Dave Reid, Socialist Party Wales
Vaughan Gething has resigned as first minister for Wales due to an ongoing scandal predating his election as Welsh Labour leader in March. Gething had accepted a £200,000 donation to his leadership campaign from an environmental company that had been fined for multiple polluting offences and instances in which workers were injured and killed on their sites. The company had also received a loan from the Welsh government. As one worker noted: “The scandal is that he had won the leadership election after it was known about the £200,000 donation!”
Gething was forced out by a resignation ‘coup’ of four cabinet members that meant that his government has effectively been brought down. He had also sacked minister Hannah Blythyn, falsely alleging that she had leaked to a media outlet.
Welsh Labour has been in crisis since Gething’s election, but it is the long-term ebbing away of support for the Labour government that has undermined the stability of the party in power. Gething came to symbolise the unpopularity of a government which faces another Senedd election in 2026.
After dutifully implementing austerity cuts and running down public services in Wales, Welsh Labour carries some of the blame for the breakdown of the NHS and council services. The UK Tories have been seen as the main culprits for budget cuts and they paid the price in Wales, losing every single seat in the general election. Labour face being the next incumbent government party to suffer big losses due to austerity cuts following the UK Tories and the SNP in Scotland.
Labour was the main beneficiary of lost Tory seats, but it also lost votes and vote share from 2019. 250,000 votes have been lost since Corbyn led the party in 2017 and the party leadership is dreading the Senedd election, with particular concern at the protest vote for Reform, which came second in most traditionally Labour seats.
