A prominent Labour politician has expressed her “terrible disappointment” at the dearth of female leaders in the party and said an expectation still lingered that men would get the top jobs.

Julie Morgan, who is campaigning for the new post of deputy Labour leader in Wales, argued that better, fairer decisions and more effective laws were made if more women were in senior positions.



Morgan is standing against the Swansea East MP Carolyn Harris for the post of second-in-command, after the Labour party in Wales ruled that either the leader or deputy in Wales must be a woman.

Morgan, whose late husband, Rhodri, was the charismatic Labour leader and first minister of Wales in 2000-09, said: “It’s very important to make sure we have a woman in the top two in Wales. With Jeremy Corbyn, Carwyn Jones [Morgan’s successor as Welsh leader] and the Scottish leader [Richard Leonard] all male, it seemed very important that we have a system to ensure at least one leader or deputy is a woman.”



Asked what she thought of the lack of women in top jobs in the party, Morgan said: “It’s a terrible disappointment.”

Labour does have more female MPs and assembly members than other parties. But Morgan, the assembly member for Cardiff North, said: “There is still this expectation among politicians and members to some extent that a politician is a man. We’ve had to work very hard to shift this idea.”

Over the years the party has tried to make this shift, including by introducing all-women shortlists and a twinning system under which two adjacent constituency Labour parties picked a man and a woman to stand in assembly elections.

The measures had some success and in 2003 equal numbers of men and women were elected to the assembly. But now there are 34 men and 26 women.

“Any time there has been a pause and we haven’t used those mechanisms, it’s reverted back to men getting the posts,” said Morgan. “We still have a long way to go on gender equality.

“As a party we want to improve people’s lives. To make laws as effective as possible you must have representative groups making the decisions. If it is too male-dominated you won’t get such good laws.”

Morgan said Welsh Labour, which has been in government since the first assembly election in 1999, remained one of the most successful brands in the British Labour party.

But the death of Carl Sargeant, who apparently took his own life after being sacked as a minister amid allegations of inappropriate behaviour, has put pressure on the first minister and the party. Morgan knew Sargeant well and worked closely with him.

“We are still heartbroken and still trying to recover from the shock of it,” she said. “It has caused a lot of upset and anxiety. There are inquiries ongoing. We have to wait and see how they turn out.

“We may need to look at the systems we have in place to make sure people do feel able to come forward with complaints but there also needs to be support for those who are complained about.”

There have been allegations from within Welsh Labour about how Sargeant was treated in Cardiff and wider concerns about bullying. Morgan said she believed the new deputy leader could act as a bridge between Cardiff and the rest of the party.

Morgan, who was the MP for Cardiff North for 13 years, said she felt she had a “political link” with Corbyn. She said: “I’ve been in a lot of the same lobbies as Jeremy. I voted against the Iraq war, student top-up fees, Trident.”

Ironically, Morgan is facing the same electoral college system that twice thwarted her late husband’s bid for the leadership before he eventually became first minister.

Under the system, more weight is given to the votes of MPs, assembly members, unions and other bodies than to those of ordinary members. Morgan has campaigned for a one member, one vote system for decades. “The electoral college system isn’t democratic or transparent. It’s come up at every hustings,” she said.

The winner of the deputy leadership contest will be announced at the Welsh Labour conference this month.

If she wins, Morgan plans to pitch her red gazebo – a familiar sight in Cardiff North during campaigns and leafleting operations – at sites around Wales.

“One of the issues that has come up is that different parts, such as Ynys Môn – Anglesey – sometimes feel out on a limb, that things are too Cardiff-centric,” she said. “I’m very keen that the Labour party should be the party for the whole of Wales.”