Home Secretary claims voters in Wales are ‘furious’ with Vaughan Gething over donation scandal

Home Secretary James Cleverly said voters in Wales were “furious” with First Minister Vaughan Gething over a donation scandal he described as “foolish”.

Mr Gething has been strongly criticised for accepting a £200,000 donation to his campaign to become the leader of Welsh Labour from a company whose owner was convicted of environmental crimes.

He lost a confidence vote in the Senedd on June 5 following months of controversy over the donation, and after failing to show any evidence to explain why he sacked junior minister Hannah Blythyn, who he accused of leaking a message from a ministerial group chat to Nation.Cymru.

Despite support from all three opposition parties to pass the motion of no confidence, Mr Gething, who was elected as the leader of Welsh Labour in March, dismissed it as a “Tory gimmick” and has refused to stand down.

‘Failing catastrophically’

Speaking to reporters on the campaign trail in Nottinghamshire, Mr Cleverly said it was important not to give Labour the “free rein” of a huge majority at the General Election, adding: “Where Labour is running stuff today, they are failing catastrophically in Government.”

Put to him the Labour Party was popular in Wales and London where it is in power, Mr Cleverly replied: “I want to protect the British public from those tax rises, from those failures of public service that we have seen Labour doing.”

He added: “I tell you when I went to Wales, people were furious that the Welsh leader (Mr Gething) refused to take responsibility for what at best – at best – is very, very foolish in terms of his financial arrangements.

“They cannot believe that just when the economy is starting to recover that before it has fully recovered, Labour in Wales is thinking about adding to the number of members in the Senedd, costing millions.”