Plaid Cymru leader says he hopes to be made first minister as early as Tuesday | Plaid Cymru
Plaid Cymru’s leader hopes to become Wales’ first minister as early as Tuesday after his party won a historic victory in the Senedd election, clearly beating Labor and delaying the UK Reformation.
Plaid failed to win a majority in the Welsh parliament but Rhun ap Iorwerth said on Sunday he hoped other parties would work with him and told UK Labor not to punish Wales for the result.
Asked on BBC Radio Wales when he hoped to be elected as first minister, ap Iorwerth said: “We’re ready to go as soon as possible. We’re hoping for Tuesday. If there’s a delay it won’t be too much. We want to get started.”
Ap Iorwerth said Plaid had put on the table a clear program for the government that it hoped would win support from across the Senedd. “We want to actively seek support from people in other parties. I will cooperate openly,” he said.
The Plaid leader said he had spoken to all party leaders except Nigel Farage, who said he “didn’t want to talk to me”.
Labor has just nine seats left in the Senedd, ending 100 years of dominance in Wales.
Ap Iorwerth said: “Labour can now go one of two ways at UK level. They may decide to punish Wales because Wales has turned its back on Labor and said: ‘Right, you’re not getting anything at the moment.’
“It is difficult to see Labor planning backwards in this case. Or they are reflecting and accepting that the indifference shown by the UK Labor leadership towards Wales must end.”
Ap Iorwerth stated that he did not believe Keir Starmer would stay in Downing Street for a long time and said: “I will guide the next British prime minister, whoever he is, to start looking at Wales in a different way.”
Asked whether Wales might be treated differently if someone like Andy Burnham took over from Starmer, ap Iorwerth said: “I think you might be right. It’s clear to me that Keir Starmer has got it very, very wrong in the indifference shown towards Wales. Keir Starmer could change his ways, or Labor could choose someone else to do things differently.”
He said he believed cooperation could also be made with other nationalist parties in Scotland and Northern Ireland. Speaking to the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg on Sunday, he said: “There are many different ways we can work together. There are different ways of looking at our common policies, for example the way we use the natural resources on our coasts.”
“But there is a deeper meaning to being able to act together to call for reducing inequality on these islands.”
Following the resignation of former first minister Eluned Morgan, Welsh Labor interim leader Ken Skates said his members would meet on Monday to discuss how they would approach a vote on the next first minister, but described the idea of his party teaming up with Reform to keep Ap Iorwerth out as “deeply unpleasant”.
He said his relationship with Plaid would be “mature” but that it would serve the people of Wales, not AP Iorwerth’s party.
