‘Starmer failed Wales’: Plaid Cymru first minister Rhun ap Iorwerth on nationhood and new challenges

Rhun ap Iorwerth, the new first minster of Wales , was following on the radio as Keir Starmer , the UK prime minister, prepared to quit on Monday morning. The Plaid Cymru leader was travelling the more than 300km south from his constituency of Bangor Conwy Môn, which includes Anglesey and the port of Holyhead. “By the time I got into Cardiff at 10am, it had all happened,” he says, as we chat at one end of the long cabinet table in the Welsh government’s offices in the city. We sip water in air-conditioned cool while outside Cardiffians melt in the sticky heat. Ap Iorwerth (53), a former senior BBC political journalist, notes that any prime minister resigning is a historic (although in Britain these days, also a frequent) event. “You can only watch on as an observer,” he says. Yet ap Iorwerth was no mere observer. He was a part of the reason. It was his left-leaning nationalist Plaid Cymru’s thumping victory over Starmer’s party in last month’s Senedd elections that ended Labour’s century-old dominance of Welsh politics. That helped to drain much of what remained of the UK prime minister’s shattered authority. A UK Labour leader won’t last long if they cannot hold their party’s traditional heartland of Wales, and it was ap Iorwerth who wrested it from Starmer’s grasp. He empathises with Starmer on a personal level. “Politics is a difficult place to be. Nobody could ignore the raw emotion in his voice [as he resigned].” Lest he might appear too soft and cuddly, what comes next is a momentary flash of steel in ap Iorwerth’s eyes. “The sympathy from me is there, but what I also saw [on Monday] was a prime minister who failed to engage on the question of Wales.” After winning the Senedd election five weeks ago, ap Iorwerth, one of three national leaders on the island of Britain including Starmer (Scotland’s John Swinney is the other), couldn’t even get a meeting with his UK prime minister counterpart. They had a call. “One would have expected that time would have been made to meet, especially with the walloping Labour got in Wales. You’d think he’d want to understand what happened. It showed they weren’t serious about addressing the problems.” He believes “chaos” engulfed Starmer’s administration, but he also blames a dismissive attitude in Westminster towards his nation: “There’s been evidence for generations that Wales is just not that important to the UK government. It is an afterthought at best.” He agrees it is likely former Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham will be his UK government opposite number by mid-July. Burnham has always said he is a true believer in devolution, the decentralisation of power in the UK that led to the creation of the Welsh Senedd and its government – it has full power over health, education and housing, but not foreign affairs, the full breadth of taxation or defence. “Our paths have never crossed,” he says of Burnham. But he hopes his experience of devolution at a metro level in Manchester makes for a better relationship with Wales. “My loyalty is the same, whoever I deal with – it is to Wales. But I want a new relationship with Westminster based on respect and understanding of what is holding Wales back. My challenge to the next UK prime minister is: will you do the right thing? “I am making myself open to a constructive discussion, a resetting of our relationship. Engage with me, please.” Ap Iorwerth is in Dublin on Wednesday for the latest Ireland-Wales Forum, regular bilateral meetings between the two nations at government level. This week’s agenda includes education research and sports diplomacy, while the two governments are permanently engaged on issues including offshore energy projects and maritime links. Rhun ap Iorwerth promised in his election campaign to focus on health, education and the economy. It is also ap Iorwerth’s first trip abroad as first minister. As the leader of a party that was founded to pursue Welsh independence, and which has waited a century for national power, the chance to represent Welsh nationhood abroad, and have that recognised by others, has an emotional as well a political appeal. He says the relationship with the Republic is key, for “trade, proximity, energy, cultural and also Celtic reasons ... I think we can do more with the relationship and make it deeper”. He says this will be the most international-facing government that Wales has had. “I am an internationalist, but Wales is my building block.” Ap Iorwerth, a tall, imposing man, speaks assertively in precisely enunciated tones – he was, after all, a television journalist for 20 years before he became a politician in 2013. There is an intensity to his patter, with barely a misplaced syllable. He doesn’t so much speak sentences as carve them. Yet he can still channel enough of the empathy that is stock in trade for a left-leaning politician. As a political communicator, there are not many better on the island of Britain. He’d shred Starmer in the House of Commons. The first minister shares Starmer’s seriousness, but not all of his stiffness. He reveals that, as a young political journalist at the turn of the millennium, he accompanied former Welsh Labour leader Rhodri Morgan on the first foreign trip by a Welsh first minister, to Dublin when Bertie Ahern was Taoiseach. At which pubs did he darken the door? “What happens on tour stays on tour. Being from Ynys Môn [the Welsh for Anglesey], we’re just from across the water. We know the pubs of Dublin very well.” Later, he mentions the well-known culture pub O’Donoghue’s and, intriguingly, the late-night party spot Bruxelles. While he has spent the past three years plotting Plaid Cymru’s route to power, the serious, careful ap Iorwerth is not beyond the occasional comic mishap. The BBC reported that last month, on the day election counting revealed his party had trounced not just Labour, but Nigel Farage ’s Reform UK, ap Iorwerth forgot the keys to his Cardiff flat and had to sleep in a Premier Inn. At least it was the right hotel name for a first minister. His father, Welsh language and culture campaigner Edward Morus Jones, brought his son’s house keys down from Anglesey, handing them over on the steps of the Senedd next morning, while ecstatic Plaid members celebrated nearby. Ap Iorwerth’s parents have helped to shape his political as well as personal world view. It is said that he chose to ditch a high-profile journalism career and enter politics in 2013 after the death the previous December of his mother, Gwyneth Morus Jones, who was also a cultural and community activist. “I know my mother made a huge contribution to her community and to Wales,” he told Wales Online at the time. “Seeing the things said about her and the gratitude shown towards the work she’d done showed me quite clearly that I couldn’t go through life without making a contribution if that was at all possible.” Now he leads his nation. Ap Iorwerth promised during the recent election campaign to focus not on independence – at least not for now – but more on the issues that affect the quality of life for Welsh people: health, education and the economy. He talks of growing the economy. But Plaid’s most eye-catching election promise was the expansion of state-funded childcare services to the parents of all children aged from nine months to four years: 20 hours free a week for all children in the age bracket, and up to 30 hours for children whose parents are in work, education or training. How much will it cost? “About £400 million annually by the full roll out.” His political rivals, principally Plaid’s main opposition in the Senedd, Reform UK, argue it is unaffordable and means he will have to put up taxes. Ap Iopwerth is careful to say that he will not put up income tax, although that leaves him wiggle room on other levies. He promises savings through better procurement and more tax take through growth. “We announced £50 million last week as a down payment [on the childcare]. We have a plan for our first 100 days in government and all 96 items have been actioned. We are moving forward.” He is also demanding more from the UK government. Plaid argues it is owed £5 billion in infrastructural funding from the way the UK government’s rail project, HS2, was categorised. He also wants more powers devolved, such as justice and policing, and administration of the Crown Estate in Wales, which would give income streams. British media has noted that independence-minded nationalists now lead the governments of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland: an arc of pro-EU Celtic trouble makers, as many in Westminster see it. That’s not how ap Iorwerth sees it, however. He sees “immense value” in working with the leaders of the North and Scotland: “Michelle [O’Neill of Sinn Féin] and John [Swinney] were two of the first people I spoke to after I became first minister. We share frustrations when it comes to the attitude of the UK government. “But I’m not driven by wanting to break up the UK. I’m driven by wanting to build up Wales. I’ve been on a lifelong journey of belief in my nation.”