Wales after Drakeford: what resignation means for Welsh politics

Welsh Labour is gearing up for a leadership contest ahead of the UK's next general election, after Mark Drakeford announced that he is standing down as first minister. 

Drakeford revealed his decision at a news conference in Cardiff last Wednesday, "exactly five years and one day" after he was confirmed as the party's leader, said BBC Wales political reporter David Deans. The 69-year-old politician said that he would be stepping down in March and that nominations for his successor would "open shortly".

"I'm confident the process can be concluded by the end of the spring term," added Drakeford, who told the BBC that the looming prospect of a general election had been "much in my mind" when weighing up whether to retire now. "I think it is better, in Wales, that people know the person who will look to work alongside Keir Starmer," he said.

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Why is Drakeford standing down?

The Welsh Labour leader's wife of more than 45 years, Clare, died suddenly in January, and "bereavement has hit Drakeford hard", said Richard Wyn Jones, director of Cardiff University's Wales Governance Centre, in The Guardian. 

Although Drakeford received an outpouring of sympathy from both sides of the political divide, "high-profile public office offers little space or respite for those consumed by intense private grief", Wyn Jones wrote, so "he can hardly be blamed for being ready for a period out of the limelight". 

All the same, said the BBC's Deans, "the timing of his announcement was a surprise". Drakeford always said he would step down as first minister after serving five years, but did so a week before the Welsh government announces spending plans for the next year that ministers have warned will be "extremely difficult".

Who will succeed Drakeford?

The "spotlight is likely to shine on some of Welsh Labour's most high-profile cabinet members" in the coming weeks, said ITV News, as the race to be Drakeford's successor gathers pace. 

Just days prior to his resignation announcement, a YouGov poll commissioned by ITV Wales and Cardiff University asked voters who they would like to be the next leader of Welsh Labour and first minister of Wales.

Of more than 1,000 respondents, 72% said they "didn't know" who they would prefer. But of the named ministers, Vaughan Gething, "the man in charge of the Welsh economy", led by 11%, the site reported. Education Minister Jeremy Miles and Health Minister Eluned Morgan followed on 3% each.

Welsh Labour MPs who spoke to Politico reportedly said that Gething and Miles were "broadly seen as early front runners".

Both prospective candidates, along with Deputy Minister for Social Partnership Hannah Blythyn, have been "working the circuit" of Welsh party members for more than 18 months, a source claimed.

However, enthusiasm "is not brimming", the site added. Another Labour MP said that "it's a mixed and not very exhilarating bag of people".

What next?

Whoever wins the leadership race will be tasked with managing the delicate balance of power in the Senedd, the Welsh parliament, where Labour has only 30 of the 60 seats, but holds the post of first minister in a cooperation deal with nationalists Plaid Cymru.

And although Welsh Labour has governed since the advent of Welsh devolution in 1997, and retains a healthy lead in recent polls, Drakeford's approval ratings have declined sharply in recent months.

"The challenge for Drakeford’s successor is to reverse that trend," said James Heale in The Spectator. During the pandemic, his "soft-spoken manner and handling of the Covid virus impressed Welsh voters", who "rewarded him" with an increased majority at the 2021 Welsh election. But "post-pandemic, there are signs that he is no longer an electoral asset".

The first minister offered a sober and reasonable counterpoint to then PM Boris Johnson during Covid, said Wales Online's Welsh affairs editor Will Hayward, but the crisis also exposed Drakeford's shortcomings, including "over caution and slow decision making".

According to analysis by The Telegraph, over the course of his five years in power, key public services have "got worse, when compared with England", with longer hospital waiting times and a weaker economic performance, while crime levels and council tax rates have risen more steeply.

Starmer's team is now likely to "take a close interest" in the forthcoming contest to find his successor ahead of the UK election, said The New Statesman's Freddie Hayward. 

Drakeford "represents a different strand of politics" to Starmer. He supported Jeremy Corbyn for the Labour leadership and has introduced polices "with dubious popularity", such as his 20mph speed limit on urban roads around Wales – the debate over which "will not be top of Labour’s list of ploys to win a majority", Hayward continued.

Those in Westminster "will want to reduce the chance of friction between a Labour government in London and one in Cardiff", and Drakeford’s successor "will be key to that relationship".