Wales to rejoin the EU. Yet its longstanding ambivalence still casts shadows.