The Commons: Gething Or Miles - Wales’ Big Decision
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The Labor party has long dominated in Wales, and they have taken the largest percentage of votes since the region was granted the powers to have a devolved administration. Mark Drakeford, the current First Minister of Wales and leader of the Labor party in power for over five years, announced in December of 2023 he would be stepping down in March 2024. This has paved the way for a leadership battle within the party.
Drakeford is an extremely popular figure throughout Wales. He steered the country through the pandemic and was praised for the preventive and safety measures that he took in comparison to his compatriot Boris Johnson in Westminster.
The two main candidates to become the next First Minister of Wales are Jeremy Miles, the current education minister, and Vaughan Gething, the current economy minister. Both candidates are seen as much closer to the center of the party, and both have similar manifestos if they were to become the First Minister.
For instance, both have reiterated their desire to keep NHS public. They have also shown an emphasis on trying to address the education system in Wales.
Wales as a political environment is much different from England and the other countries in the United Kingdom, and to fully understand why Gething and Miles are similar in their ideals and principles, the political context they operate in needs to be understood.
Wales is a more center/center-left country in comparison to England, and with Labor being in power ever since the Welsh people had the ability to elect a government, a lot of the principles of the center-left are seen as a normality in Welsh politics.
For example, if any politician vying for leadership campaigns on the policy of installing private funding in the NHS, they would most likely be securing a loss in their race. Keeping the NHS publicly-funded is a core principle in Wales and is one of the main reasons why Labor has historically succeeded in Wales.
Alongside their beliefs on the NHS, both candidates have many other similar political stances. Their similarity on policy begs the question of how both are doing in recent polls. Just like their ideological stances, there is little separating the two candidates in the polls.
A poll taken by the think tank ‘More In Common’ places Vaughan Gething with 20% in the polls whereas Jeremy Miles is slightly behind at 17%. Interestingly, the report also states that 62% of the voters do not know their preferred candidate, proving that the race will not be straightforward, despite Gething currently leading in the polls.
The ballot box opened up on the 16th of February and voters have the chance to vote all the way until the 14th of March. The winner will then subsequently be announced on the 16th of March after all the votes have been counted.
Welsh Labor Leadership Voting Intention
As the vote is for the new Labor leader, only Labor members or members of organizations “affiliated to the Labor party” are allowed to vote. Members of political parties represent the core ideological base of the party, and this raises questions over how proportionate and representative the vote will be of the general public’s view.
The closed-nature of this vote for the Welsh First Minster means the incoming leader, whether it be Jeremy Miles or Vaughan Gething, will be facing legitimacy concerns as only a small fraction of the Welsh population will be eligible to vote as opposed to a regular general election.
This is a similar case to current British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak who was elected by the Conservative Party membership at the second attempt, but the current poll numbers and division in the party means Sunak is often faced with criticism of being an ‘illegitimate’ Prime Minister.
The last Welsh Senedd election was held in May 2021, where Mark Drakeford and Labor won comfortably by holding over half of the sixty seats in the Senedd. But Wales has changed a lot since this last election.
The next Senedd elections are set to place in May 2026, which will be over 2 years from the announcement of the Welsh Labor leader results. In Wales, the Senedd have the responsibility of voting in a First Minster after an in-house party election, but issues over how democratic the process is may cloud over the contest.
The next First Minster of Wales will have to make some important and tough decisions for the wellbeing over the country, especially around the National Health Service in Wales. Like most countries in the world during the pandemic, the health sector in Wales faced tremendous difficulties and has not been able to fully address these issues since.
A study by the British Medical Association around NHS pressure in Wales found that “waiting lists remain high” across the whole of the sector. The waiting lists issue refers to the backlog of appointments as a result of the pandemic and as of March 2023, “there were more than 734 thousand people waiting for NHS treatment in Wales”.
Both candidates have reiterated the support and belief in the NHS, but the recent statistics shows that the health sector needs support in order to survive and function, which will likely have to come in the form of additional funding.
The NHS has struggled all across the United Kingdom since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, but with the increased backlog issues years later, Miles or Gething will have to make a tough decision over the future of the institution.
The contest between Jeremy Miles and Vaughan Gething is currently too close to call, but the announced winner on March 16th will inherit complex and difficult problems.