Welsh Labour is a party that operates with impunity, running an internal leadership election in a shocking way

Martin Shipton

The exposure of the latest shoddy stitch-up in the Welsh Labour leadership contest has further tarnished the party’s reputation in a way that could not have been envisaged when Mark Drakeford gave notice on December 13 that he was standing down as party leader and First Minister.

It takes an extreme kind of brazen behaviour to devise a voting system that blatantly discriminates in favour of one candidate and against the other.

Members of trade unions and other organisations that are affiliated to the Labour Party constitute more than 80% of the electorate in the leadership contest. At the same time as receiving a digital link to vote, they were sent a series of links to union websites.

If they were members of a union that had nominated Vaughan Gething, a click on the relevant link would take them to a web page that told them to vote for him. If, however, they belonged to a union that was backing Jeremy Miles, clicking on the link would take them to a generic web page with no information about which candidate the union had nominated.

In doing so it is clear that those who run Welsh Labour have lost whatever moral compass they had and simply don’t care that they have brought the party whose virtuous values they purport to uphold into utter disrepute.

Dictatorship

A tactic of this kind is what one would expect of a totalitarian dictatorship, not of a political party that claims to be grounded in democratic principles. Such conduct would not be tolerated in the smallest children’s playgroup committee, but is apparently acceptable in a body through which Wales’ next leader is being elected.

What makes it even worse is that it comes after other revelations relating to the leadership election that had already called its legitimacy into question. Mr Gething’s team has used every procedural trick open to them to secure for him an unfair advantage. Not one of the so-called Big Six unions asked their members which of the two candidates they wanted to nominate for the party leadership. This was a deliberate omission by a clique that was determined to see Mr Gething elected.

Those of us who were around 25 years ago and witnessed the stitch-up that saw Alun Michael installed as Welsh Labour leader instead of Rhodri Morgan have inevitably experienced flashbacks from that time. We never imagined it would happen again. This time, of course, there was another element to the union element of the stitch-up: the disqualification on spurious grounds of Mr Miles from the possibility of securing the Unite nomination when it looked as if he was persuading the union’s political committee to back him.

Dishonest

Changing the rules of the game to achieve the desired result come what may is another dishonest tactic used by political fixers when sufficiently strong safeguards aren’t in place. Making sure their candidate had nominations from the Big Six meant that Mr Gething alone had access to the affiliated members, with Mr Miles unable to send promotional material to them because their contact details weren’t available to him.

On the Richter scale of seismic shocks, the appalling revelation that Mr Gething accepted donations totalling £200,000 from a group whose main director had received two suspended jail sentences for dumping toxic sludge on the iconic Gwent Levels went higher – especially given that Mark Drakeford himself had helped preserve them by rejecting planning permission for the M4 relief road. What on earth did David Neal, the convicted director, expect from Mr Gething in return for his massive donations?

Unsurprisingly Mr Neal has taken a vow of silence and won’t say. Neither has Mr Gething been candid about how two donations of £100,000 each from the polluter’s group came about. What we do know is that the group owes a lot of money to the Development Bank of Wales, for which Mr Gething as Economy Minister has ministerial responsibility, and that his group is seeking planning permission for a giant solar plant near its existing recycling premises in Mr Gething’s constituency.

Public perception

Mr Gething and the Welsh Government can insist as much as they like that he doesn’t have personal responsibility for the allocation of funds by the Development Bank and that he won’t be in a position to grant planning permission himself, but the public perception is terrible.

Mr Gething has long had a reputation for disliking scrutiny and avoiding it when he can. The notorious footage of him responding aggressively to an ITV Wales reporter when asked a question he didn’t want to answer, and then walking away in the Senedd, gives a flavour of his arrogance. It continues to be reposted regularly on social media channels.

What’s awful is that Mr Gething has failed to show a shred of remorse in relation to any of these concerns. When the Unite committee stitch-up came to light, he failed to address the exclusion of Mr Miles and thanked the union for backing him. His response to questions about the dodgy donations is to insist that they have been properly declared and then to avoid any further discussion about it.

Sadly this stonewalling approach appears contagious, because politicians who back him also seem to have taken a vow of silence. Newport West MS Jayne Bryant has been a strong campaigner against criminal polluters on the Gwent Levels, but when I wanted to talk to her about Mr Gething’s acceptance of £200k from one of the criminals concerned, she didn’t return my calls. Equally I got no response when I left a message for Rhondda MP Sir Chris Bryant, who is normally content to wax lyrical about the ethical shortcomings of Tory MPs.

I also had nothing back from Welsh Labour when I contacted the party’s press office on Thursday to seek comment about the preferential treatment given to Mr Gething when union affiliate members were signposted to information about which candidate their union had nominated.

Impunity

Welsh Labour is a party that operates with impunity, running an internal leadership election in a shocking way that wouldn’t be tolerated in the running of a general election.

Despite all the revelations in recent weeks that demonstrate political corruption of an egregious kind, Mr Gething remains the favourite to win, partly because of the consequences of the stitch-ups and partly because news of the £200k donation came out days after voting began.

If he does win, we’ve learned enough to know how he will seek to govern. But the result will not be quietly accepted within the party and beyond it. The futures of Welsh Labour, devolution and Wales itself will all be on the line.