This article was published in the County Times, 20 September 2025, and can be found here.
Many hundreds of constituents came out to protest in Newtown on the 13th of September to make their feelings on immigration heard. I am glad that so many did – it is a sign of a robust democracy.
I fought and won election last summer with a laser focus on the cost of living. Living standards are not improving quickly enough, people are rightly feeling let down by a system that does not work for far too many.
Since last summer, while net migration has dropped sharply (halved in the year to December 2024), public concern has grown. A worrying rise in divisive rhetoric from politicians across the spectrum has followed.
There is a clear difference between legal and illegal immigration. We all sign up to the rules, and it is unfair when some think they can break them. I want our shared rules to be enforced.
But just as there is a difference between those entering the country via lawful means and unlawful means, there is a difference between legitimate concern and hateful intolerance.
And while it must be in our gift to control our borders, we should not blame migrants for stagnating living standards while the rich get ever richer, privatised utility companies like Hafren Dyfrdwy take advantage of consumers for profit, and infrastructure continues to crumble – all because politicians sold off our country’s assets many years ago.
These are problems that require urgent solutions. When I addressed the crowd the other day, I spoke about these solutions. The proper taxation of extreme wealth, as the chasm of inequality continues to widen. Investment in social housing, so there are affordable homes for all. Lifting the two-child benefit cap, to end the scourge of child poverty. And reforms to healthcare, to bring down NHS waiting times for Powys residents.
Hatred and division won’t build a single council house. It won’t put a penny more into our NHS. It won’t raise wages or fix a broken economy.
Investment and planning reform will build council houses. Repairing a broken tax system will put money into our NHS. Passing landmark workers’ rights legislation – through the Employment Rights Act, which will ban fire-and-rehire, end zero-hours contracts, and raise the national minimum wage by 16% – will make the economy work for all.
I will make no apology, then, for standing for these solutions against division. I will continue to work every day to see them realised and represent Montgomeryshire and Glyndŵr with the tireless optimism that my constituents deserve.