Angela Rayner dismisses ‘Islamist’ Labour comment by new Trump running mate – politics live | Politics

Plaid Cymru and the Conservatives, the two main opposition parties in the Senedd, are both saying Vaughan Gething cannot continue as first minister in the light of the latest crisis to hit his government. (See 10.17am and 10.25am.)

But they are also both blaming Labour for backing Gething.

Andrew RT Davies, the Welsh Conservative leader, said:

Vaughan Gething’s time as first minister is rightly coming to an end.

But Labour cannot fool the people of Wales. These ministers, like Jeremy Miles, sat in his cabinet, they stood by his side, and they are culpable for the breakdown of governance in Wales.

Wales will remember.

And in his comment Rhun ap Iorwerth, the Plaid Cymru leader, claimed Keir Starmer should take some responsibility for what was happening in the Welsh Labour party. He said:

Vaughan Gething has led a government of chaos and put his own self-interest before the interests of the people of Wales.

For months, the first minister’s poor judgment, aversion to scrutiny and ‘do nothing’ approach to governing has undermined the office of first minister and brought Welsh politics into disrepute.

Seldom have heads of government in a democracy disregarded the will of its legislature by carrying on despite losing a vote of confidence.

The Labour party has thrown its weight behind Vaughan Gething and Keir Starmer has acted as his main cheerleader.

The ministers who resigned today are equally culpable, they should have acted far sooner than their eleventh hour intervention when it was a case of one bad headline too many.

Starmer might be surprised to see himself described as Gething’s main cheerleader. He did not take a public position during the Welsh leadership contest and, although he defended Gething on his visits to Wales during the election campaign, he never seemed particularly happy having to respond to questions about Gething’s campaign donations or his no confidence vote.

The Labour government in Wales is in crisis. Four ministers have resigned saying they have no confidence in Vaughan Gething, the first minister who only took office in March. Last month Gething lost a confidence vote in the Senedd (although not one that required him to resign).

Jeremy Miles, the economic secretary, said in his resignation letter:

The events of the last few months including your loss of the confidence vote in the Senedd, have been incredibly painful ..

It’s essential that we begin to repair the damage immediately, and I have reached the conclusion very regrettably that this cannot happen under your leadership …

I can’t see any way forward for us which allows us to get on with job we are elected to do, without you standing down.

The other ministers who have resigned are Lesley Griffiths, the culture secretary, Julie James, the housing secretary, and Mick Antoniw, counsel general (the law officer).

BBC Wales has more on this on its live blog.

In an interview on BBC Breakfast this morning Angela Rayner, the deputy prime minister, was repeatedly asked why Labour has not committed to abolishing the two-child benefit cap, which means families on benefits can lose more than £3,455 if they have a third child because benefits are only paid for the first two children. Jon Kay, the presenter, told Rayner she had previously described this rule as obscene and inhumane.

In response, Rayner said she was pleased that Labour is prioritising requiring primary schools to offer breakfast clubs. As someone who grew up in a poor family, she said she used to go to school hungry. She said the government would be using “not just one lever” to tackle child poverty.

She said what the Tories had done was “abhorrent”. But, using the line Labour stuck to before the election, she said Labour would only commit to policies when they knew how they could be funded.

However, she also said that the government would be reviewing universal credit. And she said she expected the government to make “significant changes” to child poverty. She said:

All I would say is look at what Labour’s history and what we do when we’re in government and as someone who grew up in poverty, I am not prepared to leave office after a Labour government where we haven’t made those significant changes and child poverty is an issue for us.

And we’re absolutely appalled that children haven’t got beds to sleep in at night. This is the 21st century, this shouldn’t be the situation we’re in but this is the inheritance that the Conservatives have left us and we will continue to tackle those issues.

Conservatives seem more willing this morning to criticise what JD Vance said about the UK (see 8.42am) than Labour politicians. Although the Tories are more aligned with US Republicans than Labour, this is not particularly surprising because Labour has to worry about diplomatic relations with a possible Trump administration while that is not something a Conservative leader is probably every going to have to worry about.

Angela Rayner found a polite way of saying she disagreed with Vance’s comment about the UK becoming an “Islamist” country. But Andrew Bowie, the new shadow veterans minister, has also been on an interview round this morning and he told Times Radio that the US senator was being offensive.

Asked if Labour was creating an “Islamist” country, Bowie said:

No, absolutely not. The Labour party, I disagree with the Labour party fundamentally on many issues, but I do not agree with that view. I think it’s actually quite offensive, frankly, to my colleagues in the Labour party.

They have just won the election. It’s now up to us to form an opposition. But we need to relearn how to disagree agreeably and have those full, frank disagreements out in public – but be able to do so with civility.

Good morning. Yesterday Donald Trump named the Ohio senator JD Vance as his vice presidential running mate and very quickly attention focused on what this might mean for the UK. David Lammy, the new foreign secretary, knows Vance quite well and has praised his memoir about growing up poor, Hillbilly Elegy (“These are themes in my own political story,” Lammy told Politico). But we have not heard yet what Lammy has to say about Vance telling the National Conservatism conference recently that, with Labour now in power, Britain could end up as “the first truly Islamist country” with a nuclear weapon.

Looking at the clip, it was clearly more of a joke rather than a prediction. But jokes can be provocative, dangerous and offensive, and they reveal a lot about what people think. Daniel Finkelstein, the Times columnist and Conservative party peer, has described this as an “outrageous racist comment”.

We have not heard Lammy’s response, but Angela Rayner, the deputy prime minister, has been giving interviews this morning and on ITV’s Good Morning Britain she said that Vance was wrong about the UK. Asked how she felt about his description of the Labour in this comment, she replied:

Well, I think he said quite a lot of fruity things in the past as well. Look, I don’t recognize that characterisation. I’m very proud of the election success that Labour had recently. We won votes across all different communities, across the whole of the country. And we’re interested in governing on behalf of Britain and also working with our international allies.

So I look forward to that meeting [with Vance] if that is the result [ie if Trump wins]. It’s up to the American people to decide.

Rayner also said that US was a key ally for the UK, that it was for the American people to decide who they wanted as president and vice president, and that whoever they elected, “we will work with them, of course we will”.

I will post more from her interviews shortly.

Here is the agenda for the day.

Morning: Keir Starmer chairs cabinet.

11.30am: The Commons sits so that MPs who have not yet taken the oath can do so.

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