Labour taking Reform threat in Wales ‘seriously', says Morgan
Baroness Eluned Morgan told Sky News voters in Wales needed to understand Reform as a 'threat', warning that 'things that they're used to' such as free prescriptions and free school meals for primary school children 'could be snatched away'.
She said: 'We're taking it very seriously, and we think the threat from Reform is a very serious threat.'
Her interview comes as polling by More In Common on behalf of Sky News found 28% of people in Wales would back Reform at the Senedd elections in 2026, putting the party in first place.
Mr Farage's party is targeting the Senedd as it looks to build on its success at the English local elections earlier this year, and unveiled former Wales secretary David Jones as another ex-Tory defector on Monday as part of its push.
The poll, published on Tuesday, showed Plaid Cymru in second place on 26% and Labour in third place on 23%, before a long drop to the Conservatives on 10% and the Liberal Democrats on 7%.
If the results were replicated next year, it could mean the end of Labour's 26 years of domination in Wales, where it has held power since devolution.
Baroness Morgan acknowledged there was 'a possibility' that Reform could become the largest party in the Senedd, saying it was 'really concerning', but added it would be 'difficult for them to rule by themselves'.
But she ruled out entering a coalition with the party, saying: 'I wouldn't touch Reform with a bargepole.'
The First Minister also insisted that Labour would be able to win voters back by being 'authentic' and 'clear with people about what we stand for', rather than trying to 'out-Reform Reform'.
She said: 'I think we've got to lead with our values. We're about bringing communities together, not dividing them, and I do think that what Reform is interested in is dividing people and people do need to make choices on things like that.
'So, what I won't be doing in Wales is chasing Reform down a path where we can try and out-Reform Reform. I'm not interested in that, because those aren't my values.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Guardian
17 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Is this tough US-EU trade deal a triumph for Brexit Britain? Only in leavers' most delusional fantasies
Those who misled the country over Brexit are usually quieter these days. They do not hang their heads in shame, but change the subject whenever they can. They deflect with their new war-cry that Britain must also leave the European convention on human rights. As the effects of their wicked Brexit folly worsen by the month, they rarely get a chance to whoop: 'We were right!' So their glee was unrestrained when the great US global bully gave Britain a less hard beating with a 10% tariff on its goods, compared with the EU, which was walloped with 15%. Their joy overflowed when the business and trade secretary, Jonathan Reynolds, conceded: 'I'm absolutely clear, this is a benefit of being out of the European Union, having our independent trade policy, absolutely no doubt about that.' But what else can a trade secretary, speaking through gritted teeth, actually say? In his attempts to attract foreign investment, he can hardly tell the truth about the damage done by leaving the EU. These advocates of Brexit should gloat while they can. When the French prime minister called the EU's deal with Donald Trump a 'soumission' (submission), Kwasi Kwarteng seized on the word in a piece for the Telegraph, writing: 'For the French, with their memories of capitulation to the Nazis in 1940, the word is even more associated with abject humiliation than it is in English.' Yes, that's the same Kwarteng who hurled the British economy over a cliff only three years ago. 'This trade deal is the EU's greatest humiliation since Britain voted to leave', read the headline on his column. But he would never confess that the difference between a 10% and 15% tariff with the US is minimal, since we trade twice as much with the EU as the US. It barely equates to the regular variation in exchange rates: in other words, it's 'a rounding error', the Centre for European Reform's trade expert, John Springford, told me, when compared with the hammer blow Britain gave itself with Brexit. The UK-India trade deal signed with the Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi, last week was greeted with another Brexiter whoop from the Conservative peer Daniel Hannan. Also writing in the Telegraph, he said: 'My party, and Brexiteers more widely, should be taking credit for having done what all the clever Europhiles have spent six years telling us was impossible. Instead of moaning, we should welcome Starmer's belated understanding that world's biggest and fastest-growing markets are outside the EU.' But the Tory leader took another view: 'Keir Starmer called this 'historic.' It's not historic, we've just been shafted!' Kemi Badenoch said, dismissing the India agreement as a bad deal that would increase immigration. I don't know whether clever men like Kwarteng and Hannan are blinded by Brexit monomania or paralysed by the awful knowledge of the damage they have inflicted on their country, unable to confess an act of treachery and delusion hardly matched in British history. But as ever, facts are too inconvenient for them to deal with. Yes, the India deal is the biggest and most substantial trade deal since leaving the EU. Yes, it's a deal that would have been impossible to do from inside the union. But how big is it? It will add 0.13% to our economy. That's better than the Australia agreement, worth just 0.08%, the New Zealand deal, worth 0.03%, or the proposed US agreement, worth 0.16%, according to Department for Business and Trade analysis. But our fragile economy needs all the help it can get, so hurrah for Brexit and our new trade deals! But the gloaters ignore the context: our great Brexit losses. Here's the Office for Budget Responsibility's assessment: 'Our forecasts have assumed that the volume of UK imports and exports will both be 15% lower than if we had remained in the EU.' That 15% loss in trade 'will lead to a 4% reduction in the potential productivity of the UK economy'. In other words, as Jonty Bloom of the New World calculates, we need 50 India trade deals to make up for Brexit, because Britain does more than 40% of its trade with the EU – more if you include the European Economic Area and Switzerland. India has just 2% of our trade. Brexiters bleat that Labour is sneaking us into the EU by the back door, with deals on Horizon, the EU's research and innovation funding programme; soon, hopefully, Erasmus; and maybe a youth experience scheme. We hope for agricultural products and energy deals. But even these, say the trade experts, are still small potatoes. Major attempts to rescue Britain's 4% loss in productivity since 2020 hit the concrete walls of Boris Johnson's monumentally bad trade and cooperation agreement. Brexit zealots protest against agreements to keep a dynamic alignment with EU standards that would make trade easier. But it doesn't apply to our internal environmental standards: outside EU rules, we have let our water quality fall behind the EU. More than 85% of bathing waters in the EU are rated excellent compared with just 64% in the UK, with the gap rising every year, reports the European Movement. Public opinion has shifted rapidly: we are now a 'Bregretful' country, where only 31% still think it was right to leave and 61% say Brexit has been more of a failure than a success. Who do they blame? The Conservatives and Boris Johnson are top of the list, with 88% and 84% respectively holding them responsible. More than two-thirds (67%) blame Nigel Farage. A majority of Britons (56%) want to rejoin the EU as the grim reaper carries off old Brexiters, replacing them with young, pro-European voters. Don't expect bolder moves from the Labour government in its current frame of mind. Though defence and security draw us towards ever closer union, public opinion is not to be trusted. If people were confronted now with actual re-entry terms – paying in, free movement, joining the euro, no special deals – their answers might change. The mood might also be different if the far right continues its gains in EU countries, dividing the union's values. What might it take to throw off the economic, political and psychological darkness of Brexit? A clever – or Cleverly? – new Tory leader daring to break with the past, confessing the error of Brexit and taking us back into the EU, once and for all. It may take another generation to recover. Polly Toynbee is a Guardian columnist
Times
30 minutes ago
- Times
Labour ‘cronyism' as firm linked to tech secretary wins contracts
A consultancy that had a senior staff member seconded to work for the technology secretary while Labour was in opposition has won more than £10 million worth of government contracts since the election. Public Digital, which specialises in transforming digital services, seconded one of its partners to work for the technology secretary, Peter Kyle, and help write Labour's technology policies before the general election. A donation by the firm was registered with the Electoral Commission as being equivalent to £100,000. The company has received a string of contracts to overhaul IT systems across government since the election last year. These included a £5 million contract to help oversee a government programme to reform local public services, which was awarded by the Cabinet Office. Public Digital was also given £3 million to lead the Post Office's IT transformation. Kyle's department did not award any of Public Digital's contracts but the technology secretary has been a vocal advocate of using technology to reform the public sector. His department hired Emily Middleton, the Public Digital partner seconded to his office last year, in a senior civil service role shortly after the election. While on secondment she had continued to be paid by Public Digital. A Public Digital spokesman said the firm 'has a proven track record of delivering exceptional digital transformation services'. He added: 'Our team's expertise, not political affiliations, has earned us the trust of government bodies.' A government spokesman said all contracts were awarded under procurement rules and that some of them were managed via a third-party procurement company. The spokesman added that Public Digital had also won government and quango contracts under the previous Conservative administration. The value of Whitehall contacts won by Public Digital, however, has surged since Labour entered office. Public Digital was given on average £2.56 million a year from government departments in the three years before the election. In the 12 months after, the firm has been awarded £10.2 million, a fourfold increase in annual cash terms. The Conservative Party has called for an independent investigation into the links between Public Digital and the Labour Party, while the country's biggest anti-corruption charity has raised questions about potential conflicts of interest. Alex Burghart, the shadow Cabinet Office minister, called for an 'urgent and independent investigation' into Public Digital's relationship with the government. 'More sleaze and scandal from Starmer's government,' he said. Duncan Hames, director of policy at Transparency International UK and a former MP, said: 'This case raises serious questions about how public money is now spent under the new government. 'When a company gives senior staff to support a political party and then receives valuable government contracts after they take power, this raises concerns about potential conflicts of interest.' Public Digital was first embroiled in a row over alleged Labour cronyism shortly after last year's election. Before Middleton began to work for Kyle, she was also seconded to Labour Together, a think tank with close ties to Sir Keir Starmer and his chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney. She was at the centre of cronyism allegations last year when she was appointed to a senior civil service role in Kyle's Department for Science, Innovation and Technology weeks after the election. She was hired as a department director general in a fast-track process, officially classed as an 'exception' appointment, which bypassed the usual open recruitment process. The government said at the time that Middleton's appointment, which came with a salary upwards of £125,000 a year, followed the appropriate civil service recruitment rules. One of Public Digital's executives also became a director at HMRC months after the election, but stepped down from the position in April. A government source said it had been 'ridiculous' and 'foolish' to appoint Middleton to a director general role, especially as it put a target on Labour's back so early into Starmer's term. 'She may be very clever, but that is a very senior position for someone who is quite early in their career,' the source added. Her appointment was one of several to be subject to an investigation by the Civil Service Commission in the months after Labour's election victory. The commission said it was 'largely satisfied' with the current recruitment processes in place. A government spokesman said: 'All contracts are awarded in line with public procurement legislation. 'Public Digital is a leading digital consultancy and a long-running supplier for government and the wider public sector, holding a number of contracts awarded under previous administrations.'
Times
31 minutes ago
- Times
Economic confidence falls to record low as tax rises loom
Confidence in the British economy among business leaders has tumbled to its lowest level since the Brexit vote, as bosses fear the impact of tax rises and President Trump's trade war. An index that tracked optimism in the economy produced by the Institute of Directors, a lobby group, slid to -72 in July from -53 in June, the worst reading since the research started exactly nine years ago. Tax and the cost of employment were the main issues raised regarding the government by a survey of 894 finance directors, as they predicted wages and costs would rise and revenue and exports would fall. The figures add to pressure on Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, to demonstrate the government's ability to reverse the economy's declining growth and avoid months of debilitating speculation of further tax rises after a £25 billion increase in employers' national insurance contributions (NICs).
