Vaughan Gething has won the Welsh Labour Party leadership contest and is set to become the first black leader of Wales’ semi-autonomous government. Photo / PA via AP
Vaughan Gething has won the Welsh Labour Party leadership contest and is set to become the first black leader of Wales’ semi-autonomous government. Photo / PA via AP
Vaughan Gething won the Welsh Labour Party leadership contest on Saturday, and is set to become the first black leader of Wales’ semi-autonomous government.
Gething, the son of a Welsh father and a Zambian mother, will be the first black leader of a government in the UK — and, according to him, of any European country.
“Today, we turn a page in the book of our nation’s history. A history we write together,” Gething said in his victory speech. “Not just because I have the honour of becoming the first black leader in any European country — but because the generational dial has jumped too.”
Vaughan Gething speaks to former Welsh first minister Carwyn Jones after being elected the next Welsh Labour leader and First Minister of Wales. Photo / PA via AP
“I want us to use this moment as a starting point for a more confident march into the future,” he added.
Gething, who is currently Wales’ minister for the economy, narrowly beat Welsh Education Minister Jeremy Miles in a race to replace First Minister Mark Drakeford. Drakeford, 69, announced late last year he would step down once a replacement was chosen.
Gething, 50, won 51.7 per cent of the votes cast by members of the party and affiliated trade unions, and Miles 48.3 per cent.
Once he is confirmed on Wednesday by the Welsh parliament, the Senedd, where Labour is the largest party, Gething will become the fifth first minister since Wales’ national legislature was established in 1999.
Once Gething is in the post, three of the UK’s four governments will have non-white leaders. UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has Indian heritage, while Scottish First Minister Humza Yousaf was born to a Pakistani family in Britain.
Northern Ireland is led jointly by Michelle O’Neill and Emma Little-Pengelly, meaning that for the first time there are no white male heads of government in the UK.
Wales, which has a population of about three million, is one of four parts of the United Kingdom, along with England, Scotland and Northern Ireland. The British government in London is responsible for defence, foreign affairs and other UK-wide issues, while administrations in Cardiff, Edinburgh and Belfast control areas such as education and health.
Vaughan Gething is congratulated by Labour supporters in a lecture hall at Cardiff University after being elected the next Welsh Labour leader and First Minister of Wales in Cardiff on Saturday, March 16, 2024. Gething has won the Welsh Labour Party leadership contest and is set to become the first black leader of Wales’ semi-autonomous government. Gething, who is currently Wales' minister for the economy, beat Education Minister Jeremy Miles in a race to replace First Minister Mark Drakeford. Ben Birchall / PA via AP
Gething was Wales’ health minister during the Covid pandemic, and as the minister for the economy has had to deal with fallout from Tata Steel’s plan to close both blast furnaces at its plant in Port Talbot, eliminating 2800 jobs at one of Wales’ biggest employers.
He’ll take over a government that is often at odds with Sunak’s Conservative administration in London. Wales has also seen a wave of protests over environmental rules by farmers, similar to those that have roiled France and other European countries.
Gething was the front-runner to win the contest, though his campaign was rattled by the revelation he’d accepted $418,000 in donations from a recycling company that was found guilty of environmental offenses and breaching health and safety regulations.
Gething said that the donations were properly declared under electoral rules.
Other party leaders offered congratulations to Gething, along with a dose of scepticism.
“I daresay it will be business as usual, because he’s been cut of the same cloth as Mark Drakeford,” Welsh Conservative leader Andrew R.T. Davies said.
