Plaid Cymru MS Adam Price told Eluned Morgan she would ‘lose her job’ in May’s election
First Minister of Wales Eluned Morgan with Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer during a visit to a engineering workshop at Coleg Menai in Anglesey(Image: PA)
Wales’ First Minister Eluned Morgan has admitted she and Sir Keir Starmer “don’t agree on everything” as a row over the Prime Minister’s support for devolution continues. During First Minister’s Questions this week she vowed to “win” May’s Senedd election after a Plaid Cymru MS told her she would lose her job, and likely her seat.
Last week, it emerged that 11 Labour Senedd members – more than a third of Labour’s representatives in the Welsh Parliament – had written to the Prime Minister saying the UK Government is not only failing to deliver on promises to hand more powers to Wales but is “rolling back” on what is already devolved.
The letter spoke of funding announced by the UK Government which the Senedd members said demonstrated that the UK Government was bypassing the devolved Welsh Government. The Pride in Place funding was announced by the UK Government which said councils receiving money would work with MPs, MSs, and the Welsh Government, among others to decide exactly where the money will be spent.
However the letter says that that funding is being “imposed” on Wales when “regeneration is a devolved matter”.
“For our own government to then come in and use the very same powers to act in devolved areas is at best deeply insensitive, at worst a constitutional outrage,” their letter said.
A UK Government response sent to WalesOnline at the time failed to address the concerns, and when Keir Starmer visited Wales last week, he was asked about the letter but also failed to answer.
In First Minister’s Questions on Tuesday (December 12) the letter was brought up by a number of opposition politicians.
Adam Price has told Plaid Cymru members he is quitting as leader days after a review found a culture of harassment, bullying and misogyny in the part(Image: PA)
Eluned Morgan was asked by Plaid Cymru MS Adam Price about the letter. Mrs Morgan said there needed to be a “mature, respectful” relationship between the two parts of Labour. “We don’t agree on everything but I’ve been honest about where Wales expects stronger progress,” she said.
Mrs Morgan said those conversations were happening, and there had been “constructive” conversations about youth justice, an area her government want to be devolved from Westminster. For our free daily briefing on the biggest issues facing the nation, sign up to the Wales Matters newsletter here
Mr Price said the Prime Minister is a believer of devolution but only in England. “You may be the last person to understand, but this Labour leader is going to lose Wales. He’s lost the confidence of the Welsh people you’re going to lose your job, you’re probably going to lose your seat. What confidence do you have that anything is going to change in the next 12 weeks?
“We’ve had Wales treated with neglect, and indeed with contempt and it’s not just me saying that, it’s people on your own backbenches”.
Polls project the First Minister could indeed struggle to hold her seat in the Ceredigion Penfro constituency and her party could slump to third in the Senedd.
She responded: “Let me make it clear, Keir Starmer is not standing in the election in May, and neither is Nigel Farage, but I will be and I intend to win it”.
When she was asked by Conservative MS Andrew RT Davies if her backbenchers were right, she said she would “always stand up for Wales”.
She said it was “important” to “land as much” for Wales as possible from the UK Government and said recent announcements showed they were benefitting from a UK Labour Government.