The leader of the Welsh Tories, Andrew RT Davies, has resigned after dismal UK general election results and concern over comments he has made on subjects ranging from halal meat to the country’s divisive 20mph speed limit law.
Nine members of the Welsh parliament’s Tory group, including Davies himself, backed Davies in a confidence vote on Tuesday while seven were against him.
However, in a letter to the chair of the Welsh Conservative party, Bernard Gentry, Davies wrote that a group of Senedd members had threatened to resign from the shadow cabinet if he did not step down, making his position untenable.
Davies wrote that he had hoped to unite the centre-right vote in Wales. He said campaigns against expanding the Senedd, the Welsh parliament, the 20mph speed limit law, and backing “Welsh farmers against Labour’s ideologically motivated policies” had won strong public support. But he said this “clarity of message” was being undermined by some members of the Senedd group.
Davies, a farmer from Cowbridge in south Wales, is one of the most recognisable figures in Welsh politics, having twice led the Tories in Wales, from 2011 to 2018 and then again from 2021, but his leadership has come under scrutiny in recent months.
The Tories were completely wiped out in Wales at the UK general election. They are now the second biggest party in the Senedd, the Welsh parliament, but a poll published this week put them in fourth place behind Plaid, Labour and Reform UK when people were asked who they would vote for in the next Senedd elections in 2026. Tackling the threat from Reform UK will be a priority for the next leader.
Davies has faced criticism for arguing that children should not be “forced to eat halal school lunches”, in an article for GB News, after a constituent alleged she had been told non-halal meat was not available at her daughter’s school.
He was criticised for a post on social media from the Vale of Glamorgan county show inviting people to have their say on abolishing the Senedd – not a Tory policy.
Davies was also reprimanded for bringing the Senedd into disrepute by calling Wales’s 20mph speed limit a “blanket” policy, which is wrong because there are exemptions. Davies said he would not stand in the leadership contest.
Welsh Labour accused the Tories of focusing on themselves rather than the people of Wales. Welsh Labour has had a terrible year itself, with its former leader and first minister Vaughan Gething forced to resign after an election donation scandal.
Reform UK said: “True to form, the Tories have turfed out another leader thinking that will resurrect their failing party. They care more about jousting for position than they do about serving Welsh people.”
Laura McAllister, professor of public policy at Cardiff University, said: “There’s always been an ideological tension within [the Conservative] group between those who feel the Conservatives’ role is to become a potential party of government and those – of whom Andrew is one – who feel it’s their job to criticise very vocally and directly the Welsh Labour governments that have been there since the start of devolution. That’s a pretty big schism.”
Darren Millar, who was first elected to the Welsh parliament in 2007 and is the group’s chief whip, was the first to say he will stand in a leadership contest.
