A candidate for the Welsh nationalist party Gwlad Gwlad in the Vale of Glamorgan stood three times as a candidate for a party that wanted a referendum on Monmouthshire being part of England.

Laurence Williams stood for the English Democrats party at the Erith and Thamesmead in the 2010 General Election and East Wickham council by-election in 2009.

He also stood for the party on the South East Wales regional list in the 2011 Welsh Assembly election.

Since 2007 the party have also put forward candidates in Monmouthshire, arguing for a referendum on taking the county out of Wales and into England.

Among the party’s other policies in 2010 were doing away with the Barnett Formula which “institutionalises discrimination against the people of England by ensuring that public spending in Scotland and Wales is far higher per head of population”.

Laurence Williams told Nation.Cymru however that he did feel Welsh and used to be a Plaid Cymru member.

“My family left there [Wales] in 1888, and made their way to London, I’m simply ‘going home’, so to speak,” he said.

“My association with the English Democrats some 11 years ago, after I’d left Plaid Cymru, was / is that they seek Independence from Wales and Scotland, thus Cymru and Alba would become independent by proxy.

“I wasn’t happy about the Monmouth bit, but was expected to take an interest given my Welsh heritage. Once I’d read about King Henry VIII’s annexations, I knew only too well that Monmouth is Welsh. And so are Hereford and Shropshire!”

‘Division’

Laurence Williams went on to stand in Old Bexley and Sidcup, where he still lives, as the Christian Party “Proclaiming Christ’s Lordship” candidate for Member of Parliament in the 2015 General Election.

The party’s manifesto railed against political correctness, saying it was “generating fear and division in neighbourhoods and communities”.

He also stood as the Christian Peoples’ Alliance candidate for the London region in the 2014 European Elections, before going on to be the 2018 Liberal Party Candidate (not the Liberal Democrats) in the local government elections for Sidcup.

Gwlad Gwlad have put forward three candidates in Wales at the General Election, standing in seats where Plaid Cymru have stepped aside as part of the Remain Alliance with the Liberal Democrats.

They are standing in Montgomery, Cardiff Central and the Vale of Glamorgan. The party have been contacted for comment.