Who leads Welsh Labour – Eluned Morgan or someone you’ve probably never heard of?
Martin Shipton
You don’t need to be a psephologist to realise that both Labour and Welsh Labour are in deep trouble.
Some will argue that the two entities are indistinguishable and are essentially the same thing, but that would be to erase the nuances and gloss over the fault lines that are currently tearing the party apart.
The fact that Labour is in such difficulties just 14 months after winning a landslide general election victory is a powerful illustration of how Keir Starmer has lost control.
The forced resignation of Angela Rayner as Deputy Prime Minister was a serious blow, but she was not a natural ally of Starmer’s. Far more damaging was the need to sack Peter Mandelson as Ambassador to the United States over his disgraceful association with a convicted paedophile, hours after Starmer had offered him his continuing support.
Watershed
Mandelson had ingratiated himself with Trump – who would have no qualms about his association with Epstein – as part of Starmer’s policy of cosying up to the US President. The fact that so many Labour MPs demanded Mandelson’s sacking and that Starmer eventually bowed to the inevitability of his dismissal, has broken the iron discipline he had sought to impose on the parliamentary party. This could be seen as a watershed moment.
Disenchantment with Starmer is rife, both in the party and among voters. Some are openly calling for him to go. There is talk of Andy Burnham, the popular Mayor of Greater Manchester, fighting a by-election in his home region that may come up soon in readiness for a shot at the leadership.
Meanwhile the outlook for Welsh Labour seems dire. On Thursday the party’s candidate came fourth in a council by-election in Barry in a seat it had previously held.
More sensationally the Labour leader of Caerphilly council relinquished his post and resigned from the Labour Party in protest against the direction the party was taken.
The final straw for Sean Morgan was the way Welsh Labour officials excluded his council deputy Jamie Pritchard from the shortlist of would-be candidates for the Caerphilly by-election, caused by the tragic death of the Senedd Member Hefin David.
Calling the shots
He told me of two meetings he had been involved with that convinced him that Welsh Labour general secretary Joe Lock was calling the shots in the party, not Eluned Morgan.
As we have previously reported, Cllr Pritchard was barred from the shortlist because of his historic tweets he made that were supportive of Jeremy Corbyn when Corbyn was leader of the Labour Party.
Cllr Morgan said: “I saw the dossier they used as the reason for keeping Jamie off the shortlist. There was nothing in it that was offensive or could fairly be used to justify his exclusion. It was a total stitch-up and it’s disgraceful. Jamie Pritchard is a hard worker who has done a lot to represent his community, and he has turned what was a solid Plaid Cymru ward into a solid Labour ward. He’s just the kind of person who would make an excellent MS.”
Cllr Morgan also objected to a decision by the party’s Welsh Executive Committee to allow party activist Chris Carter from Newport, who has already been selected as a closed list candidate for Casnewydd Islwyn, to seek selection for the Caerphilly by-election. The former council leader told me: “I told Joe Lock this was in contravention of party rules, but he pressed on anyway.
“Local members were angry, and although Jamie was barred, they wrote his name in and he would have been selected on the first vote. I was told that Richard Tunnicliffe [who was selected as the candidate] got just six votes on the first ballot.
“When everything was over, the great and the good turned up to be photographed with the candidate.”
On Monday this week – two days after the selection meeting – Eluned Morgan, Joe Lock and former MP Sir Wayne David went to see Cllr Morgan in his leader’s office.
‘Disdain’
Cllr Morgan told me: “I wasn’t prepared to let Wayne David in my office. So far as I am concerned he has shown nothing but disdain for the local party and I refused to meet him. Baroness Morgan and Joe Lock told me I should accept things as they were and support the candidate who had been selected. I found it particularly outrageous that I was being ordered around by a paid official of the party whose salary I helped pay. He’s very arrogant and clearly has more power in the party than Baroness Morgan, who is the First Minister and leader of Welsh Labour. So far as I am concerned, what has happened is a disgrace and I want no part of it.
“Like most members of the party I am disgusted by the fact that the UK Government supplies weapons to Israel for its genocide in Gaza and has RAF aircraft carrying out surveillance flights and handing intelligence to the IDF. It’s a party with no morals.”
Cllr Morgan said he would be voting for Lindsay Whittle, the :Plaid Cymru candidate in the by-election: “The best way to defeat Reform is for Labour supporters to vote Plaid on this occasion. I’ve had many disagreements with Lindsay, but he cares for Caerphilly and I’m sure would do his best for the seat.”
Cllr Morgan said he had supported Jeremy Corbyn when he led the party and had expressed an interest in the new party he is setting up with Zarah Sultana, the former Labour and now Independent MP: “I want to see how the party will work before making a decision on whether to join it,” he said.
Good natured
Where does all this leave Eluned Morgan? I have known her for many years and believe she is a good natured person who has the interests of Wales at heart. But she seems prepared to go along with the control freakery of Welsh Labour’s officials, who are not loyal to her but to Keir Starmer.
She also seems happiest when engaging with community enterprises in the way you would expect a member of the Royal Family or a ceremonial president to do. The other day, for example, she dropped into a cafe in Blaenavon and ended up dancing with a member of staff.
This is all very well, but Eluned Morgan needs to face up to serious questions as next year’s Senedd election rapidly approaches.
I sent this email to her:
Dear Eluned,
I hope you’re very well – I enjoyed your latest dancing exploits in Blaenavon!
I’m putting together an op-ed today on the fallout for Welsh Labour of the circumstances under which the leader of Caerphilly council resigned his post and his membership of the party, and also of the party’s dire performance in yesterday’s Vale of Glamorgan by-election where my friend and former colleague Aled Blake came fourth.
In his resignation interview, Cllr Sean Morgan said he had spoken to both you and Joe Lock about the exclusion of Jamie Pritchard from the Caerphilly by-election shortlist because he had tweeted supportive messages about Jeremy Corbyn when he was the party leader.
According to Cllr Morgan you dismissed his concerns and told him to support the chosen candidate. Is that correct? Did you have any say in the decision to exclude Jamie Pritchard from the shortlist, and / or at what stage were you informed that he was to be excluded? Now that Cllr Morgan has resigned, Jamie Pritchard is the acting leader of the Labour group and the council. Do you think he should be permitted to become the council leader, should the group choose him?
I have spoken to many Labour Party members who are unhappy with what they perceive as the control freakery of Welsh Labour officials. They say you are not in charge of the party and that it is controlled by people who are loyal to Keir Starmer rather than you.
It has also been suggested that Welsh Labour apparatchiks are excluding potential candidates who would have an independent spirit, like Owain Williams, in favour of people who are more likely to be docile and not make demands for more devolution or be prepared to criticise the UK Government when it is taking actions not perceived to be in Wales’ best interests. How do you respond to these points?
All the best,
Martin
I didn’t get a response.
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Well said- The inertia coming from Welsh Labour is staggering especially evident in their terrible management of the Menai Bridge Suspension bridge maintenance and repairs, the non delivery of the Bangor Health and Well being centre and the stagnation of our town centres even the Welsh labour police commissioner for North Wales seems as effective as a chocolate ashtray on a motorbike – drug dealing rife, knife possession up, Welsh labour is not even sleeping walking anymore it has become a zombie party.
Nice lady, nice letter, weak leader and a political party flying off the rails. Judging from the atmosphere here in our local councillor election in Trowbridge and St Mellons in East Cardiff, deform seem to be ahead in a 2 horse race. Neither candidates live in the area and neither have so far indicated what they will actually improve in our area and where they will get their funding from.
Bearing in mind that Cardiff Labour are channelling any spare cash into building another ‘ arena’ down in the Bay next to their redundant County Hall and their leader Huw Thomas has already shown he’s lost interest in local politics by leaping onto Senedd Labour list, there isn’t going to be any money for Trowbridge whatever councillor you elect. If you think the Reform candidate will be anything more than a noisy gadfly full of promises they can’t keep, good luck to you. I’d go with Plaid.
I agree and deform will prove useless. There is money from other sources: lottery funds, grants and charities. Councillor will need to apply to them. Requires effort and time. Most can’t be bothered.
Too true.
Interesting, Martin! I would have thought that Owain Williams whose pedigree is solid Labour and whose TV appearances have also shown him to be personable and knowledgeable, would have been high on any Labour Senedd lists. He is the ONLY Labour canvasser who has EVER knocked at our door in Whitchurch in over 10 years’ occupancy. But the insider trading don’t surprise me, Labour seem to think their hegemony will last for ever, but the back-office deals, the handshakes and the lurking ‘fixers’ that still bedevil County Councils and unions have installed themselves in the Senedd as well. The day… Read more »
Great email!
Joe Lock – remember that name. The humiliation that will befall labour in Wales next year will be largely his doing…..with a little help from another unelected nobody in Labour HQ in London called Morgan McSweeney. PS. its staggering that senior grandees of labour in Wales like Wayne David and Eluned Morgan still haven’t fully grasped that annihilation awaits their party in Wales next year
Sweeney has been around the same bunch of characters for a while and is married to an MP I think, it is remarkable just how many marriages between MPs, and members of the media and the civil service make up this government…
Blair had sofa government this lot have pillow government…
… which leads eventually to bed hopping and strange bed fellows ! Or it may already be happening.
Strange bed fellows, understatement, hard to make a ‘Rom Com’ from Mr and Mrs Bumble,
A ‘families tree’ for these ‘law makers’ would be a worthwhile exercise both here and in England…
The way our politicians gravitate to collective criminality of thought in a democracy should have them banned from taking part…
No Solicitors should apply, they simply can’t be trusted or be thought competent…see closed lists! @Tin Tin.con…
Well said – Welsh Labour are toast
Eluned Morgan doesn’t lead but is led. She promised so much when she became First Minister but failed to fight our corner opting to throw in the towel against an increasingly Anti-Wales Anti-Devolution Labour party in London, especially the pending threat to Wales, devolution, and the Welsh language by Reform UK.
It’s worth noting that while she the first minister, she’s first and foremost Labour. She has no choice but to listen to the diktat of Kier Starmer if she wishes to remain in the Labour party and therefore the First Minister.
The leadership we saw from Mark Drakeford and we did see leadership whether we liked him or not, was only possible because the Conservatives had no power over him.
If Welsh Labour is to avoid a humiliation next May it will have to disassociate itself from UK Labour. Just, as I suspect, the Welsh Tories will have to cut itself free of it’s toxic UK party. Both Welsh parties will finally have to look like they are really there for the Welsh public. I doubt it will happen. Next May vote Plaid Cymru – avoid the toxicity of all these parties and ‘definitely’ put Cymru first.
Welsh Labour can’t avoid a humiliation next may, it is inevitable. The question is the scale of that humiliation. As it stands Welsh Labour will be in third place after the Senedd elections, if the polls are to be believed. I believe fundamentally their fate depends upon what happens in London. If Andy Burnham becomes an MP again, then challenges and beats Keir Starmer in a leadership election and then if, and only if, he raises taxes on the wealthy will Welsh Labour stand ANY chance of avoiding a seismic humiliation. If none of that happens then Welsh Labour are… Read more »
Labour in Wales (I refuse to call them “Welsh” Labour) are a lame duck. Eluned trying to disassociate “Welsh” Labour from HQ just sounds like a desperate last throw of the dice. These latest shenanigans show that not only UK but “Welsh” Labour still don’t understand Wales or its concerns. Willing to run roughshod over the local branch to get their candidate in at any cost. They were accused of parachuting candidates at the election but they still haven’t got the memo. The party along with the entire rotten establishment are part of the reason we are where we are.… Read more »
This is actually hilarious since anyone who has actually met or had dealings with Joe Lock will know that he is 100% out of his depth as General Secretary and is borderline indifferent to doing his job let alone fixing up selection contests. Sean Morgan is a clown.
Baroness Morgan does come across as a competent, steady hand. At least to me. I’ve actually been pleasantly surprised on a number of occasions on actions that she personally has taken. Unfortunately as the article points out, the core of the Welsh Labour party is corrupt and rotten, leaving barely the head remaining, struggling to maintain traditional labour values. Meanwhile, the source of the rot, the main Labour Party elected someone who… didn’t have the necessary vision. Kier Starmer, to his credit is largely a pragmatist as the head of a government department I have no doubt he could get… Read more »
I do wonder that if Labour want to survive in Wales they should have acted sooner. I don’t think the UK Labour Party are that interested in Wales and have done too little too late.
It’s not that they’re not interested, they just don’t believe they’ll ever lose in Cymru/Wales. Well, they’re in for shock 🤨
I don’t see a calm and competent politician at all. I see a weak lackey who embodies “party before country”.
The ‘candidate selection’ debacle in Caerphilly where Labour officials have imposed a candidate upon the local party members exposes some significant implications for the way candidates for election are presented to the electorate using the new ‘closed list’ system in the 2026 national elections. It effectively gives unelected and unaccountable commissars (on directives from outside of Wales) the power over who rules. A Putinesque process. There needs to be a number of changes to out democratic constitution. (a) Replace closed lists with a democratic STV electoral system, (b) only parties that are registered in Wales with the electoral commission can… Read more »
The whole centralised UK system must be replaced by a true localised federalised system.
Plaid Cymru as a party of Wales cannot do this alone.
It needs a Liberal Democratic revolution in the whole of the British Isles.
SNP in Scotland and Greens in England, alongside the Lib Dems.
A 5 year Residency Rule means nothing if that person is wholly unsuitable for the position they are applying for. I would rather have the best person for the job regardless of where they’re from, than have a local who doesn’t have a clue!
Now then, now then, now then, as it appens, guys and gals, I am asephologist ! and can tell you that Eluned Morgan will soon be going the way of Rayner and Mendelson.
How’s about that, then?
When Eluned Morgan was interviewed after Labours national victory she stated that the result would mean so much moving forward for Wales .
Moving forward a year and a bit the Labour Party in Wales have disowned the party they belong to , and today they are the “Red Welsh Way” as she puts it. She didn’t even mention his name on the politics show this morning , and we are still waiting for any sign of anything positive.
Talking about the “Red Welsh Way” sounds desperate. This article proves it’s all bs as it’s clearly not the First Minister running the party in Wales.
The Welsh branch of Labour have offered little in the way of criticism of the UK head office, until now. The timing suggests a conspicuous attempt to cling onto their seats.
UK Labour will allow them to indulge the odd criticism if it means seeing “Welsh” Labour reelected.
I suspect that Welsh Labour and Eluned Morgan know they are toast and this is all about who leads what’s left of their Senedd group after May. The Gething/Starmer clique obviously want to keep any independent thinkers out – and Jeremy Miles. Meanwhile, most of their senior members are doing a runner to be replaced by local government leaders who know their time will probably be up at the Council elections in ‘27. It doesn’t need a rocket scientist to work it out in my opinion.
The inescapable conclusion is that Westminster is indefensible no matter who is in charge. And that will never change until Westminster is abolished. If Reform was worthy of the name that would be priority number 1, not rounding up and disappearing the woke.
The situation in Caerphilly is not just a symptom—it’s a glaring indictment of Labour’s entire rotten legacy in Wales. Year after year, Labour has waffled and floundered, failing to confront the recurring disasters hammering ordinary Welsh people who have, shamefully, been let down after decades of misplaced loyalty. The wool has finally been pulled from the people’s eyes, and the truth is damning! Labour’s days of dominance in the Senedd are numbered, and it’s no wonder—chaos reigns, with bitter infighting, abject leadership failures and a complete lack of vision. That spark, once the pride of Welsh politics, is stone dead—snuffed… Read more »
Elenud Morgan is no big Player in the World of Politics; she’s no Stateswoman. Infact, her decision not to represent the People of Wales by turning down an invitation by the King to join him at Windsor shows exactly what she is; a minnow in a very big pond. To add insult to injury, she then lies about her real reasons for not attending by stating she is ” supporting” other Ministers over the death of one of their own Ministers! She is unfit to hold the position of High Office. Her ” job” is to represent ALL people of… Read more »
The Rhondda valley has an extremely docile, puppet-like MS!