First black leader of any European country: Vaughan Gething’s political career

Vaughan Gething’s achievement in becoming the first minister of Wales last March took on a significance that went beyond Britain’s borders.

While the appointment meant that, for the first time, none of the UK’s four main governments was led by a white man, Gething also became the first black leader of any European country.

Yet even as the newly installed premier enjoyed his groundbreaking moment, the storm clouds were gathering as Welsh Labour politicians met to discuss concerns about Gething accepting £200,000 from a firm owned by a man convicted of environmental crimes.

After just 118 days in the role, time has caught up with Gething, who served as the minister for health and social services from 2016 to 2021 and minister for the economy from 2021 to 2024.

A solicitor by profession, Gething describes himself as “a Welshman born in Zambia”. He is son of a vet from the Vale of Glamorgan in south Wales , who met Gething’s mother, a Zambian chicken farmer, while working in southern Africa.

When he was two, Gething’s father was offered a job near Abergavenny, in Monmouthshire, but the offer was withdrawn when he arrived with his family. The family moved to Dorset in England.

The experience of prejudice was something Gething would return to at later points in his political career, speaking openly about it and saying in his campaign to become the Welsh Labour leader that he did not want anyone in Wales to feel that way.

Politics was an early love, with Gething joining the Labour party at 17 to help campaign in the 1992 elections.

After studying law at Aberystwyth University, he unsuccessfully stood for the Mid and West Wales seat at the first National Assembly elections in 1999, before becoming councillor for the Butetown area of Cardiff in 2004. In 2008, he became the youngest president of Wales TUC at the age of 34.

Election to the Welsh assembly for the seat of Cardiff South and Penarth came in 2011 although Gething had already been making a name for himself, speaking out on taking the fight to the British National Party (BNP) in the period when the far right managed to capture two UK seats in the European parliament.

It was during the Covid pandemic that Gething rose to prominence as health minister, a post he held from 2016 to 2021, before becoming economy minister.

But while the health portfolio made Gething a household name in Wales, there was controversy after he was pictured eating chips in a park with his family during lockdown. He insisted he had not broken the rules.

Gething would also later have a difficult time at the UK Covid inquiry when he admitted all his WhatsApp messages from during the pandemic had vanished when his Senedd phone underwent a “security rebuild”.

However, while “chipgate” was damaging, it was not enough to hold back his continued political rise. “No other politicians stepped up like Mark [Drakeford] and Vaughan,” the BBC was told by Ken Skates, currently the Welsh cabinet secretary for north Wales and transport.

After running for the Labour leadership and first minister position in 2018, losing to Mark Drakeford, Gething took on the top political job in Wales on 20 March after a Welsh Labour leadership race in which he went head to head with a colleague, Jeremy Miles.

However, Gething’s leadership continued to be blighted by questions over the donation to his Labour leadership campaign from Dauson Environmental Group. The controversy had first blown up in February when it was revealed that the company’s owner, David Neal, was given a three-month suspended prison sentence in 2013 for illegally dumping waste on the environmentally sensitive Gwent Levels in south Wales.

His position suffered yet another blow in May when he sacked a minister after the leaking of an embarrassing phone message from the time of the pandemic when he was Welsh health minister.

In June, Gething was reduced to tears when he lost a confidence vote which – even though it was tabled by the Tories and backed by Plaid Cymru and the Liberal Democrats – revealed how he had also lost the backing of some in his own party .

Gething soldiered on after the non-binding vote, but the tipping point came on Tuesday morning when four ministers, including his former leadership rival Miles, resigned and called for him to quit.

In a defiant message announcing that he was resigning, Gething continued to deny any wrongdoing: “My integrity matters. I have not compromised it.”