HAVING only officially formed as a party in 2017, you may be forgiven if Gwlad has passed beneath your radar.

Omitted from the BBC and ITV’s debates, Gwlad has also been left off the BBC Wales website’s party comparisons.

Yet, despite its relatively low profile, Gwlad believes it offers something different for Wales in 2021 and beyond.

While not wanting to get drawn into the binary left wing, right wing debate, Gwlad has styled itself as a pro-independence centre-right party. Fighting its first Senedd election, the party is fielding candidates in 14 constituencies.

Despite its modest representation, the party has released a detailed manifesto with several policies catching the eye.

Among them, it wants Wales to have three capital cities, with the Senedd moved to Llandudno Junction and the offices of the first minister relocated to Aberystwyth.

In Gwlad’s vision, an independent Wales would maintain a “small land army”, have an elected president and its own currency, called the Hywel.

The party’s policy coordinator, Stephen Morris, told The National: “Our original slogan was ‘Not left, not right, just Welsh’. We are in favour of smaller less intrusive government, running tight budgets and not running up a deficit.

“I would say, put us on the spectrum where you want, but if you were to ask me, I would say we are centre right.”

READ MORE: 'A week in future Wales' published in English

Unlike some of Wales’ other smaller parties, Gwlad’s manifesto is a substantial one. The 43-page document is split into short and long term policies; what the party proposes within the Senedd’s current powers and what it would do in an independent Wales.

One policy that immediately leaps out is the party’s commitment to a universal basic income, or citizen’s income.

UBI is widely considered a policy of the left. In this election campaign, the Greens, Plaid and Lib Dems have committed to piloting UBI projects.

For Mr Morris however, who played a central role in the creation of Gwlad’s manifesto, UBI isn’t left wing.

“One of the reasons citizen’s income is regarded as a left wing idea is that it is viewed as a policy that simply hands out a lot of money to poor people. Our counter argument is that we already give a lot of money out to poor people.

“One of the problems Wales has is that we have a lot of endemic unemployment with multiple generations of families living on benefits and out of work.

“How do we allay the fears people have of losing out on their benefits and the barriers to finding work? Pragmatically, we say if you start working, we won’t take your benefits away.”

READ MORE: Poll suggest Labour on the march as Tories slip back

Gwlad proposes a flat rate of income tax alongside UBI, arguing that in combination, they would simplify the benefits system and stimulate economic growth.

The economy is an area where Gwlad believes it is clearly set apart from other pro-independence parties such as Plaid and the Greens.

Mr Morris told The National: “Economic growth is what matters most, and if Wales wants to be successful, it needs to be economically strong,” said Mr Morris.

“Instead of talking about economic growth, all Plaid Cymru talk about is ‘free this’ and ‘free that’. They talk a lot about giving people free stuff, but not so much about how they plan to run the economy.”

Pro-independence, social conservativism and the backing of policies such as UBI means there is something in Gwlad’s manifesto for a lot of people.

But, what sort of voters are they targeting specifically?

“I would say the profile of voters most likely to vote for Gwlad are people who have previously voted Tory, Brexit or UKIP, but identify as Welsh first and foremost, and not British,” said Mr Morris.

“A second profile would be traditional Labour voters who perhaps do not worry too much about the things Jeremy Corbyn brought to the party.

“It is also a part of Plaid’s narrative that in order to beat Labour, they need to be left of Labour. That simply is not true. The only party that has given Labour a pummelling in Wales was the Brexit Party in the 2019 European elections, and they are hardly left wing.

“There is an ancient ‘small c conservative’ tradition in Wales, a tradition which the Conservative and Unionist Party doesn’t represent. We are here to redefine what conservative means in a Welsh context.”

A number of parties are contesting the election on the right of centre, with UKIP, Abolish and Reform all chasing those who voted UKIP in record numbers in 2016.

The Welsh Conservatives have planted their flag in the ground of stalling Wales’ devolution journey, and Gwlad believes there is an opening on the right of Welsh politics.

The party also believes that as Wales awakens to the prospect of self-autonomy, a conservative pro-independence voice is central to their vision.

Mr Morris continued: “Wales would be a very weird country indeed if we became independent and didn’t have a ‘small c conservative’ party within it.

“Plaid Cymru does not have a credible vision or arguments that convince a wide enough proportion of the country to vote for independence.

“Opinion polls show that 35 per cent of people are in favour of independence, but only 20 per cent are in favour of Plaid Cymru. There is a disconnect there and we want to reach out to those people.

“We also want independence to work, we want a set of policies that if enacted, follows successful small independent countries like Estonia, Finland and Iceland.”

“We want to be the party that gets independence over the line and we want to be the conservative party within an independent Wales’ parliament.”

Those lofty ambitions will not be realised overnight, but Gwlad has arrived.

With the question of independence looming large over Wales’ future, if it can build on the foundation being laid down, it could be here to stay.

Value our reporting during the election campaign? Become a subscriber today