Swansea Council leader Rob Stewart has publicly thrown his weight behind Mike Hedges – declaring his “full support” for the city’s only Welsh Labour MS and insisting voters’ democratic verdict at the ballot box must be respected.
The intervention comes less than 24 hours after Swansea Bay News reported that a senior Welsh Labour figure had urged Hedges to resign mid-term to make way for Stewart – meaning the Council leader could enter the Senedd without facing the electorate again.
Stewart – who was Welsh Labour’s second-placed candidate on the Gwyr Abertawe list and was not elected last week – publicly rejected that route in a statement posted to his Facebook account on Sunday afternoon.
“Let me be clear,” Stewart said. “As a democratic nation we should all respect the democratic vote and decision of the public.”
The Council leader said Hedges had been rightly elected at the top of the Welsh Labour list and had his backing.
“Each party ranks its candidates in the new list system and Mike was top of our list and was rightly elected,” Stewart said. “He has my full support.”
Stewart also pointedly underlined how the new D’Hondt voting system works – and the fact that any seat replacement would happen without a public vote.
“Under the new system any candidate stepping down is replaced by someone from the same party – the next on their list,” he said. “There are no by-elections in this system.”
The Council leader explained the reasoning behind that mechanic, saying voters had been asked to back a party rather than an individual.
“This is because it’s a PR system,” he said. “And in that system the voters are asked to vote for a party – not a person.”
The statement marks the most significant public intervention so far from any Welsh Labour figure in Swansea on the question of mid-term resignations – and effectively shuts down the suggestion that Stewart would accept a back-door route into the Senedd.
It comes after Swansea Bay News reported on Saturday that a senior Welsh Labour figure – speaking anonymously to Welsh political journalist Will Hayward – had urged Hedges and fellow long-serving Welsh Labour MS Lynne Neagle to resign mid-term to allow second-placed candidates on Welsh Labour’s lists to take their seats.
The same source had branded Welsh Labour “functionally broken” and called for a total overhaul of the party – accusing it of a decade-long failure to confront its own decline.
Stewart’s statement neither names the anonymous source nor responds directly to the wider criticisms levelled at the party – instead focusing on the specific question of Hedges’ position and the legitimacy of the democratic process.
The Council leader’s full backing of Hedges is significant. As the second-placed candidate on the Welsh Labour list, Stewart would be the direct beneficiary of any Hedges resignation – and his public rejection of that route effectively rules out one of the scenarios floated by the anonymous Welsh Labour source.
Hedges himself has not commented publicly on the anonymous call for him to step down.
The Welsh Labour party has not formally responded to either intervention.
Welsh Labour was reduced to just nine seats at last week’s Senedd election, down from 30 in the previous Senedd, with the party wiped out entirely in six constituencies. Mike Hedges is the only Welsh Labour Member of the Senedd for Swansea.
Plaid Cymru emerged as the largest party with 43 seats, with Reform UK securing a historic 34 seats. Plaid leader Rhun ap Iorwerth is expected to lead a minority government as Wales’ next First Minister.
Stewart – who has been Council leader since 2017 – will remain in his role at Swansea Council, where Welsh Labour holds an overall majority and is expected to face the city’s voters at the council elections next year.
