STORM clouds are gathering around the position of Welsh Conservative leader Andrew RT Davies as discontent increases within the Party’s Senedd group.
After over a year of briefing and counter-briefing, the seven decided that the time for change had come.
Those involved include high-profile Conservative MSs in senior Shadow Cabinet roles.
THE DIVISION BELL TOLLS
Last Thursday, November 28, seven Conservative MSs met with Mr Davies in his Senedd office and asked him to stand down. The Conservative leader point blank refused. Instead, he called his MSs’ bluff by calling a special meeting of the Senedd group for next Tuesday, December 3, for a vote of confidence in his leadership.
If Mr Davies fails to persuade enough of his fellow MSs that he is still the right person to lead the Party forward and into the 2026 Senedd election, the Group will want to move quickly to replace him. In a parliamentary system, the leader of a parliamentary group must be able to command the loyalty of others in his Group. The Welsh Conservatives’ worst-case scenario is that Mr Davies sees off the challenge to his authority and that members of the frontbench decline to serve as Shadow Ministers.
If that happens, the Welsh Conservatives, already beset by back-biting and division, will struggle to convince voters they are ready to govern Wales with Andrew RT Davies as a potential First Minister. Other members of the Senedd Group have reservations about Mr Davies’s leadership and the lack of a positive strategy.
PERSONAL POPULARITY, POLITICAL NAIVETY
Mr Davies is popular among party members, and his Senedd colleagues generally like him. However, his leadership is in question following a series of communications faux pas that his critics say ridicule him and the Welsh Conservatives.
Never the most natural of media performers, the Welsh Conservative leader is often robotic, hectoring, and stilted in public. He comes over far better in person and is admired as a tireless campaigner who interacts well with the public on the doorstep. He has overcome considerable disadvantages and serious illness and also banked a lot of credit when the Conservative vote held up in the 2021 Senedd election.
However, Andrew RT Davies has always been something of a loose cannon. For an extended period, his communications and communications management have been the subject of mockery from the public and anger from his colleagues.
It is an open secret that Andrew RT Davies does not compose his social media output. A dyslexic who relies on his memory instead of written briefings, he relies on others to communicate on his behalf. Therein lies the issue. Where Andrew RT Davies ends and his communications operation begins is a cause of huge tension.
Mr Davies is loyal to his closest advisors, even in the teeth of the controversy and ridicule they engender. That loyalty manifests itself as stubbornness. The Conservatives have media-savvy MSs, but they are often sidelined in favour of another disastrous press release or media comment bearing their leader’s name. Mr Davies’s loyalty to the apparatchiks he chose means he will not listen to those who urge greater professionalism, a more proactive media operation, and the formulation of a coherent policy platform.
As things stand, everyone knows what Mr Davies is against but not what he and his Party stand for.
AMATEURISH OPERATION ATTRACTS IRE
The Herald spoke with several Conservative Party members and officials since Emily Price broke the story on Nation Cymru.
Most of them spoke warmly of Mr Davies’s preparedness to campaign and press the flesh and his charm and humour in private.
One member told us, “The members love him, but that doesn’t mean Andrew is the best leader. Too much is done on the fly. It’s embarrassing when a frontbencher says one thing, and a briefing or remark from the leader contradicts it. It’s even worse when you consider we are eighteen months from an election and have no idea what our policies will be. Our approach to the news agenda means we’re always reacting to something instead of being proactive. We are not shaping the narrative and we should be.”
One frustrated Party member said: “Where’s the policy? All we’re getting is hot air! Even a short-term leader with a plan to take us through to 2026 would be better than this.”
Another told us that “The fault lies as much with the professional Party and those advising Andrew as it does with him.
“Someone really needs to get a grip and professionalise how we work together to give the public something other than the word “no” as a policy. I would like Andrew to continue as leader, but someone needs to shake up the back office staff, and we must start making a Conservative case for Wales.”
Several directed even stronger criticism at the Conservative Group’s backroom staff and Mr Davies’s working relationship with George Carroll, a Vale of Glamorgan councillor.
“It’s always 20 miles an hour, the size of the Senedd, or immigration. The Welsh Government hasn’t got any say on immigration. The 20mph thing has been done to death. It’s the law. Yes, we think it needs changing and should be more sensible, but going on about it is redundant. It’s a nice thing to bash Labour with during an election campaign when we present an alternative. Before then, it’s old hat. There are far more important things to spend time and money on than banging a tin drum.
“As for the Senedd, there WILL be 96 members after May 2026. The Welsh Conservatives – especially their leader – should concentrate on making sure as many of those new members are Welsh Conservatives as possible. I couldn’t believe it when a media release went out criticising Reform for backing an expanded Senedd at their conference. Why? Who is appealing to? It’s not going to attract votes from Labour or Plaid voters.”
A DIVIDED PARTY
There have been some extraordinary blue-on-blue briefings by those close to Mr Davies or his advisors.
Following the General Election campaign, the Welsh Conservative Senedd Press Office viciously briefed against former Conservative MP Stephen Crabb, who had the temerity to suggest a change of leadership was due in Wales to coincide with that in the UK Party. That caused enormous resentment, and it was to Mr Crabb’s credit that he didn’t rise to the despicable bait.
Meanwhile, Boris Johnson’s former Head of Communications, veteran journalist and broadcaster Guto Harri, was described as “moving in Welsh nationalist circles” when he suggested Mr Davies should step down. Mr Harri said the Party needed a change of leadership to give Welsh Conservative MSs a “sense of purpose and a real sense of ambition about why they’re there”.
That’s remarkably similar to a criticism levelled at Pembrokeshire County Councillor Aled Thomas, the Chair of the Conservative Rural Forum and a Party candidate in July’s General Election. Cllr Thomas dared criticise the proposition, supported by Andrew RT Davies’s advisor George Carroll, that the Conservative Manifesto in 2026 should contain a pledge to abolish the Welsh Parliament. He was the subject of a claim that “there are voices in favour of devolution in the far west who have Welsh nationalist beliefs.”
Anyone thinking that sort of behaviour promotes the Welsh Conservative cause and increases its popularity with the electorate is semi-detached from reality. That suggests a Conservative schism between the Party in the East (centred around Cardiff, Newport and the Vale of Glamorgan) and the rest of Wales. That’s ironic considering the usual Conservative claim that the Senedd is centred too much on parochial metropolitan concerns instead of wider national priorities.
Whatever happens on Tuesday, the drama won’t be over.
