The Labour first minister of Wales Vaughan Gething has vowed to carry on in the job despite losing a vote of no confidence, and branded the motion “a transparent gimmick”.
He lost the vote on his leadership in the Senedd on Wednesday, with 29 votes against him to 27 for, but the motion, tabled by the Welsh Conservatives, was non-binding, meaning he will not be ousted from his job.
However, the result is highly embarrassing for him and for Labour.
The motion followed a series of controversies involving Mr Gething and the collapse of his electoral deal with Plaid Cymru.
Mr Gething, who has been the Welsh Labour leader only since March, was seen in tears before the vote.
Afterwards, he said: “I’m here, proud to be the first minister of Wales, to serve and lead my country. That’s what I’ve done today, it’s what I’ll carry on doing.”
Labour had enough votes to win, but two members of the party were unwell.
Vikki Howells, the chair of the Welsh Labour group, accused the Conservatives of refusing to “pair” with Labour, a system where, if one member of a party cannot vote, a member of the opposition agrees to abstain as well.
Mr Gething said it was a very disappointing afternoon, branding the motion a “transparent gimmick” that was affected by two people being absent.
“To go into a position where the ill health of two of our members has affected the outcome of the vote. On ill health grounds we have always paired, that means you even up people in one party to another.
“We did that for more than three months with the leader of the Conservative Party.”
He has faced questions after accepting a donation from a man convicted of environmental offences during the leadership contest.
He has also refused to show any evidence to explain why he sacked Senedd member Hannah Blythyn from his government, after he accused her of leaking messages to the media.
It followed a report on the Nation Cymru news website that featured a message to a ministerial group chat in August 2020, during the Covid crisis, from Mr Gething, stating that he was deleting the messages in the group.
He insists the leaked message were related to internal discussions within the Senedd Labour group.
And he has told the official Covid inquiry he did not delete WhatsApp messages. They were lost by the Welsh parliament’s IT team during a security rebuild, he said.
Mr Gething has always insisted that all rules were followed when he took the donation and denied the leaked message contradicted the evidence he had given to the inquiry.
Ms Howells said no concerns about Mr Gething were being raised on the doorstep.
She added that “hand on heart” every member who voted did so “wholeheartedly with confidence in Vaughan Gething”.
The opposition groups have 30 seats combined, the same number as Labour.
