Tensions are running high in the ranks of senior Plaid Cymru figures in Ceredigion, with a series of angry verbal and testy text exchanges and heated meetings between the local MP and MS with Cabinet members individually and collectively, deflating any Christmas political goodwill.

Ceredigion Preseli Member of Parliament Ben Lake and Ceredigion MS Elin Jones have privately and at times publicly expressed deep reservations over the manner in which the Plaid majority on the county council have pushed ahead with a plan to shut four local primary schools in the north of Ceredigion.

Several Cambrian News sources in the party say the MP and MS are furious over the botched scheme, saying it’s politically damaging as the party faces both Senedd and Local Government elections this year.

Ms Jones has held, the Plaid sources confirm, a series of testy one-on-one meetings with the party’s Ceredigion Cabinet members, and she has expressed dissatisfaction over the manner in which Council Leader Bryan Davies in particular, has “rolled over” to Ceredigion officials.

Cllr Davies has been in lockstep with the county’s Chief Executive Officer Eifion Evans and the council’s second-in-charge Barry Rees over a plan to shut primary schools in Borth, Llanfihangel y Creuddyn, Ponterwyd and Llangwyryfon.

At a tense and emotionally charged council meeting in September, both Mr Rees and Mr Evans said repeatedly that the Welsh Government had given its “seal of approval” for Ceredigion to close the schools. Cardiff, however, disputes that, and there have been repeated calls for an independent investigation in allegations that the pair lied and misled the council.

School governors of the four threatened schools who wrote to the council and called for an investigation have this week been warned in writing by a King’s Counsel hired by Ceredigion that they face defamation and legal consequences for repeating the claims.

The plan, when bussing costs were factored in, would save just £90,000 for the cash-strapped council — about eight month’s of the CEO’s annual salary.

The closure plan has since been put on hold — but that has done little to ease the tensions between the two top Ceredigion public representatives and their party colleagues on the county council.

The MP told a meeting over Llangwyyfon via video link — he was in London and had to vote on the Assisted Dying Bill the next day — that he was totally opposed to the school closures.

Ms Jones was at the meeting in person and expressed her opinion that the council “was not behaving”.

Mr Lake, the Cambrian News can report, subsequently sent a message to a local councillor saying that there needed to be an inquiry into what was said by whom at the top levels of Ceredigion, and that the ones who lied needed to be disciplined.

The MP, Cambrian News understands, is privately supportive of any inquiry in the matter being external to Wales and beyond the oversight of the Welsh Local Government Association in Cardiff.

The MS, normally composed in public, has expressed anger at the mess, party sources say.

Both the MP and MS fear that the manner in which the Plaid-controlled council in Ceredigion is behaving will damage the party’s chances in the two elections set for this year. The Cambrian News understands that the both the MS and MP have held a series of meetings with each member of Plaid’s Ceredigion Cabinet.

There was also a wider meeting to try and clear the air. That failed to resolve the differences, Cambrian News sources within the party say, and the rancour remains between the MP and MS on one side, and the Plaid councillors on the other — privately at least.

Publicly, the party is trying to present a united front.

Specifically — and notedly — not one of the trio of MP, MS and Council Leader refuted, denied nor took issue with the outline of the meetings, exchanges and rancour sent to them by the Cambrian News in emails asking for their comments.

On the record, the three expressed unity and say the difficulties they face are because Ceredigion is being short-changed by Labour in Cardiff.

But Cambrian News understands those comments are papering over the political cracks between the Cllr Davies-led councillors and other Plaid members, party sources and members say.

One party source compared the infighting to something akin to the Conservatives under Boris Johnson and that “Bryan [Davies] fears being toppled and he’s focussed now on winning a Senedd seat”.

This paper was told that the Tirymynach council byelection in October to replace the late LibDem councillor Paul Hinge was a “wake-up call”. Plaid pulled out all the stops to have an up-and-coming member, Jonathan Evershed, returned. Instead, voters spurned Plaid in the hotly contested byelection, with Cllr Hinge’s son-in-law Gareth Lewis, a political neophyte, holding the seat for the LibDems.

When contacted about the contents of this article, Cllr Bryan Davies asked if he could share it with other councillors.

Cllr Catrin MS Davies sent his response to the Cambrian News.

It read: “I’m happy to say that as the Leader of Cyngor Sir Ceredigion I have an excellent working relationship with both Elin Jones MS and Ben Lake MP and I know this is also true of the Cabinet and the Plaid Cymru Councillors. We meet on a regular basis and we are all passionate about serving the people of this county.

“Nowhere has this been more obvious than during storm Darragh when as councillors we worked on a local level supplying people with travel to warm spaces or with help in their homes and then we were able to turn to both Elin Jones and Ben Lake with wider problems related to the utility companies and they worked tirelessly to get electricity, phone signals and internet connections back into our homes as soon as was possible.”

Cllr Davies said that Ceredigion has had a very difficult time in recent years due to a major reduction in funding from the Welsh Government.

“It’s hard to balance the books when in real terms we’ve seen such a drastic cut to our funding. Welsh Government’s funding formula does not favour rural councils in general and Ceredigion in particular, he said.

“This year once again Ceredigion is in the lower half of the funding table — at 17th out of 22 councils — meaning that only five authorities have received less than us in percentage terms,” the Council Leader’s email read.

“Over the past 12 months we’ve therefore had to make some very difficult decisions but those decisions have put us in a better position this year and that we therefore won’t be needing to have similar discussions this coming financial year.”

Cllr Catrin MS Davies said that the Council Leader’s statement reflected her position and that she was responding because he had no access to email.

MS Jones told the newspaper: “I have every confidence in all Plaid Cymru councillors. They do a difficult job in the most challenging of circumstances. That’s especially true of the Leader and Cabinet who have had to balance a budget with real term cuts to their financial allocation from Welsh Government.

“Yet again, in the most recent settlement, Welsh Government has given Ceredigion and other rural councils a below-average allocation.

“These financial pressures have led to difficult decisions by the Council. It’s obvious that when such decisions affecting communities in Ceredigion are made that there are conversations within Plaid Cymru and between myself, Ben and the councillors,” Ms Jones said.

“Unsurprisingly, we may not always see eye to eye on everything. That’s always been the case, for as long as I have been the Senedd Member. I’ve always been someone prepared to challenge and discuss within my party, as well as between parties. However, we respect each other’s respective elected roles , we get on well and we continue to have an excellent working relationship.”

For his part, Mr Lake told the Cambrian News he has “full confidence in the Leader and Cabinet of Ceredigion County Council.

“Our councillors are tasked with the thankless challenge of ensuring the delivery of important public services with ever tighter funding settlements, and they have my full support,” the MP said.

Like his Plaid colleagues, Mr Lake said Ceredigion has been short-changed by the Welsh Government again this year, receiving a 3.6 per cent increase to its settlement “while Cardiff and Newport have seen their budgets increase by 5.3 and 5.6 per cent respectively.

“Such a challenging financial settlement has inevitably forced the Council into some difficult decisions, and it is our roles as elected representatives to work together to ensure we mitigate the impact on local communities as much as possible,” Mr Lake said.

“I am proud that even when there is disagreement, we share a common motivation of serving the people of Ceredigion first and foremost,” he said.