For nine years, Jane Dodds has led the Welsh Liberal Democrats through some very challenging times. By the time she took office, the party had been brutally punished at the ballot box for its role in the Coalition and the ensuing decade has not provided the most fertile of territory for us.
However, Jane has stood up consistently for our values in that challenging environment. She has always stood up for human rights, proposed ways to alleviate child poverty, including a Universal Basic Income. In fact, she was responsible for me becoming more sympathetic to that. She was one of the first politicians to talk about tackling loneliness and social isolation. She’s been a voice for marginalised people and deserves our pride and gratitude.
Just as in the Federal Party, elections for the Scottish and Welsh parties trigger a leadership election. Alex Cole-Hamilton was quietly re-elected as Scottish Leader unopposed a month or so back. Tonight, Jane has announced that she is stepping down as Welsh Leader.
In a statement emailed to Welsh Lib Dem members before being released publicly, she said:
I wanted you to hear this from me first, before anyone else: I have decided to stand down as Leader of the Welsh Liberal Democrats.
Leading this party has been the honour of my life. When you elected me in 2017, I said I wanted to bring like-minded people together, rebuild our party, and make the Welsh Liberal Democrats a radical, progressive force in Welsh politics again. Nearly nine years on, I hope you feel we have done that together.
We’ve won councillors in every corner of Wales. With just one voice in the Senedd, we used our budget deal to win real money for childcare, for families who were desperate for it. We’ve fought for the children growing up in poverty in our country. And when others wanted Wales to turn its back on refugees, we stood up, loudly and proudly, for Wales as a Nation of Sanctuary.
None of that happened because of me. It happened because of you: the leaflets, the doorsteps, the phone banks, the wet Saturday mornings. Thank you.
I’ve spent the summer thinking hard about May’s election. If I’m honest, it wasn’t the result we worked so hard for. Once again, I am our party’s only Member of the Senedd. I don’t want to be the only one after the next election. Wales needs a team of liberal voices in the Senedd, and that means starting now. We need new candidates, new councillors and new leaders who will spend the next few years in their communities, shaping our policies and making our case on the airwaves. I believe that work should be led by a new generation, and that the right time to hand over is now, while there is time to build.
When I became leader, Theresa May was Prime Minister and Carwyn Jones was First Minister. Six Prime Ministers and five First Ministers later, I hope I have given our party something steady to build on.
I am not going anywhere. I will carry on as the Member of the Senedd for Brycheiniog Tawe Nedd, and I will carry on doing what brought me into politics in the first place.
I spent 27 years as a child protection social worker. I saw what poverty does to children, and I have never been able to accept it. One child growing up in poverty is one too many. Today, more than 200,000 children in Wales, almost one in three, are growing up poor. The new Plaid Cymru Government has promised to put child poverty at the heart of everything it does. I will hold them to that promise every single day, and I will keep pushing them to go further and faster, until every child in Wales gets the start in life they deserve.
Our Party President, Tim Sly, will write to you in the coming days with the timetable for the leadership election.
Finally, my thanks to our staff and volunteers, who have given so much, and above all to my husband Patrick. I could not have done any of this without his love, patience and support.
Diolch o galon, thank you from the bottom of my heart.
Jane.
At the time of writing, the only eligible candidate is Wales’ other parliamentarian, David Chadwick.
He paid tribute to Jane, saying:
Jane has led the Welsh Liberal Democrats through an incredibly difficult period for both our party and Welsh politics, and she has done so with determination and resilience.
“Under her leadership, our party has begun to rebuild. In 2022, we gained council seats in Wales for the first time in a decade, and at the 2024 General Election we re-established Welsh Liberal Democrat representation at Westminster.
“On a personal level, I am particularly grateful for everything Jane has done alongside me in Brecon, Radnor and Cwm Tawe. We have worked together on countless campaigns for our communities, and I look forward to continuing to work closely with her on the issues facing our constituents and the people of Wales.
“Jane has given an enormous amount to the Welsh Liberal Democrats and to public life in Wales, and she deserves our sincere thanks for her service as Leader.
“There will understandably be questions about what comes next. Today should be about Jane and her contribution to our party. I will make a statement about my own political future in the coming days.”
Ed Davey also paid tribute to her:
I’m so grateful to Jane for her 9 years’ service as Leader of the Welsh Liberal Democrats.
She secured big wins on social care, childcare, bus services and protecting rivers.
I know she’ll continue to be a tireless champion for Liberalism and the people of Wales. Diolch Jane!
His relationship with her had not always been so positive, though that seemed to have changed by the elections this year.
Jane’s leadership coincided with the most profoundly challenging environment in Wales, which was not of her making. Firstly the coalition, then being a very pro EU party in a very pro Brexit country and, perhaps the federal party’s focus on the Blue Wall and soft Tories has only reinforced the damage of the first. I wonder if Lloyd-George himself would have managed to rebuild our fortunes to their previous level given the same set of circumstances.
As to what happens next, I understand that Welsh Lib Dems will debate an amendment to the leadership rules that would allow people who were not MPs or MSs to stand, but that this would be debated after nominations close for the current contest. That will be an interesting debate.
But tonight, we should be focusing on Jane and thanking her for all she has done and looking forward to what she will do in the Senedd in the future.
* Caron Lindsay is Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and blogs at Caron's Musings. You can find her on Bluesky at caronmlindsay.bsky.social
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7 Comments
Thank you Jane for your tireless work over the last decade. You stood for leader when it would have been easier not to, you’ve fought elections when it would have been easier not to and kept working hard when it would have been easier to walk away. The party owes you a debt it hasn’t yet realised.
Battling on against the current with scarce means or attention from the media.
Excellent radical liberal focussing on the issues that really matter.
And with the grace and nous to know when to hand on to a worthy successor, as well.
When Welsh Lib Dems ride high again, she will be remembered as the person who set us on the right track.
“then being a very pro EU party in a very pro Brexit country”. Wales voted for Brexit by a 52.5% to 47.5% which is narrower than the margin in England. The counties that voted against Brexit turned to Plaid Cymru in Gwynedd and Ceredigion but in Cardiff, the Vale of Glamorgan and Monmouth Labour benefited.
Looking to next year’s local government election, with Plaid Cymru stuck in a minority government in the Senedd there is a chance for a recovery in Ceredigion. In Powys the future of the surprisingly successful Lib Dem led administration is dependent on the survival of Labour in Brecknockshire. It is in Swansea where there has been a surge from 11 Lib Dem councillors elected in 2022 to 18 now that there is the best chance for a Lib Dem led administration.
I have known Jane since she became a Councillor in Richmond upon Thames 20 years ago and thought then, and have thought ever since, what a talented member of our party she is, all through her attempt to win back Montgomery in 2015 and the great by-election victory in Brecon & Radnor in 2019, rather cruelly cut short by Boris getting to call an early election. There was a comment last night saying she had led the Welsh party with ‘warmth, determination and integrity’. Anyone who knows Jane knows there is a reason for that – these are her PERSONAL qualities and describes Jane to a tee. In a time of artifice in politics, but in which voters are searching for authenticity, she has been absolutely true to the person she is throughout her leadership (and before).
Can’t really add anything new to what Caron, Paul and Chris have said that is of anything substantially new. Thank you so much Jane.
It’s a mistake to think of Wales as a very pro-Brexit country. There was a divide between those more likely to see themselves as British who wanted Brexit and those more likely to see themselves as Welsh who didn’t. In the last election there was a unity in voters who didn’t believe in the status quo with some wanting to reform Westminster and some wanting more distance to Westminster. In both, Welsh Lib Dems found themselves trying to court voters who just weren’t there in any great numbers: firstly the pro-Britain, anti-Brexit and secondly in the anti-reform, anti-independence.
On top of that the Lib Dems just haven’t been seen to do anything positive here. The coalition government with Nick Clegg saw austerity really bite hard and then the Kirsty Williams education reforms have not worked out well.
If you’re chasing voters who are a minority, with a manifesto where all the good stuff can be found in other parties manifestos, without a record to sell to the voters it becomes a really, really hard job.
Recently a Question Time clip has gone around about how Wales could have been one of the wealthiest parts of the UK based on natural resources but these have all been taken to enrich others. Historically and with the modern day HS2 debacle, that is the context in which Welsh political parties operate and new leader will have to contend with.
Jane has contributed much to what Wales is today although she is the alone LibDem Senedd member for the party there.
Wales is different (unlike the rest of UK), but like many European member countries, the wider liberal movement spanning across more than one party. For Wales liberalism has been well established within Plaid Cymru, which is now in Government in Wales.
It has been said by a LibDem councillor in Aberaeron (Ceredigion) that Plaid Cymru has copies the LibDem view, I would also say the LibDem policies in Wales have taken policies from Plaid Cymru. Much is so common between the LibDems, Plaid Cymru and both of liberal history.
The policies of independence within the greater European Union must really be revisited.
The constitutional policy of ‘Poverty, Ignorance and CONFORMITY’ has to apply for Wales, Scotland, Ireland and England as well as for Palestine, Israel, Ukraine, Baltic states, etc.
Should the people of those countries want it.
Wales (like Scotland and Northern Ireland) have had policies thrusted upon them by a majority English UK, including the flooding of a Welsh valley.
The people’s independent nations of the British Isles, can still meet in a Benelux type council and we will also be part of the great union that is the European Union.
I think this will be a better understanding and cooperation between our great nations.