Wales - What Just Happened?

A guest post on the goings on in Welsh Labour and the Senedd

[Note from Emma: When I started this newsletter I set myself certain rules. The key one was to try not to opine on things I wouldn’t know more about than my readers. So, for example, I might talk about the politics behind planning policy, but I wouldn’t pretend to be that policy expert. In response to my recent post about how I would write about Labour is was pointed out that I hadn’t mentioned Wales. There was a reason for that. While I know quite a bit about Scottish Labour politics I know a lot less about Wales. I couldn’t ignore what happened this week but nor could I effectively write about it. So I asked the brilliant David Collins to do it for me.]

By the time Tuesday’s denouement arrived, it took few observers of Senedd Cymru/the Welsh Parliament by surprise. The resignation of four members of his cabinet (including the rival he defeated by a whisker in Spring) definitively established that Vaughan Gething’s short spell as Prif Weinidog/First Minister was over bar the transition. Even allowing for the byzantine process for electing a new Party Leader, Vaughan’s tenure will be over well inside the nine month record set by his Cardiff South & Penarth colleague and semi-mentor Alun Michael.

So, what went wrong and what are the implications for politics in Wales?

I’ve known Vaughan on and off since around 1999 when we were colleagues working for Labour Assembly Members in the newly created National Assembly. I helped him win his Cardiff Council seat in Butetown (by two votes) in 2004. In 2009 when he won selection for the Cardiff South & Penarth seat in the Assembly I voted for the other candidate. In 2018, when he entered the contest to succeed Carwyn Jones as Leader, I sought to get Eluned Morgan onto the ballot. In other words, our relations are friendly; but not close.

It’s fair to say that on the personal level attitudes towards Vaughan resemble Marmite. People form snap judgements for or against. I’ve received WhatsApp’s from friends as far-flung as Australia delighting at the decapitation; others expressing dismay and anger. He has the polish and smoothness one associates with competent lawyers, but his evident ambition to rise in politics raised hackles even among folk who largely agree with his politics.

What makes Vaughan a unique figure in Welsh politics is that he wasn’t born in Wales but Zambia. He is strictly of mixed ethnicity since his Dad was a white Welsh doctor (of medicine) and his Mam a Black Zambian. He is the only BAME person to have occupied a representative office beyond councillor in the history of the Welsh Labour movement. There’s no doubt this has shaped his politics. At Aberystwyth University he dismissed the risible notion that first-language Welsh speakers faced barriers amounting to racism with such aplomb that he was elected President of the Students’ Union. Plaid supporters have never forgiven him. He is the only PW/FM to date who does not speak fluent Welsh.

In my view it was not the arguable diligence errors in relation to donations to his Leadership campaign; nor his dismissal of a junior minister, when it was shown that leaked WhatsApp screenshots had come from her government iPhone, that precipitated recent events.

Rather, it was the decision of Plaid Cymru to withdraw from the joint legislative programme, underpinned by confidence and supply, on which the Labour government relied. With 30 MS out of 60 Labour can hold office and defeat all the other parties combined, but it cannot pass anything without external support from somewhere. It’s the same problem Alun Michael and every one of his successors have faced. Labour can call the tunes, but needs someone to dance with.

Rhodri Morgan’s solution involved - successively - coalition with the Lib Dems, minority government and finally a coalition with Plaid Cymru inherited by Carwyn Jones, who was able to hold together a minority government aided, after 2016, by bringing in the sole surviving Lib Dem and rebel Plaid ex-leader Lord Dafydd Elis-Thomas. Mark Drakeford secured a “Cooperation” deal with Plaid falling slightly short of full coalition; but assembling the necessary “super-majority” to raise the number of Members to 96 and change the electoral system from AMS to Party List PR (from 2026). It was the looming prospect of being unable to pass a budget in November that prompted Tuesday’s events.

A united Labour Group could, of course, have called the opposition’s bluff by threatening to precipitate an early election. For all their bluster and duty to oppose, the last thing the Welsh Tories want is an election this year. Whenever it comes Reform are likely to do well. But having just lost all their MPs a similar result in the Senedd could deal a death blow. As noted above Plaid REALLY want the increase in numbers; which means keeping this Senedd going until April 2026. Someone could develop a tactical cold, get delayed on a train, push the wrong button by ‘accident’ and -  hey presto - we have a budget.

But the game of chicken depends on convincing the other side that you won’t blink first. Whoever the next Leader is, they will face the same dilemma. Vaughan’s problem was that with a majority of his Group, having backed his opponent earlier this year (and with many not reconciled to the result), the Senedd PLP was not in good shape for such a showdown.

Whoever emerges as the next PW/FM has two basic options. Either s/he can re-work the deal with Plaid and go on to May 2026; or seek a fresh mandate from the voters and negotiate after that with whatever numbers and parties the electorate returns.

Dave Collins Is a member of Cardiff South & Penarth CLP and a former Party Organiser. This is the first of two posts – the next will outline what the options and who the candidates are in the upcoming contest.

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