{"id":26898,"date":"2023-12-03T07:49:10","date_gmt":"2023-12-03T07:49:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/belalcazar.org\/?p=26898"},"modified":"2023-12-03T07:49:10","modified_gmt":"2023-12-03T07:49:10","slug":"welsh-nationalist-has-his-eyes-set-on-toppling-mark-drakeford-from-power","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/belalcazar.org\/politics\/welsh-nationalist-has-his-eyes-set-on-toppling-mark-drakeford-from-power\/","title":{"rendered":"Welsh nationalist has his eyes set on toppling Mark Drakeford from power"},"content":{"rendered":"

Independence: Wales decision ‘must be respected’ says Drakeford<\/h3>\n

Mark Drakeford has been Welsh First Minister since 2018, the longest-serving such leader anywhere in the UK.<\/p>\n

He has the weight of the Labour Party behind him, an outfit that Wales has voted for at every UK general election since 1922, and every Assembly and Senedd election since 1999.<\/p>\n

Despite changing trends across the UK, Wales has stayed loyal to its traditional working class and labour-intensive roots, the country and party sharing a close and intimate history.<\/p>\n

The Welsh Conservatives have tried and failed time and again to shift this tradition, but only one party has come close to sitting in government without actually being voted in: Plaid Cymru.<\/p>\n

The Party of Wales, as it is called in Welsh, is currently in a cooperation agreement with Welsh Labour, though this hasn’t stopped its new leader Rhun ap Iorwerth from pulling any punches and telling Express.co.uk that he has his eye on Mr Drakeford’s job.<\/p>\n

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“We cooperate with this government on a number of things and I think that’s a positive, mature thing to do,” he said. “But we believe that there’s a better way of governing Wales, and we believe that this government needs to be held to account.<\/p>\n

“I want to take that right to Welsh Government because on so many levels, be it health, education, or the economy, this is not as good as it can get for Wales.” Despite being a land of vast resources \u2014 both natural and man-made \u2014 Wales is struggling in many sectors.<\/p>\n

The country consistently comes out as the most impoverished nation in the UK, with the latest data analysed by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation putting the poverty rate at around 24 percent to England’s 22 percent, Scotland’s 18 percent, and Northern Ireland’s 17 percent.<\/p>\n

A 2022 Welsh Budget report acknowledged the short and long-term effects of this poverty, noting that “the longer-term economic challenges and opportunities facing Wales are largely unchanged […] a key long run challenge remains relatively weak productivity, the key long-run driver of sustainable increases in pay, prosperity and the tax base”.<\/p>\n

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