Plaid Leader vows to “publicly and robustly” hold Prime Minister to account if elected First Minister in May

Plaid Cymru Leader Rhun ap Iorwerth MS would “reset the relationship between Wales and Westminster” if elected First Minister in May, he will tell an audience at the Institute for Government in London on Monday.

Recent polling suggests a seismic shift in Welsh politics following the Senedd Elections in May, with Plaid Cymru consistently polling as the biggest party in a new enlarged parliament under a more proportional system.

Rhun ap Iorwerth MS accused Wales’s current Labour First Minister of claiming that she has a hotline to Number 10 but in reality “there is little evidence that she gets past the switchboard”, citing examples of when calls for more powers and funding have been rejected by the Labour UK Government.

He will accuse Labour of viewing devolution as “an event, not a process”, pledging to “publicly and robustly” call out the UK Prime Minister when he fails to treat Wales with the fairness and respect it deserves.

The Plaid Cymru leader is expected to say:

“Wales is constrained by a constitutional reality that others seem to be in denial about.

“For Labour, especially Labour MPs, they see the 1997 referendum and perhaps a few corrections as ‘job done’.

“The boil was lanced, as Blair later boasted.

“Devolution as an event, not a process.

“They’ve told themselves so many times that they are the party of devolution, they’ve started to believe it.”

Speaking of Eluned Morgan, Wales’s Labour First Minister, Rhun ap Iorwerth MS will say:

“She claims to have more influence over the Prime Minister than I or anyone else outside Labour could have, but what’s her leverage?

“The throw back at me in the weekly session of First Minister’s questions is that the current First Minister can pick up the phone to Number 10 in a way I can only dream of doing.

“It’s deeply undemocratic, and deeply disrespectful – not to me, but to the people of Wales.

“It demonstrates that some still to believe the so called ‘respect agenda’ between the UK government and devolved governments can only exist if the Prime Minister and the First Minister belong to the same party. 

“But even if it were true that Wales’s First Minister has a hotline to Downing Street, there is little evidence that she gets past the switchboard.

“Take the agonising recent example of the devolution of policing.

“The First Minister stood on this stage pledging her party’s apparent enthusiasm for it, only for the Home Secretary to directly contradict her comments a few days later. In fact it was a pretty gruesome slapping down of Labour’s leader in Wales.

“So where the First Minister has tried to bring some nuance – flying the odd kite to try to make a headline – I’m sure I’ll be seen as something of a nuisance in a way the current First Minister isn’t but that’s because I promise to be very, very focused on standing up for Wales.

“I want it to be a constructive relationship with the Prime Minister and I make no apologies for making it clear to Keir Starmer in meeting after meeting that my loyalty and that of my ministers will be to the people of Wales, and that we won’t be backing down from the challenge.

“My next move will be to be transparent about the roadblocks UK Government is laying down, and publicly and robustly holding the Prime Minister to account for that.

“On the devolution of justice and policing.

“The devolution of welfare, broadcasting, large energy projects.

“Control over the Crown Estates.

“A fair funding formula. 

“Consequentials from the rail projects staggeringly designated as ‘England and Wales’ without a single metre of track set to be built the other side of Offa’s Dyke.

“New leadership for Wales, mustn’t just be a campaign slogan – it must also be seen through the lens of wider possibilities – unburdened by a loyalty to Westminster which has held Wales back for too long.”