Tag: Welsh Labour

Jeremy Corbyn has downplayed the Brexit crisis by claiming that poverty and climate change are far greater priorities for Labour and the country. Addressing Scottish Labour’s annual conference, Corbyn said his party was not “obsessed by constitutional questions, like the others are. And fundamentally, the destruction of our climate is a class issue,” he said. “We believe that the real divide in our society is not between people who voted yes or no for [Scottish] independence. It’s not between people who voted to remain or to leave the EU,” he told party members in Dundee. [There] is no such thing as a Labour Brexit or a jobs-first Brexit”. The Scottish party has been beset by bitter rows over Europe after a conference statement by its two MEPs, David Martin and Catherine Stihler, was allegedly edited to remove remarks in support of a people’s vote. Corbyn said Labour would commit his party to a target of reducing carbon emissions to net zero by 2050, a goal many climate experts and campaigners say is not fast or ambitious enough to halt runaway climate change. It’s not just an ecological priority – it’s a socialist priority too.” Corbyn also addressed the antisemitism problems engulfing Labour, saying he was “utterly determined” to rid the party of the scourge. “The only thing that can hold us back is if we were to turn our fire on each other rather than on the Tory government and the wealthy establishment interests they represent,” he told delegates.

Newport West Labour Party confirmed in a tweet that Mr Flynn died on Sunday, saying he was "a hero to many of us". He was an independent thinker who was a credit to the Labour Party. He campaigned on a wide-range of issues, including benefits, animal welfare and devolution. "He was an independent thinker who was a credit to the Labour Party. Mr Corbyn's deputy, Tom Watson, said Mr Flynn was "one of the great characters in politics" adding he was "loved and revered by many", Report Jayne Bryant, the Welsh assembly member for Mr Flynn's constituency, first met the MP when she was nine years old. She told BBC Radio Wales: "He absolutely loved Newport. "He really, really cared for people and I think that sometimes gets lost in politics." Conservative Welsh Secretary Alun Cairns said Mr Flynn was an "exceptional constituency MP", and said it was a "privilege to work with him". 'Fascinating' "We've lost someone who put his values and his beliefs at the heart of everything he said and did," wrote Blaenau Gwent AM Alun Davies. Jo Stevens, the Cardiff Central MP, said Mr Flynn was a "kind, principled, fascinating man who was devoted to his constituents".

It has been dominated by a series of elections as all party groups in the assembly, for one reason or another, sought a change in leadership. And it was a year that saw the first minister Carwyn Jones leave the office he held for nine years, following a long contest to replace him. While some of the inquiries launched after Carl Sargeant's death completed in 2018, two of the most significant did not. The main inquiry into what happened, to be led by QC Paul Bowen, has yet to get off the ground in the face of legal action from the Sargeant family. All opposition leaders had faced pressure to go but Plaid Cymru's Leanne Wood, which has the third largest group of AMs, fought on despite challenges from Adam Price and Rhun ap Iorwerth. Mr Price promised to put Welsh independence at the centre of Plaid Cymru's political platform, and was successful. Paul Davies became Tory assembly leader after he defeated Suzy Davies in what was arguably the most polite, and deeply uneventful, contest of the year. The new operator, Transport for Wales, suffered a series of cancellations a month after it got started, in November. A row brewed between with the UK and Welsh governments about whether devolved powers would be lessened after the UK left the EU - and in response the assembly passed an act that enshrined EU law in Welsh law. Will Welsh politics be calmer in the next 12 months than the last, or will the conditions continue to be bracing?