Departing Welsh Authorities cupboard member Julie James gave her no holds barred take as she prepares to depart frontline politics
When Julie James speaks, individuals pay attention, not solely when it comes to her Senedd contributions, the place she is more than pleased to place her opponents of their place, however her cupboard colleagues too – particularly since First Minister Eluned Morgan made her “minister for supply” a yr in the past.
It’s the kind of title probably extra suited to a spoof sitcom, but it surely’s additionally the kind of job you possibly can solely give somebody you realize will ruffle feathers if that is what is required.
A member of Labour for nearly 52 years, she additionally holds sway within the political social gathering. She was, in any case, one of many resignations on that July day final yr that signalled to Vaughan Gething he couldn’t resist any longer, and inside hours he had stop as First Minister of Wales.
For our free each day briefing on the most important points dealing with the nation, signal as much as the Wales Issues publication right here.
Her official Senedd biog reads: “Julie is a dedicated inexperienced campaigner, environmentalist and a eager swimmer and skier. Julie is a member of Unison and can be a member of Grey’s Inn” – a different combine certainly. She has lived all over the world, however moved again to Swansea to lift her three youngsters. Professionally she has labored as a lawyer, been assistant chief govt of Swansea council.
Now, the clock on her time in frontline politics is ticking, as she is without doubt one of the 13 Labour Senedd members who is not going to search re-election in Might’s election.
Coming into politics was a protracted held ambition, and he or she lastly did it at 53. Introduced up in a political family, her father was a Labour Get together councillor and commerce unionist and, in her phrases, each her mother and father have been “each loopy local weather change activists”.
It is in all probability no shock she can be a lifelong vegetarian, one thing she describes as being “very bloody bizarre” when she was rising up.
“I’ve at all times very firmly been of the view, proper from once I was 16, if you wish to change one thing, it’s a must to keep in it.
‘Perseverance is all the pieces’
“It is a dialog we’ve on a regular basis, should you’ve resigned from the Labour Get together in precept, then you possibly can’t vote for the candidate or be sure that the individuals who imagine what you imagine are those who characterize you. So, effectively performed together with your precept, however now you do not have a voice.
“I’ve at all times thought having a voice is essential and I’ve additionally thought, perseverance is all the pieces. I am nothing if not persistent.
“Some issues take a very long time. I have been a member of the marketing campaign for one member, one vote, [an internal Labour party voting system] since I joined, we acquired that in 2018. Fifty years is a very long time to be persistent. You get there in the long run. I’ve at all times been like that.”
Earlier than standing for election to the Senedd she had what she calls a “completely good profession”. A former environmental regulation lawyer, she admits her time within the cupboard “hasn’t labored out as fairly the little retirement job I had in thoughts”.
However had at all times needed to do it, when her predecessor within the Swansea West seat, Andrew Davies, mentioned he was standing down “serendipity” noticed her chosen, after which elected.
However six months after being elected, she was identified with breast most cancers. She stored working. “What are you going to do should you’re not working? Sitting at residence trying on the wall questioning should you’re…effectively that is no good for me in any respect,” she mentioned.
She had 4 operations throughout her remedy, however as soon as she was higher, informed Carwyn Jones she was prepared to hitch his cupboard.
She is now serving her fourth First Minister, with roles like abilities and science, native authorities all on her CV, however the function created for her by Mark Drakeford, whose management election marketing campaign she chaired, is her ardour regardless of some very vocal opponents.
In his tenure Mr Drakeford axed the M4 aid roads, positioned a ban on new roads, set new targets for recycling and internet zero, and who can overlook it her division, and her deputy Lee Waters who introduced in Wales’ 20mph regulation, for instance. Public opinion did not deter her.
“I suppose I at all times felt we have been doing the suitable factor. You get loads of crap from individuals who need you to do one thing that is not the proper factor.
“I put loads of inventory by having performed the suitable factor. So sure, we did issues that have been unpopular. The 20mph is a basic as a result of it has saved tens of lives. It has stopped hundreds of individuals’s lives from being modified throughout Wales. Everybody in Wales now has a minimum of a ten% drop of their insurance coverage, that is essentially the most profitable coverage we have ever had and sod it, some individuals did not prefer it I did,” she mentioned.
‘Sheer hypocrisy’
The temporary was huge, and her deputy, Lee Waters, has since admitted the toll, fronting that coverage took on him personally. She says she tried to influence him from combating each battle. “There have been some individuals you possibly can persuade and there are many individuals you possibly can’t persuade. Do not attempt, simply follow your weapons quietly, fastidiously, sluggishly, persistently and you will get there. You do not have to do the warrior factor but it surely fits some individuals.
“I am fairly pleased to quietly do it within the background.”
For individuals who watch Senedd often, her contributions are those you flip your head to observe. She can not maintain again, significantly when the Conservative opposition speaks. She can not, she says, bear their “hypocrisy”.
“The Tories spend loads of time telling us that we must always do issues quicker, while additionally we must always reduce all of the taxes and we must always pump some huge cash into companies that do not want it, take it away from individuals who do want it, and on the similar time we must always have performed much more on, I do not know, salt marshes or one thing.
“That does not add up and it is simply the sheer hypocrisy.”
“The Tory group within the Senedd does my head in a bit as a result of they backed the UK Authorities large time. Numerous them backed Liz Truss, plenty of them publicly. They backed Brexit after which on the similar time they get up within the Senedd and so they shout at us about the truth that austerity is chopping our cash, crippling our communities, knackering our well being service. Brexit has performed our commerce in.
“I am unable to bear it.”
However the menace in 2026 to Labour is not the Tories, they face their very own battle to get any seats, however Labour faces a two pronged assault from Plaid on the left, and Nigel Farage’s Reform on the suitable.
She is aware of the menace Reform brings. “It is the identical factor as Brexit, is not it? We failed on Brexit and we failed on Brexit as a result of we did not perceive that lots of people, simply taking Swansea for an instance, lots of people in Swansea may see the largesse of the European Union, they may see the schools they may see, however that they had no share in it.
“They will see that some persons are doing alright out of it, however they don’t seem to be. Many labored, for instance, in services within the college, for instance however they have been having their hours and wages reduce whereas they may see of their world different individuals very effectively out of it.
“When you do not share it out, then clearly the individuals who don’t get a share are offended, rightly offended, and that is what’s taking place throughout the Western developed world and with Reform.
‘Taken down a path’
“We’ve got a society that, on the one hand, is getting technologically extra competent, wealthier, with nicer lives, longer lives and so forth and an enormous part of that society is sick and poor and struggling and so they’re bloody hungry.
“They’re being taken down a path by demagogues who’re doing it for their very own functions, and they are going to make their lives worse.
“Brexit is an ideal instance of that. No person can level me to something that Brexit has performed is not a catastrophe and naturally, should you put that to a number of the individuals who backed it, they are saying, ‘effectively, it wasn’t performed correctly’. What an absolute nonsense. Is not that the identical as Reform, what they’re promising would possibly, on a really floor stage, make some sense.” Get each day breaking information updates in your telephone by becoming a member of our WhatsApp group right here. We sometimes deal with members to particular affords, promotions and advertisements from us and our companions. See our Privateness Discover
She speaks of a Reform pledge to offer non-doms an opportunity to keep away from paying some UK taxes, by paying a £250,000 charge, and earnings from the measure can be transferred yearly tax-free to the financial institution accounts of the bottom paid 10% of full-time employees.
“Till you discuss to individuals about it and also you say, ‘effectively, really most non-doms can be paying an ideal deal greater than that, they need to be paying 40% of their earnings on a regular basis, and ask ‘Have you learnt how many individuals in Wales are on the minimal wage?’ Suppose how a lot it’s to offer them £10 every per week, which must be absolutely the minimal for it to make a distinction.
“If you do this on the doorstep, some individuals will take heed to that however plenty of them will not and so they’ll say they’ve had a gutsful of ‘you lot’.
“Till we are able to get some belief in mainstream politics we have got an issue. We have had 14 years of individuals shouting at one another, loads of misinformation. There is not any belief in that, individuals promising them the ‘Massive Society’ or regardless of the hell the Johnson one was. it doesn’t suggest something to anybody.”
However, I put it to her, UK Labour has been as responsible, promising change however delivering it by way of a sequence of insurance policies which have been deeply unpopular.
“Completely,” she concedes. “UK Labour have are available in and so they have made a sequence of selections which have undermined belief in mainstream politics. They’re new. They’ve 4 extra years to repair it. They are going to repair it,” she is. “However, Labour right here is bearing the brunt of that,” she mentioned.
After we met, a ballot had not lengthy put Labour’s help in Wales for the Senedd election at 18%. That’s not, she mentioned, being projected on the doorsteps to such a level however there should not be loads of hope taken by Labour by that. “Within the 80s we used to have ‘shy Tories’ the place individuals would swear blind they weren’t going to vote for Thatcher and clearly have been. And we’re getting these however for Reform.”
Her Swansea patch can, broadly, be cut up into the northern a part of the constituency which is principally social housing or council properties, and the south, with individuals who work within the college, the hospital or council. It’s a patch which tells the story of the menace to Labour in Wales, fairly succinctly with the Reform menace within the north, however the Plaid, Inexperienced, Lib Dem menace within the south.
“What individuals would possibly assume is, ‘we do not want Welsh Labour as a result of they are going to win so I can indulge myself in a protest vote’, so I spend loads of time reminding individuals what occurred in Gower when 1,000 individuals voted Inexperienced and so they acquired a Tory MP for the primary time in 100 years.
“I personally rang up fairly lots of people and mentioned, ‘how’s that understanding for you?'”
The indicators are all there that Labour can have a troublesome time within the election for which she will not be a candidate. “What we have got to do is give individuals one thing constructive to vote for. I don’t want individuals to vote Labour as a result of it is the least worst choice. We have got to do one thing which means you really imagine in us, which I believe we are able to do. And secondly, we have got to influence them that even when they are a bit sceptical about that, swapping to a unique social gathering and splitting the progressive vote, will put a Reform authorities into Wales.”
One of many many narratives she says she can not tolerate is about immigration and limiting immigration, significantly in Wales.
‘This immigration factor does my head in’
“In reality, my very own view is that Wales ought to have its arms large open and say, ‘Come, come, come, come, are available in numbers’ and should you’re younger, working age, of breeding age, come. We’d like these individuals, we’d like loads of them. The extra extremely expert, the higher. And by extremely expert, I imply expert in care in addition to expert in know-how.
“The immigration factor simply does my head in. I simply do not perceive why anybody in Wales is even remotely fearful about immigration. It is tiny and the immigrants who come to Wales have vastly enriched our society.
“With out the Ukrainians the place would our care system be?”
She is a type of who has seen a brand new, upstart social gathering come into Welsh politics. In 2016, she noticed the Ukip contingent arrive within the Senedd and admits the problem posed by a brand new, inexperienced social gathering, was in all probability good for the establishment – in some methods.
“For the primary time in ages we needed to argue from first rules why we have been doing what we did,” she mentioned. “We did not have a broad consensus that we may construct from. We had individuals saying that they essentially did not agree with it and I believe that is really fairly an honest self-discipline to need to do”.
However she noticed the weaknesses too. Because the group splintered, they didn’t pull their weight on committees, she says. “They have been actually disruptive and never as a result of that they had an ideology we did not like however as a result of they have been chaotic.
“Really an unlimited quantity of the work of the Senedd, like several Parliament goes on within the committee rooms behind closed doorways and it is lengthy and boring and tedious and crucial certainly.
“You must spend hours and hours going by means of lengthy, terrible paperwork and acts and so they did not present up and the Senedd is tiny so the burden on all people else is excessive.”
She has seen the federal government machine, first hand for years, what, I ask her, wouldn’t it imply for the federal government – away from the political individuals – if a celebration like Reform took over.
“There’s some hazard anyway as a result of there’s loads of us leaving,” she mentioned. “Even when Labour had its regular share within the polls and no matter, we would have loads of new faces coming in.”
There may be work within the authorities buildings making ready for a brand new administration, about offering recommendation and briefings. “You desire a authorities that is acquired the suitable data in entrance of it and so forth.”
However they’ve additionally, she mentioned, been placing measures in place so legal guidelines can’t be rowed again on simply. “We have been making an attempt to embed loads of issues. We’ll make them tougher to do away with, if I am completely sincere. I spend loads of time working by means of laws, ensuring it has been applied, and it must even have major laws to repeal it so it might be a lot tougher to simply flip the ship again the opposite method.
“In the long run, we won’t stop them from doing that, however we are able to make it tougher.
“I believe a Reform authorities can be a catastrophe. In the event that they have been to do any of the issues they’re saying, and who is aware of whether or not they would, as a result of their coverage platform is fluid, in the intervening time. They’re saying that they might abolish the NHS and change it with an insurance coverage based mostly system. That is fairly disastrous for an previous, poor, sick nation like Wales, the place most individuals have a pre-existing situation, in all probability could not get insurance coverage or afford it or no matter.
“They’d completely, positively cease free prescriptions, free parking at hospitals. They’d cease the nationalisation of the trains and the buses.
“You’d go backwards in a short time. I believe they might, as they’ve performed in a number of the councils they’ve taken management of, attempt to cease, as they’ve performed in America, the variety, inclusion and equality programmes.
“They’d afterwards realise what they’d performed and attempt to scramble to place them again. I believe they’d starve public companies of cash. We shield our native authorities. Most individuals in Wales don’t perceive how unhealthy the native authority scenario in England really is.”
