Andrew RT Davies has quit this lunchtime as the leader of the Conservative group in the Welsh parliament. It follows a confidence vote among the 16 Tory Senedd Members (MSs) who narrowly voted by nine to seven to keep him on as leader. With the group split how best to proceed, Davies has opted to fall on his sword. In a letter, he says he does so ‘with regret‘ after members of his frontbench threatened to resign last week if he did not.
Davies described his position as ‘untenable’ following the vote, saying that ‘it was clear from the result that a substantial minority of the group do not support our approach’. This is despite Davies claiming it is ‘the only viable strategy available.’ As I wrote in last week’s Spectator, his approach is one that stressed a combative approach to the Welsh government’s ‘woke’ initiatives like ‘anti-racist’ dog-free zones. He argues in his letter that a ‘failure to confront controversial subjects’ risks ‘electoral oblivion’ – especially under the new proportional electoral system for Senedd elections, under which – he argues – ‘there is no scope to gain anti-Labour “tactical votes”.’
The problem is that there is only a narrow pool to draw from
The problem for Davies is that he was never able to convince his colleagues of the merits of this case.
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