PLAID Cymru will demand powers be devolved to the Senedd to hold an independence referendum if the party wins the Welsh election.
Rhun ap Iorwerth launched the party’s manifesto at an event in Wrexham on Thursday, describing the party’s plans as “radical and responsible”.
He also vowed that the Welsh pro-independence party will not bend to Westminster's will if they form a government following the election.
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With policies covering the NHS, child poverty, education, housing, social justice, culture and the Welsh language, among other things, a large part of the manifesto focuses on devolution and calling for further powers for the Welsh parliament.
Recent polling has put ap Iorwerth in the lead to be Wales's next first minister.
Plaid Cymru and Reform have topped recent opinion polls in Wales, while Labour, which has led the country for more than two decades, looks set to lose its grip on the Senedd.
Plaid Cymru's manifesto sets out that they will establish a new National Commission for Wales that will look at devolving powers over the Crown Estate, rail services and infrastructure, and justice and policing, which were recommended by the Independent Commission on the Constitutional Future for Wales.
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Crucially, the commission will lay the “foundations” for future plans for Welsh independence.
However, the party ruled out holding a referendum in the first term of a Plaid Cymru government.
They will engage voters in an “ongoing national conversation about the options for Wales’s constitutional future” and research “key political and economic questions relevant to Wales’s constitutional future, to inform debate and decision-making”.
They say this will lay the foundations for a future White Paper on Welsh independence which will address the “challenges and setting out the opportunities and positive changes independence would bring for Wales”.
Crucially, it adds: “We fundamentally believe that the decision on Wales’s political and constitutional future belongs to the people of Wales.
“We will therefore formally request that the right to decide on the timeline, question and process for an independence referendum be devolved.”
The manifesto also calls for the “outdated and unfair” Barnett formula to be replaced, the Senedd to be given greater tax powers and “further reforms to the fiscal framework”.
They add this would include “raising annual draw-down limits on the Welsh Reserve on a par with Scotland, and increasing the Senedd’s total capital debt limit from £1bn to £3bn – as immediate first steps toward securing full prudential borrowing powers for Wales”.
Plaid Cymru also announced it will deliver universal childcare from the age of nine-months-old and surgical hubs to cut NHS waiting lists if it wins the next Senedd election.
The plans also include a £10 weekly payment for up to 15,000 children aged between 0 and 6 in low income households, and up to 100 new GPs to provide out of hours care.
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On Thursday, ap Iorwerth said: “Plaid Cymru offers a different path – our pledge is to govern with hope, to govern with humility, to govern with a kind of urgency and impatience which gets things done.
“No more bending to Westminster’s will, no more toeing the London party line, no more defending the status quo and no more saying no to Wales.
“Together, and for the first time, we can give our nation the leadership it deserves, leadership that takes its cue from the people of Wales and nobody else.
“Leadership focused on delivery, leadership that knows our best days lie ahead of us, not behind us.
“Leadership that believes when we choose hope over division, and seriousness over chaos, Wales can, Wales will prosper.”
He also criticised the relationship between Labour's Welsh First Minister, Eluned Morgan, and the UK Prime Minister, Keir Starmer.
Ap Iorwerth said it is a dynamic he hopes to "reset" if Plaid Cymru win the election.
In response to the launch, Welsh Labour accused Plaid Cymru of misleading voters on a number of issues, such as the universal childcare pledge, which they said was "not affordable".
A Welsh Labour spokesperson said: “Plaid Cymru should be honest with voters.
“They claim not to be focusing on independence in this election and yet their manifesto explicitly sets out a route map towards independence.
“They now need to explain this deception to the people of Wales in the coming weeks.
“They are also misleading the public on the voting system, pitting it as a two-horse race in a proportional voting system."
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