Labour candidate ‘excluded from shortlist by Starmer loyalists who want a docile Senedd Labour group’
Martin Shipton
The decision to exclude a highly regarded activist from a shortlist of candidates was part of a strategy aimed at ensuring that the group of Welsh Labour Senedd Members elected in 2026 offers as little challenge as possible to Keir Starmer, a senior party figure has told us.
Business consultant Owain Williams was left off a shortlist of eight would-be MSs who will compete for places on Labour’s “closed list” in the newly created super-constituency of Caerdydd Ffynon Taf, which comprises the two Westminster seats of Cardiff North and Cardiff East.
Instead the shortlist includes six Cardiff councillors; Matt Hexter, the special adviser to Welsh Secretary Jo Stevens; and Shavanah Taj, the general secretary of TUC Cymru.
Under the Senedd’s new electoral system, six MSs will be elected to represent Caerdydd Ffynon Taf according to the proportion of votes cast for their parties. Local party members will decide the order in which Labour candidates would be elected.
‘Bad decision’
After learning that he hadn’t made the shortlist, Mr Williams posted a statement on social media that said: “I think this is a bad decision.
“Since announcing my candidacy, I’ve made a clear argument: we need to renew the party and the country, with new thinking and nothing that cannot be questioned. So many people, within the party and beyond, were excited by this. I think it’s a grave mistake not to allow the party membership in Caerdydd Ffynnon Taf the chance to vote on this platform.
“I’m grateful to every one of you who has supported my campaign to this point. Many of you took considerable political risk in doing so.
“Your encouragement has left me more convinced than ever that Welsh Labour and, more importantly, Wales needs nothing less than transformation. That work must go on, and I will play my part in every way I can.”
‘Speechless’
David Llewellyn Davies, who for a time was former First Minister Mark Drakeford’s senior special adviser, said in a social media post about Mr Williams’ exclusion from the list: “I am speechless. How can @WelshLabour have decided that one of its most gifted and talented members cannot make the top 8 in a shortlist for his own constituency? Wales denied an MS of Cabinet quality who would have made a positive difference to the lives of Welsh people.”
Others praised Mr Williams in similarly glowing terms, and First Minister Eluned Morgan, who appeared with him in an “in conversation” event at the National Eisteddfod in Wrexham on Monday August 4 described herself as a big fan of his.
She said: “Owain is a very talented guy and I’d like to see him as a candidate for the Senedd. I am a big fan of Owain Williams. Let’s see what happens. This is the beginning of a process.
“There are lots of other people in the same position. It’s important that the process is done fairly and I do hope that he will consider putting his name in for perhaps another seat.”
However, a senior Welsh Labour source told Nation.Cymru: “The decision about who was included on the shortlist, and more especially who was excluded, was made by a panel of the party’s Welsh Executive Committee (WEC). In practice, however, the decision was made by David Costa, a former long-serving deputy general secretary of Welsh Labour who has retired as a party employee, but now sits as a member of the WEC.”
Vaughan Gething
Mr Costa acted as Vaughan Gething’s agent during the Welsh Labour leadership campaign last year and was responsible for signing off the donations totalling £200,000 given to the campaign by convicted criminal David Neal, who received two suspended prison sentences after illegally dumping toxic sludge in the Gwent Levels, a protected wetland landscape near Cardiff. The donations, together with other scandals, led to Mr Gething’s resignation as party leader and First Minister after a few months.
The Welsh Labour source told us: “David Costa, together with Welsh Labour’s current general secretary Joe Lock and deputy general secretary Bridie Sedgebeer, the wife of Bridgend MP Chris Elmore, are Starmer loyalists.
“Their aim is to have a weakened Labour Senedd group that will not push for Wales’ interests over matters like the failure to devolve Crown Estate revenues to Wales, the unjust designation of HS2 as an England and Wales project and over other issues like the post-Brexit regional aid programme and welfare cuts.
“Their priority is not next year’s Senedd election, but the general election in 2029, and they want the new Senedd Labour group elected in 2026 to be docile and loyal to Starmer. That’s the reason why Owain Williams was excluded from the shortlist.
“In fact, the ideal outcome for the Starmer loyalists who run the party machine would be to have Labour out of control of the Welsh Government – a scenario that would give Jo Stevens as Welsh Secretary the opportunity to roll back devolution even further and take back control for the UK Labour government.
“They don’t care about devolution or the Welsh language and they certainly don’t want someone of Owain Williams’ calibre coming into the group and shaking things up.”
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Someone new may bring in something fresh and vibrant to a failing party.
Honestly, the state of welsh political discourse that this is the leading article in the morning. Barely a mention of the increased waiting times in the NHS last month (whilst similar measures are reducing in England), or council/public sector jobs cuts that are happening year, or SEND failures at several councils
Sometimes a fresh perspective is needed. The focus is always on the waiting times for operations and procedures. We never actually focus on the staffing numbers in healthcare. Skill mix helps but only upto a certain point. There are considerably fewer senior consultants, experienced doctors and dentists working in the NHS than before covid. What happened?
Yes what’s happening you have a number of resident doctors saying no positions for them after training, who provides direction to Health Boards and provides funding? Labour Govt in Wales. In Powys Health board where there is no General hospital, most people attend hospitals in English border locations they have told these English hospitals to delay treatment for Welsh patients as with reduced waiting lists in England patients from Powys were being seen quicker than they expected and did not have funding in place to cover costs. Some hospitals have pushed back saying they treat patients on need not on… Read more »
But what to do with an older sicker population when funding from central government is based on what a younger weathier and healthier population needs? Not many ex miners in Surrey.
Not sure why this is a story. Many others were left off the list but let’s make a ‘storm in a tea cup’ about the white privileged male from Eton.
It is about who is keeping him out rather than his “privileged” upbringing. The previous article stated “Educated at Ysgol Gynradd Gymraeg Melin Gruffydd and Ysgol Gyfun Gymraeg Glantaf in Cardiff, in 2003 he won a sixth form scholarship to study at Eton College. He played cricket for Wales as a schoolboy”. I see someone here with ambition and perspective.
This is a facile and unfair comment. You can’t always help being y public school pupil. My LEA drafted me to attend the same school as the fragrant Mr Farage as tgey wre short of places in their own schools in London. I may be white and male (is tgat a sin?) But not particularly privileged. All the school did was to turn me into a left wing member of the awkward squad and a Plaid member from age 14. Let us at least welcome Laboir activists who are not Jo Stevens groupies. She’s no male but she’s far more… Read more »
Oh the virtue signalling. Awful. As far as I can see he worked damn hard and then got a scholarship…
Bringing the colour of his skin into it stinks of racism, frankly.
Do you imagine he’d be getting this level of support with a less privileged background?
Temper tantrums from one of the entitled! What does he really know about Wales?
Two years at Eton after 12 years formal Welsh education hardly wipes his brain.
Docility is certainly the most valued quality in Starmer’s Labour party. Drakeford worried them. He was a considerable operator, close to Corbyn while managing to avoid being labelled a Corbynite, taking Welsh Labour along its own distinctive course, dancing delicately along the line between acknowledging the desire for independence while not actually promoting it… but talking about an independent course for Welsh Labour… all the sorts of things to worry the control-freaks who surround Starmer and are effectively running the party. So they have bided their time and now they are making their move.
Regardless of anyone’s political stance, if David Costa was involved in the Vaughan Gething Toxic Criminal Casback scandal, he should have been kicked out along with Gething.
Starmer loyalists need not worry about having a docile Labour group. They will get their wish come next May’s Senedd election when FM Eluned Morgan and Welsh Labour are ejected from office. #Ymlaen 🏴✊
A lot of Labour’s docile wing will be ex or non-A.S’s come next June. The way Starmer is going he’s going to gift Wales to Reform and get a fore taste of what lies ahead for UK in 2029 or earlier if he, Starmer, doesn’t get his head out of his ar*e.
Why would Labour want to enhance the far right Reform UK party by their own actions ? That is what the labour party are in effect doing. I cannot believe why any intelligent person in Wales would want to support Reform UK. Farage was leader of the same UKIP. They have always been on the far right of politics. Reform UK have done nothing for Wales, they have only enhanced racial division and hatred. People need to think what the main cause of this crisis really is. It is certainly not too much immigration or rubber boats crossing the over… Read more »
And this may be the reason they are so slow in selecting candidates .London will take over Senedd Lab to make tgem dance to their turn.absolute control freakery. Worth a listen to Vaughan Roderick’s Sunday Supplement on Radio Wales last Sunfay
This is a Welsh Labour aristocracy. The son of Rhodri Williams who has had so many jobs thanks to his Labour connections. Family connections . Just like Eluned Morgan . They are all greasing each others’ pudding bowls. They probably don’t give a toss about Welsh problems . Its all about their careers
Frankly this is nonsense! When has the current Labour group NOT been docile and deferential to Starmer and London? If you buy the Baroness’s puffed up rhetoric I’ve got a half inflated Zeppelin to sell you. Or indeed her.
The idea that somewhere in the Welsh Labour firmament there is some “radical” battalion just waiting to storm the commanding heights of Cardiff bay and really upset “Sir Keir (who may himself not be around much longer) is ludicrous, they know their place, their roles, and will remain there – “They also serve who only stand and wait’.
This is an odd article. The reality is that Owain is from a powerful and wealthy political family in Wales with close links to the First Minister and Jeremy Miles. The idea that he posed any threat to the Starmer leadership and group think is hilarious. This is compounded by a quick look at the other names that made it through (all of them, not just the few picked out by Martin). There you’ll find far more independent and left wing voices than Eaton/Oxford educated establishment Owain has ever been. Maybe a closer look the paperwork is needed to see… Read more »
The Closed List system was predicted to full the Senedd with Yes men and political no-bodies. Here we see it in action.
Thanks to Starmer Welsh Labour are done for as far as I can tell and Plaid (hopefully) will be the ones heading the next government. Continuing support of subverting democracy only helps Reform.
‘In practice, however, the decision was made by David Costa, a former long-serving deputy general secretary of Welsh Labour who has retired as a party employee, but now sits as a member of the WEC.
Mr Costa acted as Vaughan Gething’s agent during the Welsh Labour leadership campaign last year and was responsible for signing off the donations totalling £200,000 given to the campaign by convicted criminal David Neal …’
Maybe that says it all?!
Dave Costa is a union man through and through rather than a Starmerite or any other label. I doubt anyone who knows him would consider him bright or competent enough to run the kind a conspiracy implied by the article.
Well, you appear to know him – or, at the least, know about him – and I haven’t previously heard of him.
So on that ground alone I must defer to your judgement.