‘Drakeford opponents strive to stop rule-changing conference’
OPPONENTS of Welsh Labour leadership frontrunner Mark Drakeford are desperately trying to stop a party rule-changing conference going ahead in the autumn, it has been claimed.
Supporters of the Finance Secretary and Cardiff West AM are convinced that those hoping to promote the candidacy of Health Secretary Vaughan Gething want to keep the present “electoral college” system of electing Carwyn Jones’ successor rather than switching to a “one member, one vote” (OMOV) ballot.
We have established that a key meeting of Labour’s Welsh Executive Committee (WEC) will take place on June 9, at which members will decide the next step.
Tensions in the party rose last month when Cardiff North AM Julie Morgan failed to be elected deputy leader of Welsh Labour, despite winning nearly twice as many members’ votes as the successful candidate, Swansea East MP Carolyn Harris.
Ms Harris triumphed because she won the other two sections of the ballot – one for MPs, AMs and MEP Derek Vaughan, and the other for trade unions and other organisations affiliated to the Labour Party.
There are concerns within the party that a leadership campaign fought using the electoral college system could possibly result in a repeat of the deputy leadership result, with the winner not getting the support of members.
A Welsh Labour source said: “While Mark Drakeford is the favourite, and would certainly win comfortably in the members’ section, those who oppose him believe they would have a chance of stopping him by blocking a move towards OMOV.
“The anti-Drakeford candidate would be Vaughan Gething, a former President of the Wales TUC who has the support of some key union leaders in Wales.
“What’s happening is that those who oppose Mark Drakeford and want to block a move to OMOV are claiming that the debate over changing the leadership election system is too complicated to be resolved in the available timeframe before Carwyn’s successor has to be chosen.”
The source said that various permutations were being put forward about possible changes to the electoral college.
“They’re saying the main concern is that the votes of elected politicians are each worth nearly 400 times that of ordinary members and that this could be dealt with in a number of ways.
“They don’t care that electing a leader who can’t command a majority of the members would look appalling; for them, it’s all about power.”
Darren Williams, a Cardiff-based member of both Labour’s National Executive Committee and the WEC, said: “There is no credible argument for deferring a decision on the way we elect our Welsh Labour leadership. There has clearly been an appetite to resolve the issue as quickly as possible since the Welsh Labour conference, when the deputy leader election result highlighted the unsustainability of the current electoral college system.
“The arguments have been thoroughly rehearsed over the last nine months, since the WEC consultation began, and part of the case for OMOV is its simplicity and transparency.
“It would be disappointing if some people were seeking to complicate the issue artificially.
“I can’t believe that anyone really wants this argument to drag on for the next year. We need to resolve this via a first phase of the Welsh Democracy Review over the summer, with a special conference to make the decision. Whatever the outcome at that stage, we will all need to accept it and move on, so that the leadership election can be conducted on the basis of candidates’ policy positions.”
The WEC meeting on June 9 will decide whether or not a special conference of Welsh Labour should be held in September to determine the election system under which the new leader will be elected. If the WEC came to the conclusion that the matter was too complicated for an early decision, the contest would be fought under the existing rules.
As things stand, Mr Drakeford is the only candidate. Mr Gething has not announced his candidacy, although Caerphilly AM Hefin David has tweeted support for the Health Secretary.
A statement issued on behalf of four unions last week insisted that Welsh Labour’s historic link with trade unions should be maintained.
It said: “[We] wish to make it clear that whilst we are prepared to look at the makeup and percentage weighting of the existing electoral college, we are not prepared to allow for certain elements within our movement to take away the voice of organised labour, via their trade unions, in future leadership and deputy leadership elections ... The Labour Party was set up by the trade union movement to be the political voice of organised labour, and any attempt to take away the trade union voice in Wales will be resisted.”
Leaders of the UK Labour Party and Scottish Labour are elected by a form of OMOV that allows members of affiliated unions who pay a political levy to participate on equal terms with ordinary party members. The turnout in the trade union and affiliates section of last month’s deputy leadership election was 4.7%.