Eluned sets out Labour leadership bid
ELUNED Morgan launches her campaign to become the leader of the Labour Party in Wales today.
Setting out her vision for the future of the nation, Ms Morgan will speak passionately about the need for renewal in the party in Wales building on the energy of the thousands of new members.
She claims there is a need to instil a renewed confidence in the country as Wales faces the multiple challenges of Brexit, climate change, automation and an ageing population.
Promoting herself as the candidate who will unite the party and unite the nation, Ms Morgan will express her desire to generate collective democratic power to provide the conditions for people to make the most of themselves regardless of their background, gender, age or race.
Describing herself as the socialist candidate for the digital era, Ms Morgan will be surrounded by supporters in the Rhondda, a seat that she is determined to win back from Plaid. Ms Morgan will explain how she wants to create a politics that responds to the aspiration of the grass roots and will act to resolve the concerns of the whole of Wales.
Ms Morgan said: “Over the summer I have been listening to what the grass roots of the party and the public have to say, and I have deliberately gone beyond the bubble of Cardiff Bay and into seats that Labour needs to win if we want a Labour majority in the Assembly.“
After 22 years in office at the next election she argues there is a need for change. Labour needs to look different, to sound different, and to be different if the party is to retain power. More of the same is simply not going to cut it.
Change she will explain must be permanent, and in this age of automation of globalisation of Brexit and populism, of environmental peril and an ageing society that truth must be more dominant than ever.
She will explain that in the midst of these shifts and swirls Wales has a choice.
“We can be the victim of change or we can be the victor of change,” she will say.
“We, and only we, can make the difference.”
She will talk of the need to change the culture in the Labour Party in the Assembly and will set herself up as not as an insider nor someone who will take a top down approach to politics but as an insurgent and someone who will respond to the concerns of members and trade unionists.
She will emphasise how she can call on a wealth of experience to lead the country from her time representing Wales in the European Parliament, her record of delivery serving on Corbyn’s front bench in the House of Lords along with her experience in industry and the media as well as being a “Welsh mam”.
Her priorities for action include supporting a people’s Vote and avoid a “no deal” Brexit, tackling poverty and drive economic growth.