Row breaks out between Senedd members over school girls video

Emily Price

A row has broken out between two Senedd members over a video of young Welsh school girls posted online by a far-right account now under investigation by police.

The footage, which featured 12 year old girls from a school in Bridgend, was created as part of a project over a year ago to welcome Ukrainian refugees to the community.

It was posted online last week by an account called ‘Cillian’ who said the children were being used to entice migrant men to Wales.

In an X post, Cillian said: “In Wales, the Welsh Refugee Council is using 12-year-old girls in ads meant to entice migrant men to come to Wales.

“Most members of this council are from the Middle East, India and Pakistan. I think I’m going to throw up.”

‘Misleading’

It racked up over 5.9m views after being reposted by X CEO Elon Musk – but was later earmarked by the social media platform as potentially misleading.

The Welsh Refugee Council says that after the post went viral it was forced to close down its offices because staff had received threats.

The Cillian X account says it is now under investigation by South Wales Police for “malicious communications”.

The Welsh Government says the footage – taken from a group of clips which originally included male and female children – was withdrawn a year ago after the school was subjected to abuse.

‘Propaganda’

The video was shared to X directly from Cillian by former Tory leader Andrew RT Davies.

Along with the clip, Mr Davies wrote: “Schoolchildren are being used in propaganda for Labour Senedd ministers’ ‘Nation of Sanctuary’ plan.

“Under this ideologically motivated project, Labour wanted to pay ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS £1,600 a month. Unacceptable.”

The Welsh Refugee Council says it will now pursue a complaint against the Tory MS with the Senedd’s standard’s commissioner.

In the Senedd on Wednesday (January 15), Labour MS for Llanelli Lee Waters condemned Davies for “repeating” lies.

He said: “Even though he’d already been shown to be telling lies when he said that the Welsh Government was giving £1,600 to anyone who wants to rock up – illegal immigrants, as he said. No such thing is true.

“Asylum seekers are part of a legal process, and we as a Welsh Government extended a hand to children who turned up with no-one, who turned up with nothing, and didn’t have the privilege of inherited wealth and the private education that Andrew R.T. Davies had.

“But he doesn’t care about the people; all he cares about is inflaming debate with shameless, scurrilous, disgusting claims, using schoolchildren, and his party stands behind him. For shame on them all.”

Reprimanded

Mr Davies says he “never made” or “repeated” the claims by Cillian.

He later contacted Mr Waters privately asking that he “correct record” in the Senedd Chamber by next week.

In October, Mr Davies was reprimanded by the Senedd’s standard’s commissioner over a misleading post he shared about trans people.

In the report, the standards committee cautioned members against quoting or actively repeating/reposting information they have not composed themselves”

The committee warned that sharing social media posts from other accounts doesn’t absolve members “of the responsibility to fact-check sources for accuracy”.

MSs were also reminded to give “due regard to the factual accuracy of the information composed and/or shared, on social media platforms”.

In an email to recently ousted Tory leader, Mr Waters said that in sharing the video from Cillian, Mr Davies had distributed the comments made by the account to a wider audience.

The Labour MS wrote: “I stand by my comment – in sharing the video you republished the original tweet which contained the text. This constitutes ‘publishing’ in media law.”

The row spilled over to social media on Thursday evening (January 16) when Mr Davies shared a Senedd clip of Mr Waters and accused him of being a liar.

Mr Waters wrote to Mr Davies saying his social media activity was “a pattern of behaviour” which shows “persistent disregard to the standards of the Senedd.”

In an email to the South Wales Central MS, he wrote: “It is for the Llywydd and the Commissioner to decide whether they consider this repeated behaviour acceptable.”

Closed

Mr Davies then appeared to back down.

Replying to Mr Waters, he wrote: “While it is deeply regrettable that you declined to retract your comments, given that I have now exercised my right to reply, I consider the matter closed.”

The former transport minister says Mr Davies had defamed him by calling him a liar.

In a final email, Mr Waters wrote: “Whether you intended to or not you did share the original tweet by reposting the video embedded in it.

“That I’m afraid is an inescapable fact. You compounded it by again misrepresenting the status of child refugees, and have now defamed me.

“The Standards Commissioner has warned you about this before and again you show disdain for his findings.”