Mims Davies: Welsh Tory leadership change would be ‘nuts’

Restructuring the Welsh Conservatives before next year’s Senedd elections would be “completely nuts”, according to the shadow secretary of state for Wales.

Mims Davies said she was the leader, but worked with Senedd group leader Darren Millar as “a team”.

But a spokesperson for Millar has hit back by saying he is “de facto leader” of the party in Wales.

An internal party report recommended the Welsh Conservatives be led by the Senedd group leader.

Currently the group is led by three people: the Senedd group leader, the shadow Welsh secretary and the party’s chairman.

Davies, who is MP for East Grinstead and Uckfield but studied at Swansea University, was asked on BBC Politics Wales whether now was the time to reconsider the leadership question, considering there were now no Welsh MPs in the House of Commons.

“If you’re asking me ahead of the biggest set of elections [2026 Senedd elections], where the Labour Party has put £120m into more politicians in the Senedd, that we should be going down a procedure and process about our own party, that would be completely nuts,” she replied.

“Ultimately, I am the leader, working with Darren and David TC Davies, and working with our MSs [but] it’s not like that, it’s a team working together.

“Darren is setting a very clear agenda about fixing Wales in the Senedd alongside our shadow cabinet members there. We want to fix Wales and offer a very strong Conservative offer.”

A report in November, accepted by the Welsh Conservatives board, recommended having one leader to represent the Welsh wing of the Tory party, as is the case in Scotland.

It followed calls from Conservative Senedd members for the leader in the Senedd to be the official figurehead of the party.

Although approved by the board in Wales, the final decision is in the hands of the UK Tory leader Kemi Badenoch.

Mims Davies said: “Where things have fallen down before is where you haven’t really felt you’ve known what the team looks like.

“It’s Darren [Millar] in the Senedd of course, with the MSs and his cabinet around him. Kemi [Badenoch] and I in Westminster, and Lord Byron Davies and Olivia Bloomfield in the Lords.

“The structure and the processes don’t matter. We work together.”