Carmarthenshire East and Dinefwr MP Jonathan Edwards has found himself in hot water after appearing to claim that anyone wishing to remain part of the UK “loathed” Wales.

South Wales Guardian:

The comment – made on social media website Twitter during the Scottish referendum debate – has been seized on Labour Shadow Wales Minister Nia Griffith MP, who has demanded Mr Edwards apologise for the “offensive remarks”, which she labelled “outrageous” and a “tasteless outburst”.

“I am appalled that in spite of being told how offensive his comments are Jonathan Edwards MP has neither apologised, nor even removed the tweet from his Twitter feed,” Ms Griffith said.

“Polls consistently show that less than 10% of the people of Wales want full political and economic independence for Wales: to suggest that the rest of us do not love our country is downright offensive.

“I am proud to be Welsh, and proud to be British, as indeed are thousands of people here in Carmarthenshire and across Wales.

“Large numbers of people I have spoken to in my constituency and at this week’s National Eisteddfod of Wales have told me that they find these comments outrageous.

“Jonathan Edwards has shown himself to be worryingly out of step with people in Wales, so it is high time he did the sensible thing and apologised for his tasteless outburst, before causing any further embarrassment to himself and Plaid Cymru.”

Responding to the storm, Mr Edwards said: "The tweet was written in response to the failure of Alistair Darling MP - the leader of the ‘No’ campaign in Scotland during Tuesday’s televised debate - to bring himself to say that his own country could succeed as an independent nation.

"The position of unionist politicians here can be summed up that Wales is too small, too poor and too stupid to be a success. The tweet had nothing to do with identity, but with the loyalty of unionist politicians to the British State and Westminster, and not to the people of our country.

"If the loyalty of Labour, Conservative and Lib Dem politicians was indeed to the people of Wales then they would want to empower Welsh democratic political institutions with the tools needed to create a prosperous and just country, instead of supporting a Westminster system that leaves our communities languishing at the bottom of the European wealth league."