Welsh Labour leader begins party’s uphill battle for Senedd victory

about 12 hours ago

The leader of Welsh Labour, Eluned Morgan, has said her party is a patriotic protector of her country as she tries to fend off the twin threats of Plaid Cymru from the left and Reform UK from the right.Launching Welsh Labour’s Senedd election campaign, the first minister said: “Welsh Labour will always be proud to be patriots and to stand up for our country.I’ve always been a patriot.It is absolutely central to my core political beliefs.”Morgan chose the market in Newport, south-east Wales, as the venue for the campaign launch and invoked the spirit of the Chartists, who marched there in 1839 to demand democratic reform.

“When you look back now, you see what they really were: patriots,” she said.“People who loved their country enough to want it to be better.That is the kind of patriotism I believe in.”When asked if she was happy that Keir Starmer looked set to remain as prime minister in the run-up to May’s Welsh parliament elections, Morgan replied: “Yes.” But she also sought to underline the difference between the parties: “Welsh Labour has a distinctive identity,” she said.

On Starmer allowing the US use British military bases for “defensive” strikes against Iran amid the US-Israel war on Iran, Morgan said: “It’s important we stick to the legal position,That was a defensive position,I’d be very concerned if we got anywhere near getting into an aggressive position,”A central charge Welsh Labour will have to defend during its campaign is that it has dominated politics in Wales for a century but has failed to get on top of NHS waiting lists, education standards and the economy,Morgan said previous Labour-led governments at the Senedd had needed to focus on protecting Wales against UK Tory administrations.

She said phase one was “protecting” and phase two was “building”,Among the promises announced at the launch was a “new deal for the NHS”, with £4bn invested in replacing the University Hospital of Wales in Cardiff, redeveloping Wrexham Maelor hospital and funding a hospital development in west Wales over the next 10 years,Morgan promised cheaper bus fares, lower energy bills, a new lifelong training guarantee and stronger action against polluters,The Welsh Labour leader also said her party would end homelessness by 2034 and there would be no child in bed and breakfast accommodation by 2030,Morgan said Welsh Labour had the experience to drive change through.

She accused Plaid Cymru, the frontrunners in the Senedd election race, and Reform UK, also doing better in the polls than Labour, of not being serious.Morgan said: “You cannot fix waiting times with a hashtag.You cannot grow wages on TikTok.You cannot build a hospital with a committee.You need a plan.

You need priorities.You need delivery.”She said Plaid – which at the weekend published a glossy plan for its first 100 days in office – had “plans about plans” and said it would be focusing on the question of independence if it won power.Morgan said: “They will start planning it from the day they get into power.Committees, commissions, white papers, timetables, political energy pour into separation.

”She also accused Reform of threatening to rip up the NHS.She said: “What we are seeing around us, in Wales, and across the UK and right around the world, is a politics that is louder than it is wise.Angrier than it is useful.More interested in performance than in progress.Reform offers rage.

Loud rage.But no real answers, beyond a reckless plan that would rip up the NHS as we know it.”

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