Ex-council leader explains Labour departure and blasts by-election candidate selection process

Nicholas Thomas – Local democracy reporter

The Labour Party has lost its way and no longer listens to its grassroots members, the former leader of Caerphilly County Borough Council has claimed.

Cllr Sean Morgan, who today stepped down as leader and tore up his party membership, accused Labour of failing to deliver on its general election promises and of being “complicit in genocide” in the Middle East.

Closer to home, the Nelson councillor accused party officials of a “fix” in the candidate selection process for the upcoming Senedd by-election for Caerphilly, where council deputy leader Jamie Pritchard was overlooked for the nomination in favour of Richard Tunnicliffe.

Support

Cllr Morgan, who joined the Labour Party aged 15, said he would now throw his support behind the Plaid Cymru candidate, Lindsay Whittle, to succeed the late Hefin David as Caerphilly’s MS.

A Welsh Labour spokesperson said the party was “focused on delivering for the people of Caerphilly” and had “robust due diligence processes” for selecting candidates.

Speaking to the Local Democracy Reporting Service shortly after announcing he had stepped down as leader, a visibly emotional Cllr Morgan explained his reasons.

He described how Welsh Labour’s candidate selection for the by-election culminated in a showdown earlier this week with himself, First Minister Eluned Morgan, and former Caerphilly MP Sir Wayne David.

Tweets

He alleged that the evening before Saturday’s party hustings, Welsh Labour officials told Cllr Pritchard he had failed the initial screening for would-be candidates, for a variety of reasons ranging from tweets in support of then-UK Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn to newspaper coverage of his council duties.

Cllr Morgan alleged the justifications for barring “hardest-working” Cllr Pritchard amounted to “absolutely nothing of significance”.

He also questioned the credentials of some individuals Welsh Labour advanced to the hustings, including the eventual candidate, Mr Tunnicliffe – whom he said he had never met before that day and had never heard mentioned in local Labour circles.

Mr Tunnicliffe said previously he joined the party aged 15 and has lived in Caerphilly since 1999.

‘Alarmed’

Cllr Morgan said he was also alarmed another potential candidate, Chris Carter, was allowed to be put forward in apparent conflict with party rules – because he had already been selected for the Casnewydd Islwyn list for next year’s main Senedd elections.

When he attempted to raise this with Welsh Labour general secretary Joe Lock before the hustings, Cllr Morgan said he was told he would be ejected from the meeting if he “made a fuss”.

“Joe Lock, who clearly thinks he’s Malcolm Tucker from The Thick of It, said the rules had been changed the previous night and that was the way they we running it – there was no discussion,” he added.

Those present were then told the party’s Welsh Executive Committee had “agreed to waive that rule” for the Caerphilly selection process, Cllr Morgan said.

An initial round of voting saw “the vast majority” of people spoil their ballots by writing in the name of Cllr Pritchard, the council’s cabinet member for regeneration and representative of the Morgan Jones ward.

Cllr Morgan said he had been told that Cllr Pritchard would in fact have had enough of those write-in ballots to win the nomination outright on the first round of voting.

Explosive

An explosive meeting at the council offices followed on Monday, which Cllr Morgan said began with him refusing to allow Sir Wayne into the room because he was “no longer an MP, [he is] a normal member of Labour” and had allegedly “always treated normal members with utter disdain”.

The confrontation with Sir Wayne was a “spur of the moment” decision based on the former MP allegedly “not speaking up” at the hustings about the sudden rule change – although Cllr Morgan also called him a “warmonger” amid long-standing disagreements over foreign policy, including the Iraq War.

In response, Sir Wayne hit back and said he had “consistently” argued for a two-state solution for Israel and Palestine while he was a shadow minister, and “argued very strongly for the Labour Party position to be a ceasefire for the release of all the hostages”.

“The idea I have ever been in favour of war is absolutely ridiculous,” he added.

On claims the party’s selection of Richard Tunnicliffe was a “fix”, Sir Wayne replied: “Sean wasn’t present at the [WEC] meeting which took place – and neither was I. Due process according to Labour Party rules was followed, as far as I am aware, and we all have to accept that.”

‘Disdain’

On his treatment of ordinary party members being characterised as “disdain”, Sir Wayne said: “Of course that’s not true.

“I may have disagreements with Sean, but I have an excellent relationship with the local Labour Party and party members – as I was the MP for 23 years.”

Monday’s meeting at Caerphilly Council’s offices continued with Cllr Morgan telling the First Minister he was unprepared to knock doors in support of Mr Tunnicliffe, because of the selection process.

That led to the First Minister telling Cllr Morgan a failure to win the Caerphilly by-election and maintain Welsh Labour’s 30 Senedd seats could have knock-on budget implications for councils, he alleged, and likened this claim to “kind of holding me to ransom”.

Following Mr Tunnicliffe’s selection this week, the First Minister spoke publicly about the challenges the Welsh Government would face in passing its budget if the party doesn’t win the seat.

Turning to wider criticisms of the Labour party machine, Cllr Morgan blasted moves in 2024 to parachute candidates into Welsh constituencies, called current Caerphilly MP Chris Evans a “hide and seek champion”, and claimed the party had “done none of the things they promised and all of the things they never mentioned” since getting into Westminster – such as changes to winter fuel support.

“It becomes very clear to me that a lot of these people are not doing their job of taking the views of local party members and making those views known in London,” he said.

“They are actually a conduit of imposing London’s will on the party members.”

Iraq

Apart from a few years when he left the party “over the Iraq War”, Cllr Morgan, now 60, has been a Labour member since he was a teenager, because it was “a party of the people”.

But he now claims it is “no longer based on the fundamental truths that the Labour Party was built on”.

Cllr Morgan said his “biggest criticism” of Labour, at present, was “that I believe they are complicit in a genocide” and “ethnic cleansing” with support for Israel.

“So I have to leave the Labour Party – but the truth is the Labour Party has left me,” he added.

The upcoming Caerphilly by-election is expected to be a tough contest, with Plaid earlier this week claiming Reform – not Labour – posed the most serious challenge.

Cllr Morgan said the vote “would have been a very tough election even if Jamie Pritchard had got [the nomination]” but claimed “the chances of Richard Tunnicliffe winning it are slim to say the least”.

“I will be voting for Lindsay Whittle,” he added – referring to the Plaid candidate who also serves as that party’s group leader in the council chamber.

“Lindsay Whittle was chosen by 200 members of his party, in an election that I understand was run in a fair manner.

“He is a man of the people – he has always worked for the people of Caerphilly.”

In reference to their previous duels in the council chamber, Cllr Morgan added: “We often agree on the same end goal – we disagree sometimes on the route how you get there.”

“Lindsay’s heart is in his community,” he added.

A Welsh Labour spokesperson said Cllr Morgan had “given his reasons” for leaving the party, and “his former council colleagues, and we as a party, are focussed on delivering for the people of Caerphilly”.

They added: “This is a by-election that none of us wanted to face. While we do not comment on the selection process for individuals, we have robust due diligence processes in place agreed by the Welsh Executive Committee to ensure everyone selected to stand for the Labour Party shares the party’s values.”