Vaughan Gething’s brief, four-month-long tenure as Wales’s first minister came to an ignominious end on Tuesday morning after four members of the Welsh government resigned their posts, making it clear that they were no longer willing to serve under him. That the four had little option but to adopt what we must now call the Boris Johnson gambit was confirmed by his subsequent resignation statement in which Gething was characteristically defiant and unapologetic.
Given that no rules had been broken – as with Johnson, also Gething’s mantra – there could be no reasonable objection to his decision to fund his successful leadership campaign through a large donation from a company owned by a businessman who had previously been convicted of environmental crimes. Any suggestion to the contrary was politically motivated and thoroughly mendacious. Absent was even a hint of remorse about his own behaviour, let alone any pretence that he was leaving of his own volition. It was a statement that served only to confirm that it was Gething’s obduracy and, yes, hubris that was the ultimate cause of his downfall.
It remains to be seen how the Welsh Labour party now goes about choosing a successor and on what timetable. It is also unclear who will want to take on what looks like something of a poisoned chalice. Moreover, while Gething has been the source of some of the challenges that any incoming leader will need to address, others are more structural and intractable.
Most obviously, any new leader will need to repair shattered relations among Labour members in the Senedd. Having rubbed along pretty well together for the first quarter-century of devolution – for example, sidestepping most of the psychodrama associated with the Corbyn era – the ruling Labour group has transformed over the past few weeks and months into something altogether less wholesome. It is far from clear how the divisions that now exist can be bridged.
Less obviously, but just as importantly, the new first minister will also need to reckon with Welsh Labour MPs in Westminster whose overall attitude to their Senedd colleagues is characterised by condescension that shades into animosity. Both the attitude and influence of these MPs was apparent in Labour’s recent general election manifesto which, while promising extensive further devolution within England, offered nothing of substance to Wales. There was, for example, no pledge to devolve the crown estate let alone the failing criminal justice system, as supported by the Welsh government and the wider Welsh Labour party. Since gaining power in London, we have also seen Labour engaging in a startlingly quick “reverse ferret” on securing what it had previously termed “fair funding” for Wales. Having once enthusiastically argued the case for Wales to receive substantial additional funding in lieu of spending on HS2 in England, Jo Stevens – the secretary of state for Wales and, in effect, shop steward for Welsh MPs – is now downplaying the relevance of that scheme.
The attitude of Stevens would appear to be that, from now on, the Welsh government should be seen and not heard. It’s time for the grownups in Whitehall to take the leading role. One of the problems with this view is that Labour faces a tricky Senedd election in May 2026. In the past, the Welsh Labour party has succeeded at the devolved level by presenting itself as a party willing to “stand up for Wales” no matter which party is in charge in Westminster. If this approach is no longer tenable or acceptable to Labour at the London level, then this radically reduces the room for manoeuvre for Gething’s successor.
Which bring us to the final and perhaps most difficult challenge that she or he will face, namely what would appear to be the increasingly jaded attitudes of the Welsh electorate. Labour’s very recent electoral triumph in Wales conceals a much more worrisome prospect as thoughts now turn to the next Senedd election. While the party won 84% of Welsh constituencies, it did so while securing only 37% of the vote – a 4% reduction on its 2019 performance and a historically low proportion of the UK general election vote for Welsh Labour.
This was also an election in which – from a Labour perspective – both Reform and Plaid Cymru appeared to have developed a worrying degree of momentum. Given that Labour support is always significantly lower in devolved elections – elections fought using a much more proportional system – there is now a real possibility that a midterm slump in support for Labour at the UK level could augur the unthinkable, namely an election in Wales in which Labour does not emerge as the largest party.
It was loyal, Labour-supporting Wales that gave Tony Blair his first electoral bloody nose in the inaugural devolved elections in 1999, when the Labour party unexpectedly had to form a minority administration. For once, it would be unwise to bet against lightning striking twice.
Richard Wyn Jones is director of the Wales Governance Centre and dean of public affairs at Cardiff University
