The behind-the-scenes manoeuvrings that led to Eluned Morgan becoming First Minister

Martin Shipton

Eluned Morgan will be elected unopposed as the new leader of Welsh Labour today, following intense activity behind the scenes aimed at removing toxicity from the party.

For the former MEP and member of the House of Lords it will be an astonishing turnaround from 2018, when she struggled to get enough nominations from Senedd colleagues to get on the ballot paper for that year’s leadership election.

In the event, she just made it after outgoing First Minister Carwyn Jones was persuaded to back her so that a woman candidate could go forward. Ironically, not a single female MS nominated Baroness Morgan and in the election she came a distant third behind Mark Drakeford and Vaughan Gething.

When Mr Drakeford announced his departure late last year, Eluned Morgan didn’t even bother to put her name forward, realising she wouldn’t get the required support.

‘Fabulous’

This time, however, she has scooped up support from virtually the entire Senedd group. Many MSs have issued statements of strong support for her, with one female Senedd Member going so far as to describe her as “fabulous”.

So what’s changed? Many will argue that it couldn’t possibly have anything to do with her performance as Health Minister – latterly Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care – since waiting times have got worse and NHS Wales has been plagued by a succession of seemingly never-ending scandals. And as we reported earlier this week, campaigners on a variety of health-related issues most definitely aren’t among those who sing her praises.

A week ago, no one was talking of her as a plausible successor to Mr Gething who, after a long period during which he seemed determined to cling on to the First Ministership whatever the cost to the party, had finally succumbed to the inevitable and resigned.

Most assumed that Jeremy Miles, who had been defeated only narrowly by Mr Gething in March, despite the latter’s £200,000 donation from a criminal, would step up and be anointed as the new leader. But as events turned out, that was to misread the situation entirely.

‘Away day’

A group “away day” held in the unglamorous surrounds of an office block between Cardiff city centre and Cardiff Bay demonstrated how poisonous the atmosphere had become in the Labour Senedd group. Most Labour MSs had opposed Mr Gething during the recent leadership election, preferring Mr Miles. They’d watched in mounting concern as negative story after negative story was published about Mr Gething, but hadn’t been prepared to take decisive action against him. They appeared to have been afflicted with inertia.

One opponent of Mr Gething had told NationCymru they would happily move a motion of no confidence against him in the group if they thought it might succeed.

As the weeks went on, allegations of MS-on-MS bullying emerged, with evidence of Labour “comrades” becoming increasingly fraught with each other and the atmosphere becoming increasingly insufferable.

During the “away day”, about half a dozen MSs called on Mr Gething to resign. This infuriated his diehard supporters, who had swallowed whole his narrative that he had done nothing wrong and blamed NationCymru for its negative coverage of his travails.

The “away day” broke up without any resolution, but it became clear that things could not carry on as they were. Four members of the Cabinet – Julie James, Lesley Griffiths, Jeremy Miles and Mick Antoniw – decided to tell Mr Gething he should go. When he refused to do so, they quit the government. This left him in an impossible situation, with a bitterly divided group and the prospect of sniping continuing over the summer and the ultimate certainty that he wouldn’t be able to get a Welsh Government Budget passed by the Senedd because Labour didn’t have a majority and no opposition MSs would vote for it if he was still in charge.

Resign

Mr Gething announced his intention to resign, but Welsh Labour devised a timetable for a leadership election that wouldn’t see a winner until the middle of September. While Mr Miles was quickly seen as the favourite to succeed, Mr Gething’s supporters loudly made it clear that they would not accept him because of his role in precipitating their champion’s downfall. An acrimonious leadership election campaign seemed odds on, with Mr Miles opposed by a candidate from the Gething camp.

Such a prospect was seen as potentially disastrous by some senior Welsh Labour figures who were somewhat detached from the fray. Welsh Labour isn’t all about the Senedd, of course. There’s a sizeable Westminster contingent, as well as grassroots party members across Wales.

It’s difficult to specify who exactly got involved, but it’s understood that senior figures motivated by the need to defuse a potentially disastrous conflict that could cause lasting damage to Welsh Labour decided to seek a resolution to the crisis.

A plan was hatched and Mr Miles and Baroness Morgan were spoken to. Mr Miles, who had already decided to run, was persuaded to withdraw and nominate Baroness Morgan for the leadership in the interests of party unity. Huw Irranca-Davies was drafted in as a candidate for Deputy First Minister to give the ticket greater solidity, even though the constitutional justification for such an arrangement was non-existent. Nevertheless, pragmatism was the order of the day and everyone was expected to fall in line.

Being able to swiftly bury the hatchet in the interests of party unity was seen as paramount and the Senedd group bought the need for it. A contested election would have done the party more damage, with the inevitability of fallings-out, not to mention the bizarre spectacle of a discredited First Minister strutting around Wales in the meantime as if nothing had happened.

The King is dead. Long live the Baroness!