Posted: Thu 12th May 2016

Local Labour AM Says Plaid’s Leanne Wood ‘Overcome By Ego’

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This article is old - Published: Thursday, May 12th, 2016

Assembly Members for Wrexham and Clwyd South have voiced their ‘disappointment’ over events yesterday which saw Carwyn Jones and Leanne Wood locked in deadlock for the role of First Minister of Wales.

The first official day in the Assembly for the fifth term saw a surprising turn of events yesterday during the election of First Minister – which saw both Welsh Labour Leader Carwyn Jones and Plaid Cymru Leader Leanne Wood put forward for the role.

During an alphabetical vote across the Senedd, both Welsh Conservatives and UKIP Assembly Members backed Leanne Wood – while Welsh Labour and the remaining Welsh Liberal Democrat Leader, Kirsty Williams vote in favour of Carwyn Jones. (You can rewatch it here!)

The votes from UKIP and Conservative parties for the Plaid Cymru Leader resulted in jeers from Labour AMs, while there were a couple of cheers from Labour when Kirsty Williams cast the deciding / equalising vote.

In a tense few moments the newly elected Presiding Officer Elin Jones announced that both Mr Jones and Ms Wood had received 29 votes – and asked ‘what should I do?’ – with the tie causing the meeting to be adjourned until next week.

Speaking earlier today the Assembly Members for Wrexham and Clwyd South described yesterday’s antics as ‘disappointing’ and ‘disgusting’.

Lesley Griffiths, Welsh Labour AM for Wrexham, said: “Yesterday was a disappointing day for the National Assembly and the people of Wales.

“Before last week’s election, Plaid Cymru ruled out a deal with the Tories yet in the very first session, their promise has already been broken. It is this sort of behaviour, failing to stand by your word, which gives politicians a bad name and is why the public generally feel so disengaged with their elected representatives.

“Regardless of whether you agree with the outcome or not, the people of Wrexham and Wales have spoken and Welsh Labour have been elected as the leading party with a clear mandate.

“Nobody voted for a mixed-up coalition of Plaid, Tories and UKIP and I am sure the vast majority of people who voted Plaid would not be comfortable working side-by-side with UKIP. Plaid Cymru won 12 seats and to realistically think they can govern with this number is an affront to the democratic process.”

Ken Skates, Welsh Labour AM for Clwyd South, said the Plaid leader had been ‘overcome by ego’.

“It’s disgusting that thousands of people voted for Plaid Cymru having heard Leanne Wood say she’d never do a deal with UKIP or the Tories, and yet her first act upon returning to the Assembly is to attempt a power grab having secured a grubby deal with both right-wing parties,” said Mr Skates.

“Earlier this year, Leanne Wood described Nigel Farage as ‘the voice of the far right’. Now she’s wedded herself to UKIP.

“Nobbling government operations at such a crucial time is no help to steelworkers and vulnerable people, and it saddens me that Leanne Wood and Plaid Cymru have betrayed everything they claimed to stand for. In contrast, Kirsty Williams has proven herself to be hugely principled.”

Mr Skates added: “The fact of the matter is, overcome by ego, Plaid Cymru misled the electorate and attempted to steal power with just one-fifth of Assembly Members.”

AM’s are set to vote again next week and it is thought an agreement on who will take on the role of First Minister will have been decided by then in various back room deals.

The pressure is on slightly as if a First Minister hasn’t been selected by June 2nd it’s back to the ballot boxes for voters who will have to face a second Welsh Assembly election in as many months. One former candidate told us they thought that was highly unlikely as it would be ‘turkeys voting for Christmas’, we did remind said candidate that they once wanted to be a turkey too.

Today there have been further developments in the search for a First Minister, with UKIP’s Nathan Gill and Mark Reckless indicating that they would be willing to support Welsh Labour if some of their manifesto could be taken on board.

This evening however it has been announced that a ‘formal’ meeting between senior members of Plaid Cymru and Welsh Labour will take place tomorrow morning in a bid to bring the First Minister deadlock to an end.

A statement released by the Labour Group earlier today says: “There are no formal talks with any parties currently and certainly not UKIP. Nathan Gill, like almost every AM, wanted to speak to the First Minister yesterday. The First Minister wasn’t available so he spoke to a senior member of our group.

“Over the coming days we will speak to AMs from every party to ensure Wales has a stable government in the soonest timeframe possible, but there’s no deal with Nathan or with UKIP as seems to have been suggested.”

Plaid Cymru’s Candidate for last week’s Welsh Assembly Election, Carrie Harper has since tweeted the below in response to the above comments.



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