Neil John McEvoy (born 1970) is a Welsh politician who represented the
South Wales Central
South is one of the cardinal directions or compass points. The direction is the opposite of north and is perpendicular to both east and west.
Etymology
The word ''south'' comes from Old English ''sūþ'', from earlier Proto-Germanic ''*sunþaz ...
region in the
Senedd
The Senedd (; ), officially known as the Welsh Parliament in English and () in Welsh, is the devolved, unicameral legislature of Wales. A democratically elected body, it makes laws for Wales, agrees certain taxes and scrutinises the Welsh Gove ...
from
2016
File:2016 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Bombed-out buildings in Ankara following the 2016 Turkish coup d'état attempt; the impeachment trial of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff; Damaged houses during the 2016 Nagorno-Karabakh ...
until 2021.
He was elected as
Member of the Senedd
A Member of the Senedd (MS; plural: ''MSs''; cy, Aelodau o'r Senedd; , plural:) (AS)., group=la is a representative elected to the Senedd (Welsh Parliament; ). There are sixty members, with forty members chosen to represent individual Senedd ...
, then known as the Welsh Assembly, on the
Plaid Cymru
Plaid Cymru ( ; ; officially Plaid Cymru – the Party of Wales, often referred to simply as Plaid) is a centre-left to left-wing, Welsh nationalist political party in Wales, committed to Welsh independence from the United Kingdom.
Plaid wa ...
regional list, under the
Additional Member System, and later sat as an independent. In February 2020 he announced that he was forming a new political party, the Welsh National Party, later renamed as
Propel
Propel or propelling may refer to:
* Propulsion, to push forward or drive an object forward
* Samsung A767 Propel, a mobile phone
** Samsung i627 Propel Pro
* Propel Fitness Water, a drink from the makers of Gatorade
* Propel (PHP), an object-rela ...
.
Early life and career
McEvoy was born in 1970 in
Cardiff
Cardiff (; cy, Caerdydd ) is the capital and largest city of Wales. It forms a principal area, officially known as the City and County of Cardiff ( cy, Dinas a Sir Caerdydd, links=no), and the city is the eleventh-largest in the United Kingd ...
.
His maternal grandfather was a Yemeni who came to Cardiff to work on the docks, and he has spoken about the contribution that Yemenis made to Britain in the Second World War. McEvoy previously trained and worked as a teacher of
modern languages
A modern language is any human language that is currently in use. The term is used in language education to distinguish between languages which are used for day-to-day communication (such as French and German) and dead classical languages such ...
.
Political career
McEvoy was elected to
Cardiff Council
Cardiff Council, formally the County Council of the City and County of Cardiff ( cy, Cyngor Sir Dinas a Sir Caerdydd) is the governing body for Cardiff, one of the Principal Areas of Wales. The principal area and its council were established ...
as
Welsh Labour
Welsh Labour ( cy, Llafur Cymru) is the branch of the United Kingdom Labour Party in Wales and the largest party in modern Welsh politics. Welsh Labour and its forebears won a plurality of the Welsh vote at every UK general election since 1922 ...
Councillor for
Riverside
Riverside may refer to:
Places Australia
* Riverside, Tasmania, a suburb of Launceston, Tasmania
Canada
* Riverside (electoral district), in the Yukon
* Riverside, Calgary, a neighbourhood in Alberta
* Riverside, Manitoba, a former rural m ...
in 1999
and later became vice-chair of the Labour council group, he defected to
Plaid Cymru
Plaid Cymru ( ; ; officially Plaid Cymru – the Party of Wales, often referred to simply as Plaid) is a centre-left to left-wing, Welsh nationalist political party in Wales, committed to Welsh independence from the United Kingdom.
Plaid wa ...
in 2003. He lost his seat in Riverside in 2004,
but was elected in 2008 in the
Fairwater ward.
[ He then became Deputy Leader of ]Cardiff Council
Cardiff Council, formally the County Council of the City and County of Cardiff ( cy, Cyngor Sir Dinas a Sir Caerdydd) is the governing body for Cardiff, one of the Principal Areas of Wales. The principal area and its council were established ...
between 2008 and 2012 under a Liberal Democrat
Several political parties from around the world have been called the Liberal Democratic Party or Liberal Democrats. These parties usually follow a liberal democratic ideology.
Active parties
Former parties
See also
*Liberal democracy
*Lib ...
-Plaid Cymru
Plaid Cymru ( ; ; officially Plaid Cymru – the Party of Wales, often referred to simply as Plaid) is a centre-left to left-wing, Welsh nationalist political party in Wales, committed to Welsh independence from the United Kingdom.
Plaid wa ...
coalition administration.[ In 2012 he was re-elected to represent Fairwater.
McEvoy stood as a ]Plaid Cymru
Plaid Cymru ( ; ; officially Plaid Cymru – the Party of Wales, often referred to simply as Plaid) is a centre-left to left-wing, Welsh nationalist political party in Wales, committed to Welsh independence from the United Kingdom.
Plaid wa ...
candidate in the 2007 National Assembly for Wales election
The 2007 National Assembly for Wales election was held on Thursday 3 May 2007 to elect members to the Senedd, National Assembly for Wales. It was the third general election. On the same day local elections in England and Scotland, as well as the ...
in Cardiff West.
In 2012, as a councillor, McEvoy presented a petition in the Welsh language
Welsh ( or ) is a Celtic language family, Celtic language of the Brittonic languages, Brittonic subgroup that is native to the Welsh people. Welsh is spoken natively in Wales, by some in England, and in Y Wladfa (the Welsh colony in Chubut P ...
, resulting in an argument with representatives of other parties. Despite protests, McEvoy declined to speak in English at the council meeting.
In September 2012, despite Plaid's decision not to put forward any candidates for Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) elections, McEvoy said that he wanted to stand for the PCC for South Wales Police
South Wales Police ( cy, Heddlu De Cymru) is one of the four territorial police forces in Wales. It is headquartered in Bridgend.
The force was formed as South Wales Constabulary on 1 June 1969, by the amalgamation of the former Glamorgan Const ...
. McEvoy did not stand, Plaid did not put forward a candidate, and subsequently former MP Alun Michael
Alun Edward Michael (born 22 August 1943) is a Welsh Labour politician serving as South Wales Police and Crime Commissioner since 2012. He served as Secretary of State for Wales from 1998 to 1999 and then as the first First Secretary of Wales ...
won the position for Welsh Labour
Welsh Labour ( cy, Llafur Cymru) is the branch of the United Kingdom Labour Party in Wales and the largest party in modern Welsh politics. Welsh Labour and its forebears won a plurality of the Welsh vote at every UK general election since 1922 ...
.
In July 2015, McEvoy was narrowly beaten by Plaid Cymru Party leader Leanne Wood
Leanne Wood (born 13 December 1971) is a Welsh politician who served as the leader of Plaid Cymru from March 2012 to September 2018, and served as a Member of the Senedd (MS) from 2003 to 2021.
Born in the Rhondda, she was elected as to the ...
in the contest for first place on the party list
An electoral list is a grouping of candidates for election, usually found in proportional or mixed electoral systems, but also in some plurality electoral systems. An electoral list can be registered by a political party (a party list) or can ...
for the 2016 Assembly election, but gained second place. In May 2016, he was elected as Member of the Senedd
A Member of the Senedd (MS; plural: ''MSs''; cy, Aelodau o'r Senedd; , plural:) (AS)., group=la is a representative elected to the Senedd (Welsh Parliament; ). There are sixty members, with forty members chosen to represent individual Senedd ...
, then known as the Welsh Assembly, on the Plaid Cymru regional list, under the Additional Member System.
McEvoy also stood as a constituency candidate for Cardiff West once more in the 2016 Assembly elections, which saw Plaid Cymru's share of the vote increase by 11.9%. The incumbent AM, Labour's Mark Drakeford
Mark Drakeford (born 19 September 1954) is a Welsh politician serving as First Minister of Wales and Leader of Welsh Labour since 2018. He previously served in the Welsh Government as Cabinet Secretary for Finance from 2016 to 2018 and Minist ...
, saw his majority reduced to 1,176 votes, with the Conservatives
Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization in ...
in third place. McEvoy was elected for the regional seat of South Wales Central.
After election to the Assembly, McEvoy continued to serve as a councillor on Cardiff Council, receiving the councillor's basic allowance of £13,300 in addition to the Senedd salary of £64,000. His Labour Party opponents described this as hypocrisy, saying that he had previously said it was wrong for people in public office to be a councillor and to work in another job. McEvoy later commented that there was a complete synergy between the two roles, making him more effective at both, and that he was donating his pay as a councillor to his community.
In the run-up to the 2017 Cardiff Council election, ''Wales Online
Media Wales Ltd. is a publishing company based in Cardiff, Wales. As of 2009 it was owned by Reach plc (formerly known as the Trinity Mirror Group). It was previously known as the Western Mail & Echo Ltd.
History
The ''Western Mail'' was fo ...
'' described McEvoy as "arguably the most divisive frontline elected politician in Wales right now" who, despite being "at the forefront of an unprecedented growth of Plaid support and membership in Cardiff" had a "sometimes difficult relationship" with his adopted party, Plaid Cymru.
McEvoy has, contrary to the policy of Plaid Cymru, supported the continuation of the Right to Buy
The Right to Buy scheme is a policy in the United Kingdom, with the exception of Scotland since 1 August 2016 and Wales from 26 January 2019, which gives secure tenants of councils and some housing associations the legal right to buy, at a large ...
scheme in Wales. He opposed the Welsh Government's Children (Abolition of Defence of Reasonable Punishment) (Wales) Act 2020 which saw most forms of corporal punishment of children prohibited.
In August 2019 McEvoy gave an Assembly speech informing First Minister of Wales
, insignia = First Minister of Wales logo.png
, insigniasize = 120px
, insigniacaption = Logo
, flag = Flag of Wales.svg
, flagsize = 120px
, flagborder = yes
, flagcaption = Flag of Wales
, image = File:Mark Drakeford (cropped).jpg
, ...
Mark Drakeford of costs of up to £245 to change lightbulbs under the Welsh Government Warm Homes/Arbed Am Byth scheme. Drakeford responded to the claims with a letter stating that costs of £245 represented work including lighting fitting in "not less than 80% of all fixed outlets" in homes, as opposed to £245 for individual lightbulb fittings. McEvoy responded by accusing the First Minister of discussing the matter with Arbed Am Byth alone, and not investigating contractors directly. He stated that he was unable to disclose details of his "whistle-blowers" to the First Minister, but would be contacting the Auditor General for Wales
The Auditor General for Wales is the public official in charge of the Wales Audit Office, the body responsible for auditing the Welsh Government, its public bodies, National Health Service bodies and local government in Wales. The Auditor General f ...
.
Also in August 2019, McEvoy was included in a list of the AMs with the largest budgets for staff and constituency office costs in the Assembly. He was described as budgeting £115,865 for his office, which McEvoy described as necessary to deal with "an enormous amount of casework" and stated his "office is far busier than the local Westminster MP". His budget was the largest of any AMs in the Assembly.
McEvoy lost his seat following the 6 May 2021 elections.
Controversies
In November 2011 in a Facebook
Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin M ...
post, McEvoy accused the charity Welsh Women's Aid of "publicly funded child abuse" and claimed they supported women in breaking court order
A court order is an official proclamation by a judge (or panel of judges) that defines the legal relationships between the parties to a hearing, a trial, an appeal or other court proceedings. Such ruling requires or authorizes the carrying out o ...
s on fathers' access to children. He was subsequently suspended by Plaid Cymru, and after investigation was allowed to return. McEvoy apologised for the words he used, but did not withdraw the allegations.
In Council elections in May 2011, Welsh Labour ward opponent Michael Michael distributed leaflets of ''Only Fools and Horses
''Only Fools and Horses....'' is a British television sitcom created and written by John Sullivan. Seven series were originally broadcast on BBC One in the United Kingdom from 1981 to 1991, with sixteen sporadic Christmas specials aired until t ...
'' character Del Boy
Derek Edward Trotter, more commonly known as Del Boy, is a fictional character from the BBC sitcom ''Only Fools and Horses'' and one of the main characters of its spinoff series, ''Rock & Chips''. He was played by David Jason in the original se ...
with McEvoy's face imposed on them. McEvoy subsequently sued Michael for libel
Defamation is the act of communicating to a third party false statements about a person, place or thing that results in damage to its reputation. It can be spoken (slander) or written (libel). It constitutes a tort or a crime. The legal defini ...
, but withdrew the case in December 2015. By withdrawing the case, McEvoy became liable for Michael's legal costs, and in January 2016, McEvoy agreed to pay Michael £120,000 in respect of those costs. The sum represented a quarter of the cost of the preliminary issues, and all costs after April 2013. McEvoy paid an initial sum of £50,000, and agreed a payment plan with Michael and his lawyers, which included Michael having a legal charge imposed on McEvoy's home.
In March 2017 a Cardiff Council tribunal found a comment that McEvoy made to a council officer after a tenant's eviction hearing in 2015 amounted to "bullying behaviour". The Adjudication Panel for Wales ruled he broke Cardiff council's code of conduct but did not bring the council into disrepute. After the hearing, Mr McEvoy described the panel proceedings as a "farce", but Plaid chairman Alun Ffred Jones said the matter was "serious because it involves bullying". McEvoy was subsequently suspended from the Plaid Cymru Senedd group on 7 March 2017 and reinstated two weeks later. A Plaid Cymru disciplinary panel was to consider the complaints later in the Autumn.
In September 2017, McEvoy was suspended again, after a unanimous decision by Plaid's Assembly group, following accusations that he had undermined Plaid Cymru's policy on council housing
Public housing in the United Kingdom, also known as council estates, council housing, or social housing, provided the majority of rented accommodation until 2011 when the number of households in private rental housing surpassed the number in so ...
. In December 2018 McEvoy was referred to the Assembly Standards Commissioner after he was accused by his former office manager, Michael Deem, of misusing Assembly funds for printing leaflets and recruiting staff for party political, rather than Assembly work. Deem refused to comment on media reports, and McEvoy responded by stating that he "will continue to ask the difficult questions that some people don't want asked".
In January 2018 he was expelled from the Plaid Cymru group in the Welsh Assembly, with a spokesperson stating that "his ongoing behaviour has left Assembly Member colleagues feeling undermined and demoralised". He then sat as an independent
Independent or Independents may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups
* Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based in the New Hope, Pennsylvania, area of the United States during the early 1930s
* Independ ...
.
McEvoy posted to Twitter
Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...
in March 2018, and later deleted, a response to an earlier post about former Plaid leader and AM Leanne Wood with an image of himself and Dafydd Elis-Thomas
Dafydd Elis-Thomas, Baron Elis-Thomas (born 18 October 1946) is a Welsh politician who served as the Leader of Plaid Cymru from 1984 to 1991 and represented the Dwyfor Meirionnydd constituency in the Senedd from 1999 to 2021.
Born in Carmar ...
wearing boxing gloves
Boxing gloves are cushioned gloves that fighters wear on their hands during boxing matches and practices. Unlike "fist-load weapons" (such as the ancient cestus) which were designed as a lethal weapon, modern boxing gloves are non-lethal, desig ...
outside the Senedd. The tweet was captioned "we're ready for her", and was deleted after AMs including Plaid minister Bethan Sayed
Bethan Sayed (née Jenkins, born 9 December 1981) is a Welsh politician. She represented the South Wales West (National Assembly for Wales electoral region), South Wales West Region for Plaid Cymru as a Member of the Senedd from 2007 to 2021. ...
said the tweet was "absolutely not funny". Matthew Ford, a senior advisor to McEvoy, later came forward to state he had posted the image without McEvoy's prior knowledge, to promote a "cross-party boxing event with the minister for sport".
It was announced on 27 January 2019 that McEvoy's temporary expulsion from Plaid Cymru had been reviewed and cut by six months. In July 2019, McEvoy was again investigated for allegedly intimidating behaviour towards a care home
A nursing home is a facility for the residential care of elderly or disabled people. Nursing homes may also be referred to as skilled nursing facility (SNF) or long-term care facilities. Often, these terms have slightly different meanings to i ...
worker. McEvoy contended that the case involved a child who had suffered "the worst case I've come across in 30 years". The investigation by the Public Services Ombudsman for Wales
The Public Services Ombudsman for Wales (in Welsh ''Ombwdsmon Gwasanaethau Cyhoeddus Cymru'') was established bsection 1(1)of the Public Services Ombudsman (Wales) Act 2005. The Public Services Ombudsman for Wales brings together the jurisdictio ...
came during McEvoy's request in June to be re-admitted to the party, following over a year outside it. The Plaid Membership, Discipline and Standards Committee was described as "evenly split" during deliberations into the case. However shortly after, the committee's panel saw "two instances of unauthorised disclosure" of information which stated the panel had failed to reach a decision. The news leak
A news leak is the unsanctioned release of confidential information to news media. It can also be the premature publication of information by a news outlet, of information that it has agreed not to release before a specified time, in violation of ...
led to the party deciding to disband the panel and form a new panel with new members.
As a result, McEvoy withdrew his application to re-join Plaid Cymru, and in a letter accused two members of the Membership, Discipline and Standards Committee panel of holding "prejudiced views about" him, as well as complaining of "malicious" leaks intended to bring down "a non-compliant panel". Plaid AM Helen Mary Jones
Helen Mary Jones (born 29 June 1960) is a Welsh Plaid Cymru politician, who was a member of the Senedd from 1999 to 2011 and again from August 2018 until 29 April 2021.
Background
Jones was born in Colchester, Essex. She was educated at Colches ...
however stated that the process was fair, and that the issue had consumed too much of "our time and our resources". She has indicated the Party would likely contact McEvoy through its solicitor
A solicitor is a legal practitioner who traditionally deals with most of the legal matters in some jurisdictions. A person must have legally-defined qualifications, which vary from one jurisdiction to another, to be described as a solicitor and ...
s regarding his claims. McEvoy is believed to have withdrawn his application due to party rules which state that if his application had been rejected in 2019, he would have been unable to reapply for a further five years.
Senedd Commissioner for Standards Sir Roderick Evans resigned on 11 November 2019 after audio transcripts were published containing what McEvoy described as "bias", "really sexist views" about "female lawyers" as well as comments that former Plaid Cymru leader Leanne Wood
Leanne Wood (born 13 December 1971) is a Welsh politician who served as the leader of Plaid Cymru from March 2012 to September 2018, and served as a Member of the Senedd (MS) from 2003 to 2021.
Born in the Rhondda, she was elected as to the ...
should "wind her neck in". The transcripts were quoted in the chamber by Assembly Brexit Party
Reform UK is a Right-wing populism, right-wing populist political party in the United Kingdom. It was founded with support from Nigel Farage in November 2018 as the Brexit Party, advocating hard Euroscepticism and a no-deal Brexit, and was bri ...
leader Mark Reckless, who later withdrew the comments on the request of the speaker
Speaker may refer to:
Society and politics
* Speaker (politics), the presiding officer in a legislative assembly
* Public speaker, one who gives a speech or lecture
* A person producing speech: the producer of a given utterance, especially:
** I ...
, Elin Jones
Elin Jones (born 1 September 1966) is a Welsh politician who has served as the Llywydd of the Senedd since 2016. A member of Plaid Cymru, Jones has been the Member of the Senedd (MS) for Ceredigion since 1999.
Background
Jones attended Llan ...
. The speaker subsequently ordered a security sweep of the assembly estate. McEvoy always stated he was the source of the recordings, which he said were made on his mobile phone in meeting rooms in the Senedd. Sir Roderick said McEvoy's conduct was "wholly unacceptable", and Jones requested that South Wales Police investigate the recordings.
On 2 December 2020 he was excluded from Senedd proceedings for 21 calendar days as well as being barred from Senedd buildings and having his pay docked after a Senedd Committee found him to have breached Senedd rules following an altercation with Labour MS Mick Antoniw
Mick Antoniw ( uk, Мік Антонів; born 1 September 1954) is a Welsh Labour and Co-operative politician, serving as Counsel General for Wales since 2021, and previously from 2016 to 2017. He has been the Member of the Senedd (MS) for Pon ...
where he behaved in a threatening and intimidatory way and employed physical and verbal aggression to do so.
In 2021, Cardiff Magistrates' Court issued McEvoy with a single justice procedure notice for breaching COVID-19
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was COVID-19 pandemic in Hubei, identified in Wuhan, China, in December ...
Alert Level 4 restrictions. McEvoy was accused of distributing election leaflets in February 2021, which was prohibited because of coronavirus legislation. McEvoy denied the allegation. A judge dismissed the case on the 21 October 2021 because the prosecution had made mistakes in the preparation of the case.
2019 Plaid Cymru conference debates
McEvoy contributed to the debate around the Plaid Cymru conference, which was scheduled for 4 and 5 October 2019 in Swansea Grand Theatre
Swansea Grand Theatre is a performing arts venue in the centre of Swansea, Wales. The theatre stages plays, pantomimes and touring theatrical acts visiting Swansea. Swansea Grand Theatre was the base for the UK's only Russian ballet company, the ...
. He voiced opinions on matters including the election for a Chair. Incumbent Chair Alun Ffred Jones, who presided over the party during McEvoy's disciplinary issues, was challenged by Dr Dewi Evans, an ally of McEvoy, who was nominated alongside seven other prospective party officials by McEvoy's home Plaid branch of West Cardiff. It was reported in July 2019 that the Plaid Cymru leadership feared a "Neil McEvoy takeover bid". Candidates nominated by the Cardiff West constituency party included a former barrister who had represented McEvoy, and others perceived as allies.
Dr Evans argued for reform of the party's extension system. In response to these proposals, Jones argued that the role of the Chair did not extend to re-admitting expelled members, and that the Plaid National Conference would need to discuss issues such as McEvoy's membership of the party. Plaid leader Adam Price
Adam Robert Price (born 23 September 1968) is a Welsh politician serving as the Leader of Plaid Cymru since 2018. , he has sat in the Senedd for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr, having previously been a Member of Parliament (MP) for the Carmart ...
, in an op-ed
An op-ed, short for "opposite the editorial page", is a written prose piece, typically published by a North-American newspaper or magazine, which expresses the opinion of an author usually not affiliated with the publication's editorial board. O ...
for Nation.Cymru, criticised "reports of a concerted attempt by some non-members of Plaid Cymru to intervene in our democracy", a criticism which some commentators said was a reference to McEvoy's efforts during the Plaid conference to replace incumbent Chair Jones. Plaid AM Rhun ap Iorwerth
Rhun ap Iorwerth (born 27 August 1972) is a Welsh journalist and politician serving as the Deputy Leader of Plaid Cymru since 2018. He has been the Member of the Senedd (MS) for Ynys Môn since 2013.
Early and personal life
Born in Tonteg, ...
tweeted regarding McEvoy "Don’t misunderstand me. His personality is a problem, but it goes far beyond ‘not liking cEvoy If anyone – for reasons of personality or otherwise – bullies, undermines, threatens, challenges legally… time after time... it’s a problem."
2021 Senedd election
In July 2019, McEvoy's membership dispute with the party became particularly acute, given his stated intention to stand again in Cardiff West in the Senedd Election of 2021, challenging Labour’s Mark Drakeford, now First Minister. Plaid viewed the seat as an important target, given the close result in 2016, and feared that McEvoy would split the nationalist vote, if both he and a Plaid Cymru candidate were to stand.
In the event, McEvoy did stand, but Drakeford was re-elected with an increased majority. A Conservative came second, Plaid third, and McEvoy fourth with 9.5 per cent of the votes.
Foundation of the Welsh National Party
In July 2019 McEvoy withdrew his application to rejoin Plaid Cymru.[ In February 2020, he announced that he was forming a new political party, the Welsh National Party, and that he had registered the name with the ]Electoral Commission
An election commission is a body charged with overseeing the implementation of electioneering process of any country. The formal names of election commissions vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, and may be styled an electoral commission, a c ...
. The launch of the party was planned for April 2020.
On 6 May, following the threat of legal action from Plaid Cymru over its registration of the new party's name, the Electoral Commission
An election commission is a body charged with overseeing the implementation of electioneering process of any country. The formal names of election commissions vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, and may be styled an electoral commission, a c ...
removed the name "Welsh National" Party from the register of political parties, and stated that a second application to register a different name would have to be made. In response, McEvoy described the decision as representing "a shameful day for democracy" and said that the party was seeking 'urgent legal advice' as well as a statement from the Speaker's Committee, who oversee the Electoral Commission. On 15 January 2021, the name "Welsh Nation Party" was also rejected. McEvoy said "we will be known as Propel
Propel or propelling may refer to:
* Propulsion, to push forward or drive an object forward
* Samsung A767 Propel, a mobile phone
** Samsung i627 Propel Pro
* Propel Fitness Water, a drink from the makers of Gatorade
* Propel (PHP), an object-rela ...
from now on".
He was elected councillor in Fairwater in the 2022 Cardiff Council election
The 2022 Cardiff Council election took place on 5 May 2022 to elect 79 members to Cardiff Council. On the same day, elections were held to the other 21 local authorities and to community councils in Wales as part of the 2022 Welsh local elections. ...
.
Personal life
McEvoy lives in Cardiff with his wife Ceri. He has a daughter. His sister Lisa Ford is a Cardiff councillor for Propel, having resigned from Plaid Cymru at the same time as McEvoy.
References
External links
Profile @ Cardiff Council
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mcevoy, Neil
Living people
Plaid Cymru members of the Senedd
Wales MSs 2016–2021
Welsh-speaking politicians
Welsh people of Yemeni descent
Welsh people of English descent
Welsh people of Irish descent
Welsh Labour councillors
Plaid Cymru councillors
Councillors in Cardiff
Independent members of the Senedd
1970 births
British political party founders