Why did he quit? Behind the scenes of Welsh Tory leader resignation
A ‘remainer plot,’ dissatisfaction that’s been brewing for some time or a coup ‘engineered’ from outside the Assembly group? All could have played a part in Andrew RT Davies’ decision to quit.
Whatever the reasons, it came to a head Wednesday morning at a meeting of the Conservative group. Most but not all AMs, I’m told, said to their leader that he had to change his approach or go. He decided to go.
That hadn’t been his intention: he’d wanted to stay on to see his party through the Assembly election, having felt that they hadn’t had a fair crack of the whip in 2016.
Those calling for change hadn’t expected it to be so instant either. The talk was of taking 6-12 months to work out a way of changing leader.
It hadn’t been particularly angry either, I’m told, despite one AM raising his voice and storming out, slamming the door behind him.
But when Mr Davies saw that he didn’t have unanimous support for staying on until 2021 he decided it was better to leave immediately.
He and his team had been aware for some months of what they felt was a plot from outside the group involving MPs and other senior figures who wanted change so much so that Mr Davies had ‘called it out’ in a group meeting earlier this week and arranged today’s meeting to settle the situation.
Last weekend’s row over his comments about Airbus didn’t help but was, it seems, more a symptom than a cause.
He’d criticised Airbus for making ‘threats’ about leaving in the event of a no-deal Brexit. In turn he’d been criticised by Aberconwy MP and Defence Minister Guto Bebb who’d urged him to withdraw his remarks.
The Airbus row was a red herring though, according to another senior Conservative who insisted it was ‘a remainer plot from both ends of the M4.’
A loyalist said to group members in today’s meeting ‘You’ve been played by people outside this group who’ve been dictating and pulling the strings.’
It’s certainly true that there’s been discontent about his leadership for some time, mostly from MPs but also some AMs along with mutterings about attempts to force him out of the top job.
The appointment of the former Gower MP Byron Davies as chair of the party in Wales meant his days were probably numbered. They fell out in 2014 when Byron Davies was an Assembly member, in a now-obscure row over the group’s policy on devolving income tax which saw the sacking of four AMs from front-bench jobs.
His decision to welcome the former UKIP AM (and former Tory MP) Mark Reckless as a quasi-member of the group had caused intense anger amongst colleagues at Westminster who haven’t forgiven Mr Reckless for defecting and fighting them in the Rochester and Strood by-election.
It annoyed some AMs too. One texted me at the time to say ‘Teletubbies joining the group too.’
It also led to one of the most surreal episodes of my career when, one Friday night, several sources texted and told me and other journalists that Theresa May’s joint chief of staff Nick Timothy had gone to the Assembly, staff had been sent home and Mr Davies had been instructed to resign.
Sources close to him insisted it had all been made up, that staff had been sent home early to have a break after a bruising week and that no visitor from Number 10 had come anywhere near the Assembly. The leader himself tweeted me to laugh that he was at home watching TV, not being torn off a strip or contemplating resigning.
I’m more inclined to believe the latter version of events although I’ve never got to the bottom of it and if it is true, it suggests that some thought it worth mounting such an operation which tells its own story.
The internal rows and his combative style have masked some of the achievements of Andrew RT Davies or perhaps undone them. David Cameron acknowledged him as leader of the party in Wales, something that Theresa May pointedly refused to do, even in her statement thanking him and wishing him well.
He surprised many by often taking a pro-devolution stance, for instance in the debate over devolving income tax powers without a referendum.
And he genuinely tried to articulate what he saw as a pro-revolutionary, centre-right political view embracing private sector solutions and policies such as a return to grammar schools (sort of) that he felt wasn’t being offered in Welsh politics.
Speculation turns now to Andrew RT Davies’ successor. In his resignation letter he urges his party to hold a ballot of members to give whoever takes over a proper mandate as Welsh leader.
However I don’t detect much appetite for a leadership contest and a great deal of support for Paul Davies to take over. He’s seen as a safe pair of hands, leading one Welsh Conservative to tell me ‘this isn’t a job for a safe pair of hands in a beige suit. We need a 21st century politician.’
Who that might be isn’t immediately obvious. The man who challenged Andrew RT Davies, Nick Ramsay, has ruled himself out of any contest and no others have yet made any intentions known.
For now the Conservative group in the Assembly finds itself in a strange position: leaderless and without a chief of staff and senior press officer who’ve both also resigned today. It’s not clear if there’ll be a contest or a ballot and what change would mean for the Tories and for Welsh politics.