Keir Starmer: Welsh Labour doing things ‘differently and better’on March 12, 2022 at 2:01 pm

The Welsh government has shown how things “could be done differently and better” across the UK, the leader of the Labour party has said.

Sir Keir Starmer said he would like “to replicate what we see in Wales right across the UK”.

He also paid tribute to Welsh soldiers currently stationed in Estonia amid the Russian-Ukraine war.

Sir Keir was addressing Welsh Labour’s conference in Llandudno on Saturday.

“A Welsh Labour government is the living proof of what Labour in power looks like, how things can be done differently and better,” Sir Keir said.

“You demonstrate daily the difference Labour really makes. A blueprint for what Labour can do across the UK.”

He said he now wants to “match that” to help “make a difference to millions of lives”.

A Welsh Conservative spokesperson said: “If Sir Keir’s blueprint for the UK is to copy Labour in Wales then I think many people will be worried.”

The spokesperson criticised “ever growing” NHS waiting lists, “A&E and ambulance response times that leave the most vulnerable waiting for hours on end and economic policies that keep holding people back”.

Regarding Ukraine, Sir Keir said: “We must tackle the oligarchs here by going after their stolen wealth and assets.

“And while we’re at it clean up our own politics, once and for all.”

He added: “There is no justification for Putin’s actions. They are an affront to the values of this country, this party and the international institutions, which we helped to build.

“Labour stands with the Ukrainian people.”

Sir Keir said he had just returned from Estonia where he had the opportunity to thank Nato forces, which included the Royal Tank Regiment and the Royal Welsh, for their work.

First Minister Mark Drakeford has previously welcomed the UK government relaxing visa rules, but agreed with Sir Keir that more needs to be done to help refugees.

In an interview, Sir Keir stopped short of supporting Mr Drakeford’s call for visa requirements to be dropped for Ukranian refugees but said the pair were “coming from exactly the same place” on the issue.

He said “a simple, safe, quick and efficient route to sanctuary” was needed and the current system was “too narrow, too slow, with too many hurdles in place”.

Asked whether he was supporting Mr Drakeford’s call for Ukranian refugees to be allowed into the UK without visas, Sir Keir said they both wanted “a simple safe route to sanctuary”.

Welsh minister Mick Antoniw spoke on an emergency motion expressing solidarity with the people of Ukraine.

Mr Antoniw, the Welsh government’s Counsel General, or most senior legal adviser, comes from a Ukrainian family.

He said: “Seventy-five years after the end of the Second World War, we are now witnessing in Europe the commission of war crimes and crimes against humanity on a scale previously unimaginable.

“We’re witnessing the emergence of a new fascism, a fascism with a difference, a fascism that has global links, a level of military technology greater than anything previously experienced and nuclear weapons.”

On refugees, he urged UK ministers “to remove the shackles on the immigration system that they have actually created” to allow Wales to “show the world what it means to be a nation of sanctuary”.

Mr Antoniw, who visited Ukraine just days before the Russian invasion, concluded his words with what he said was now the traditional way of ending a Ukrainian speech.

“Glory to Ukraine, glory to the heroes – we will win,” he said, to applause and a standing ovation.

Later, he told BBC Wales that people in the UK willing to sponsor Ukrainian refugees should be allowed to apply for visas on their behalf.

“You cannot expect people in a war zone facing missiles and roadblocks, who don’t even know if they will have the internet tomorrow, to access online to be able to go through these processes,” he said.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson has told Sky News the UK will be “generous” to those fleeing Ukraine and said an upcoming scheme will allow Britons to take Ukrainians into their homes.

Earlier, in the first conference debate of the weekend, Welsh Labour backed proposals to increase the size of the Senedd.

The conference unanimously voted for a motion saying the 60-member parliament should grow to between 80 and 100 members.

But it leaves open the question of how Senedd members (MSs) will be elected.

Parties in the Senedd are negotiating on a plan to reform the institution and swell its size.

Labour will hold a one-off conference to decide whether it will endorse the outcome of those negotiations.

Under the law, any reforms would need to be approved by two-thirds of MSs, making Labour’s position crucial.

Labour said the way MSs are elected should be “at least as proportional” as the current system.

While it did not rule it out, it warned there were “risks” to adopting the single transferable voting system that some parties want.

Mr Drakeford will address the party faithful in the afternoon session of the opening day of the Welsh Labour conference on Saturday.

He will focus on the humanitarian crisis in Ukraine in his speech, and will speak of the need to respond with “the greatest possible generosity”.

He will highlight what he says is the “shamefully wide” gap between the UK Conservative government’s words and its actions so far.