Morgan’s Moment (Part II): Reset and Renewal in office

In his final piece for Hard Thinking on the Soft Left, David Collins looks to the future for Welsh Labour under Eluned Morgan

Like her namesake Rhodri, Eluned Morgan stepped up to the Leadership of Welsh Labour as the unanimous choice of her Senedd Cymru colleagues in the wake of the collapse of her predecessor’s government as cabinet minister’s resigned en masse in a repetition in Cardiff of the summer 2022 decapitation of Boris Johnson.

Unlike Rishi Sunak, the catalyst of the coup against Vaughan Gething, Neath MS Jeremy Miles, rapidly accepted the force of Heseltine’s Law that “he who wields the knife never wears the Crown”. The Tory rank and file so resented Sunak’s disloyalty (as they perceived it) that they plumped for the catastrophically incautious alternative. Despite the parliamentary party’s intervention a few weeks later to reverse this decision (within the lifetime of an iceberg lettuce but only following a calamitous run on Gilts) Tory chances of repairing relations with the electorate post-Partygate disappeared and landslide retribution at the hands of furious voters became inevitable.

Miles wisely folded his hand early to endorse Morgan (who had already formed a unity ticket with Ogmore MS Huw Irranca-Davies); and with her victory thus rendered inevitable fellow MS read the room and fell over themselves to fall into line. Miles’ moment may yet come. But, tragedy aside, not before May 2026.

Now she has won without requiring a manifesto or a campaign the new Prif Weinidog (presumptive – the Senedd is being recalled to elect her on August 6th) has to articulate her personality and her Party’s pitch to the nation as well as stamping her authority on a divided Senedd PLP and a bewildered Party beyond the Cardiff Bay bubble. The most openly dissident Labour MS, Llanelli’s Lee Waters in a recent blogpost framed it as follows:

“As uncomfortable as it will be I think we need proper debate about the future direction of Welsh Labour. Circling the wagons around a ‘unity candidate’ may bring some short-term relief, but it will do nothing to address the fundamental need to renew in office.”

Whatever one’s views regarding Waters own role in creating the vacancy which Eluned has just filled (the lengthy justification of which is the primary topic of his post) this observation, while banal, is unarguable. While Waters hails very much from the ‘clear red water’ or soft-nat wing of Welsh Labour Eluned’s politics by contrast are more in the ‘soft-left’ tradition. She’s a subsidiarist rather than a nationalist whose formative political influences owe more to the Kinnocks than Gwyn Alf Williams.

It is often suggested that the Welsh are - for some mysterious reason - inherently more left-wing, progressive and politically radical than the English. The trouble with such comforting nostrums is that all recent electoral and polling evidence suggests that, to the contrary, Welsh people, who consume identical media, also vote almost identically to their socio-economic counterparts in England. The reality is that elections are won from the centre ground and that as class identities decline in salience as a voting intention indicator; valence politics or perceptions of competence have grown in importance.

This post suggests a potential political strategy for the new Prif Weinidog in keeping with her own political identity and recognising the drastic changes in context that July’s events have created.

Shamelessly plagiarising from James Carville, Eluned’s top lines could be:

It’s greening the Economy, stupid.

            Co-operation; not conflict.

            Don’t forget schools and hospitals.

As Sir Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves have been at pains to emphasise; the woes confronting our crumbling public services are the direct consequence of the lack of any meaningful growth between the 2008 global financial crisis and today. The main causes were a concertation of damaging retrenchment in public spending under George Osborne, uncertainty under Phillip Hammond; followed by hard Brexit, pandemic, an energy shock caused by war in Eastern Europe and finally the cavalier confrontation with the bond market under Kamikaze Kwarteng. As the new MP for Swansea West, Torsten Bell, puts it “the underlying problem is that we're a country living off our past, not investing in our future.”

Whilst the Welsh Government does not control the primary levers of tax and spend it feels the impacts of Treasury policy keenly via the Barnett formula and can certainly make a meaningful difference to growth on the margins.

Spatial planning is an example of one area where Wales is well ahead of the game in England. Sadly performance in our schools is an example of the opposite. Legislation to reform the school year was shelved earlier this year following the withdrawal of Plaid Cymru’s support. It still might not be passable, but should be resurrected. If only as an indicator of intent to keep pushing every possible lever to improve life-chances for the next generation.

With a UK government which now shares Welsh Ministers’ analysis of the problems the opportunity for constructive relations is real. Not least in an area close to Eluned’s heart and field of expertise – repairing the gratuitous damage inflicted by the Tories on the UK’s relations with our EU neighbours.

It would be naïve to expect Rachel Reeves first fiscal event to result in an immediate deluge of extra cash flowing into Welsh Government coffers. But some uplifts to English departmental expenditure limits in the devolved fields are clearly vital. In Wales, as in England, it’s right and urgently necessary that the lion’s share of any funds that can be found go to the NHS. Scope for horse trading with opposition parties will be severely limited. The Separatists in particular made a political choice to walk away early from their cooperation agreement with Welsh Labour and it would be politically and strategically wrong to allow them a similar degree of influence over the next Welsh Budget as existed when they were still voting with us on confidence and supply matters.

If the Separatists and the Senedd’s sole Lib Dem are more interested in demanding spending on their cultural and sectional hobbyhorses than supporting Labour’s priority of the health service then Eluned’s administration would be wise to not shy off from confrontation and a bit of brinkmanship. There is no better dividing line to threaten an early election over.

Such a showdown would also let Lady Morgan stamp her authority on a Senedd PLP some of whom clearly doubt her capacity for the role they have put her in and for taking the tough and controversial decisions necessary to lead. MS who screenshot and then allow third parties to leak, private government conversations on WhatsApp must face serious consequences whatever the implications for measures the government lacks a majority to pass without opposition parties support in any event. Such actions are un-comradely, incompatible with collective responsibility and tantamount to gross misconduct.

On the face of it the General Election results might imply that Welsh Labour is in rude health. As Dr Jac Larner’s analysis suggests however “beneath this veneer of success, there are cracks in Welsh Labour’s foundations, threatening to undermine what has been, by any measure, a remarkable period of electoral success.”  21^st Century voters are far more fickle; cadres are in decline with too many safe CLPs moribund; and Reform UK pose a serious threat in terms of their propensity to win votes in the so called ‘left behind’ areas which also comprise Welsh Labour’s heartland. It was no accident that Nigel Farage launched his manifesto in Merthyr.

A few weeks before Rishi Sunak stepped out for a soaking, the Welsh Labour Party had advertised the position of General Secretary. Finding the most talented person to fill it is now an immediate priority. Given the miniscule size of Welsh Labour’s professional operation -  both in Cathedral Road and out in the field -  it was an amazing achievement to light-up and win in Bangor Aberconwy, Clwyd East, Clwyd North, Monmouth, Montgomeryshire (with a little help from the Gambling Commission), M&S Pembrokeshire, the Vale of Glam and Wrexham in six hectic mid-summer weeks (not least due to less than helpful shenanigans underway in the Senedd). Both PW/FM and SoS will probably want to take a decision on the optimal applicant as rapidly as possible; given that we are already effectively entering the long campaign for 2026. If the ructions in the Senedd have served any helpful purpose perhaps it might be to alert the team newly entering Downing Street to the imperative of not subjecting the smallest but most reliably outperforming Party Region in the UK to the sort of retrenchment which always follows a General Election; even when you hit a maximum.

The Prif Weinidog/First Minister and the handful of professional Party staff cannot possibly hope to address deep structural issues alone. Welsh Labour needs its entire team to be making hard yards, not shying away from contact and all shoving in the same direction. One of the drawbacks of Eluned’s surname-sake’s ‘clear red water’ strategy was that it entirely deliberately sought to sideline MPs and deny them a role in devolved policymaking. Insofar as the need to establish proper demarcation existed it has been more than achieved by now and the successors to Llew-Smith, Alan Williams and Barry Jones have grown-up under the new order. An early priority in the run-in to Conference in Liverpool should be to convene a joint meeting (ideally an awayday or weekend) between the Senedd PLP and the newly returned Welsh PLP contingent in Westminster. Jo Stevens, Carolyn Harris and the new PLP Chair Jess Morgan (an ex-General Secretary of Welsh Labour) will no doubt be keen to facilitate this.

Welsh Ministers must push their officials to switch their corporate mind-set from viewing the Wales Office as an enemy to embracing it as the hinge between the two governments. Such respect needs to be mutual. A UK government can have a perfectly legitimate interest in issues which cross the arbitrary legal boundary between devolved and reserved matters. Again, direct institutional encouragement to engage with Cardiff counterparts (more extensively than those based in Belfast or Edinburgh) needs spelling out verbally to the FDA contingent. Policy at Westminster even in the devolved fields (think public sector pay settlements) has major impacts for Wales. New governments on both sides of the Severn and a new political context offer the opportunity of a fresh start, moving on from a decade dominated by austerity and turf wars, to addressing the immediate priorities which so obviously dominate the concerns of voters.

The reconstruction of CLPs to match the new boundaries for both UK and Senedd elections must be a catalyst for grassroots renewal. The move to closed list proportional representation based on 16 twinned Westminster seats means it will be vital to mobilise Labour votes everywhere rather than flooding activists into a handful of key marginals.

Reform and the traditional opposition simply lack the capacity to contest a ground war fought everywhere at once. As with armies there’s no substitute for a disciplined and determined mass of infantry to control ground. The Welsh Party, beyond Cathedral Road, relies hugely on a fairly tiny cohort of super-activists simultaneously juggling roles on CLP GMCs and LCFs many of whom have loyally performed Stakhanovite service to their local Party over decades. Every CLP, not only the Westminster marginals old and new, now need to focus energy on making contacts and re-building local capacity to reach out to voters all year round. Tools like Dialogue which eliminate distance as a barrier to Voter engagement now exist to empower every energetic member to set themselves a weekly contact target.

It’s vital the voluntary party and affiliates embrace the imperative for this renewal in power programme. Incentives and financial assistance are absolutely essential; but it’s inevitable that there will be cases where it’s necessary to place recalcitrant CLPs into special measures.

The character of the Leader is vital to setting a clear direction of travel; but the key to Welsh Labour’s continued success is to foster a will and determination to keep on winning both in the Cardiff Bay bubble and throughout the voluntary Party. Nobody can pretend such renewal is easy but it must be attempted and any progress is better than continued stagnation. So advice to Welsh Labour comrades at all levels is simple. The work to win in 2026 starts now. Sign-up to attend a voter ID session or go and give Dialogue a try.

Oh; and try to make the most of what passes for Summer in this Land of Our Fathers’. Rejoice in the fact that the Tories’ problems are a totally different order of magnitude worse than ours.

Who beats the Tories;

Who beats the Tories;

Whooo BEATS the TORIES;

Mae LLAFUR CYMRU fach

I WANT NO MORE!

Dave Collins Is a member of Cardiff South & Penarth CLP and a former Party Organiser. This is his last piece for Hard Thinking on the Soft Left but he will now be writing on his own Substack Citizen Cymru. SIGN UP!