Vaughan Gething, currently the economic minister of Wales, won a narrow election victory over Jeremy Miles to become the new leader of the Welsh Labour Party—making him the new first minister of Wales and the first-ever Black leader of a European country.
Welsh Labour candidate Vaughan Gething waves after winning the Cardiff South and Penarth ... [+]
Gething was born in Zambia in 1974 to a white Welsh father and Black Zambian mother, and has said his family moved to Monmouthshire in Wales when he was 2 years old, only to be forced to relocate to Dorset in England after his father faced job discrimination because of his family’s race.
He attended Aberystwyth and Cardiff universities in Wales, worked as a trade union lawyer with Thompsons Solicitors and became the first Black president of both the Wales Trades Union Congress and the Wales National Union of Students.
According to the Guardian, he was inspired by stories of Nelson Mandela to join the Labour party when he was 17 years old.
He’s long been involved in Welsh government: he first joined the Welsh legislature, or Senedd, in 2011; became the first-ever Black minister in any devolved U.K. country in 2013; and later served as both Wales’ health minister during the Covid-19 pandemic and, most recently, its economy minister.
He won the election for Welsh Labour leader with a narrow majority of 51.7% of the vote, and in a speech on Saturday vowed to address cost-of-living crisis in Wales, as well as challenges plaguing the country’s farmers and healthcare and education systems, according to Politico.
Gething will reportedly be confirmed by the Welsh Parliament on Wednesday, and will be Wales’ fifth first minister since the Senedd was established in 1999, per the Associated Press.
“Today we turn a page in the book of our nation’s history, a history that we write together, not just because I have the honor of becoming the first Black leader in any European country, but because a generational dial has jumped, too,” Gething said in a victory speech.
Non-white leaders are now helming three of four major governments in the United Kingdom, with Rishi Sunak, who is of Indian heritage, as U.K. Prime Minister, and Humza Yousaf, who is of Pakistani heritage, as Scottish First Minister.
Gething’s campaign faced controversy when it was revealed it received a substantial donation of cash from an environmental group led by an individual who’d faced previous prosecution for environmental offenses. But Gething has defended the donations, noting that he “scrupulously” followed all rules and that he’s “clear that nothing changes my commitment to having a firmer environmental regulation.”