It’s not long since the Conservative group leader’s office on the third floor of Ty Hywel in Cardiff was covered in very different pictures. Now, instead of pictures of the family of Andrew RT Davies, there are different family portraits. There is a signed picture of Boris Johnson, in between pictures of David Cameron and a framed photo of the Queen and hanging off the wall is a Guinness World Record for the tallest Crepis plant – a weed which resembles a dandelion – found by the office’s new occupant.
A huge 19th century Bible sits on the desk, and the coffee table books are about Welsh football, Bethlehem and a book on the “appreciation of Jersey”.
In the last week Darren Millar, the MS for Clwyd West, has found himself promoted to this office, and the title of leader of the opposition in the Senedd. The son of working class Labour voters, his political awakening, he says, came at the 1992 election when he contacted all his local candidates to request their manifestos, reading them, he backed the Conservative candidate and immediately questioned why his parents didn’t too. As a result, they switched their allegiance from red to blue too.
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From there, he joined local politics, becoming Wales’ youngest mayor, and joined the Senedd in 2007. A married dad-of-two, with a 24-year-old daughter Mary, and 22-year-old son, Toby, away from politics he says his interests are Sumo wrestling, attending church, and astronomy, a hobby he got into during lockdown. The 48-year-old has admitted the week has been daunting, but he is “excited about the future”.
The key lines from his first interview with WalesOnline:
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He believes he can be First Minister in 2026
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Mr Millar says his group’s position on devolution – that there should be a devolved Welsh Parliament – will not change
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Mr Millar, a vocal Christian, says he would not have backed gay marriage in the historic 2013 vote, and would not if there were a vote now. He describes himself as “pro-life” and that he defines a woman as “a biological, adult female”
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The new leader said his party would work with any other group in a coalition after 2026 to “get rid” of Labour
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But he said there is “no chance” his party will back Labour’s budget in March even if it will mean it fails and causes serious knock-on consequences
Ruth Mosalski: “In an opinion piece for us today, you’ve said “My faith is important to me I am also not ashamed to call myself a Christian. Over the years the media has asked many questions about my beliefs and their compatibility with public office. I say this to them: ‘I go to church—get over it!'” I see lots of mementos around your office, clearly your faith isn’t going anywhere but are you going to maintain that professional link with the Pocket Testament Board? [Mr Millar’s Senedd declaration of interests says he has a management role with the Pocket Testament League UK, where he works for an average of seven hours a week].
“Obviously it all came as quite a shock when I became leader of the Conservatives last week in the Senedd. So one of the things I need to do, over the course of the next few weeks, is just take a look at all the commitments I’ve got in and outside of the Senedd, to see what is manageable and realistic given the new role that I’ve now got as leader. That’s one of the things which I’ll have to consider.
-Credit:John Myers
Are you surprised faith is still a thing being discussed in 2024?
I am really, because you know, there are hundreds of thousands of people across Wales who regard their faith as important, and not all of them are Christians, but the overwhelming majority of them are, and many of them send me messages saying they’re bemused that I’m asked so many questions about my faith because it’s just a natural part of me, and who I am.
Let me ask you, of the stories that come up when you Google you is distancing yourself from comments from Pastor Yang Tuck Yoong who said homosexuality was an ‘abomination’ and a ‘sin’ so where do you stand on gay marriage?
I’ve made it absolutely clear, I don’t believe that anybody should be discriminated against on the basis of their sexual orientation. I can remember many years back now those debates on gay marriage. At the time, I would have voted against it, being straightforward with you. But I’m a democrat above all. And once a democracy makes a decision I’m not going to go against that. I respect the outcome of those decisions.
You said that you’d have ‘voted against then’. Would you vote against now?
Probably, yes, but not out of any desire not to recognise the importance of those relationships.
What about abortion?
I’ve always being pro-life, never been secretive about that. That’s where I stand on that issue.
-Credit:John Myers
What is a woman?
I think the definition of a woman is it’s a biological, adult female.
Should Wales have an independent parliament?
Of course there should be a Senedd, that’s the settled will of the people of Wales. I am pro-devolution, but I’m pro-union as well and I think that the challenge we have here in Wales is that devolution hasn’t failed, but we have a failing Labour government, which has obviously been ruling the roost for 25 years and that’s not allowed our democracy here in Wales to mature in the way that it should have done.
I spoke to various members of your party recently about where they stood with devolution and it does seem there’s a split or a difference. Some people quoting two thirds of your membership don’t believe in this [the Senedd] as an institution. Do you believe there’s a split?
There’s a range of views in every political party about devolution. But frankly devolution is not going away. We have a Scottish Parliament, have a Welsh Parliament, we have a Northern Ireland Assembly. And of course, we have devolved mayoralty around England. You can’t unpick one part of it. People need to be realistic about that and they also need to accept that we live in a democracy, the overwhelming majority of people in Wales want a Senedd and that’s why we have one.
The message I was given by the group at that time was that the group’s position is there is devolved Parliament, and that’s where we stand, that isn’t changing with you as a leader?
Absolutely not. I am pro-Wales, pro-devolution and pro-union, none of those are incompatible with one another. The problem we have in Wales is not devolution, it’s a failing Labour government and that’s what we need to make our aim to topple that government. at the next elections.
-Credit:John Myers
In the membership, if there a difference of opinion, how do you resolve that? Would you ever do a referendum on it for example, do you try and end that conversation?
Our party policy is clear, and it will be as clear as I’ve just set out as well at the next Senedd elections. It is not going to change.
Reform is a threat to every party in this place. I would say particularly yourselves. How do you carve yourselves out a position that’s different to Reform?
I’ll be straight with you, Ruth, I want to get into government for the next election. I want to topple the Labour Party from ruling the roost which they have done for the past 25 years. I want to be the next First Minister and my shadow cabinet team that will be a government in waiting.
Reform is a very different beast. It’s not a party of government. It’s a party of protest. It’s not going to develop a programme for government or the sort of serious policies that you can effect change through this Senedd with. We’ve been saying in recent days, since my, appointment as leader that, you know, we are a party that will define ourselves by what we are for, not what we’re against.
Wales is broken after 25 years of Labour rule and we want to fix it. So we’ll be developing plans, to fix Wales.
That’s what I’ll be doing with my new team once they are all announced. And over the course of the next few months, you’ll start to hear more about the policies that we want to stand on as a policy platform going into those elections, because people are fed up, they’ve lost hope, there’s not a lot of optimism out there, and we need to inject a bit of hope and optimism into Welsh politics and I’m determined to do that.
Darren Millar says he can be First Minister after the 2026 Senedd election -Credit:John Myers
I’d have said before the most recent polls, it may have been optimistic for a Conservative opposition leader to say they want to be First Minister bur particularly with recent polling that’s a very bold claim.
Not at all. The polls actually show four parties which are neck and neck, when you look at the margin of error with those polls. So there’s it’s a very realistic prospect that we can be the biggest party of those next elections, taking the most seats, with a completely different sort of administration here in Wales for the very first time. That prize is closer than it ever has been and it’s a realistic prize, and I’m determined to win it.
I don’t know if you saw a talk by Dr Jac Larner and Richard Wyn Jones based on the 2024 general election results? Compared to 2019, that put 39% of voters staying with your party at the next election, but almost as many – 35% went to Reform. That would be catastrophic to lose a third of your voters.
The last general election was an extraordinary election. It was obviously very, very disappointing for the Conservatives, we had some fantastic, hardworking MPs, that were sadly not reelected, but I think in the same way that people were fed up, if you like, with the Conservatives at Westminster at those last elections, people in Wales also fed up with the Labour Party.
And the one spectacular thing that we’ve seen in the polls is the collapse in the support of the Labour Party since that general election as well in terms of their share of the vote here in Wales. Maggie Thatcher is more popular in Wales than Sir Keir Starmer at the moment. I find that an extraordinary. I think that just goes to show how unpopular this UK Labour government is and coupled with the unpopularity of the Labour government here in Wales that everybody knows is failing, because they’re struggling to get appointments with their GP’s, children are coming out of school functionally illiterate and it’s a terrible indictment on the government after 25 years, people can’t afford to own their own homes.
These are the things that we need to try and solve and my party will be coming up with solutions to these problems, will be presenting them to the public, we want them to have hope that things can be different in the future and I think if we’re positive and optimistic about that, we can really cut through.
-Credit:John Myers
Give me some policies that your Conservative group, or you as First Minister would bring in after 2026.
Now what I’m not going to do just a week after my appointment is to say, ‘this is our policy platform’ because we haven’t developed it in any detail yet.
It’s more important, I think, for a political party to define itself by what it’s for, rather than what it’s against and that’s why I’m saying that we are a party that is going to be values driven.
We’re pro-freedom of choice, pro-personal responsibility, pro-home ownership, pro-business, pro-farming. We’re pro the things that matter to most people. And our policy platform will be informed by those values.
So that’s what I have identified so far is these are the values that are going to underpin everything that we do and every decision that we make and every policy that we look at.
Obviously we’re going through a budget process at the moment here in the Senedd, the Welsh Government’s got the wrong priorities as far as we’re concerned in that budget process. We know that a lot of the so-called additional resources that are coming to Wales through that budget process is going to be gobbled straight back up and straight down the M4, back to the Treasury because extra tax on jobs with employers National Insurance contributions. And we’d have very different priorities.
We would, for example, reinstate a winter fuel allowance for, for people here in Wales. There’s no reason why the Welsh Government couldn’t do that. They’ve done it in Scotland, the Scottish Government, we know that, there are more people in Wales, on lower incomes than other parts of the UK and we also know that we’ve got more of our homes that are harder to heat at than in other parts of the UK. So that ought to be a priority.
You backed Andrew, you’ve been around for a long time, is your sense is your hunch at the moment that when you do come up with those policies, it will be different to the last manifesto?
I was the policy director, at the time of the last election.
That’s why I’m intrigued by you saying that ‘I don’t know the policy platform yet’ because you’ve been at the centre of determining those policies.
It’s because I want to redefine our party. We’ve got to be more positive and optimistic. I’m as guilty as anyone, in recent years, of perhaps focusing on the negative too much, what we’re against and that we’re against the Labour government doing this, against Labour government doing that.
We’ve got to get back onto a positive footing, and I’m determined to make that change. I believe we’ve already started that journey last week, managed to unite the group in its entirety behind my leadership. I believe that the membership of our party as well will be equally loyal as we take that message to the country about hope, optimism, and our solutions to fix Wales after all these years of being broken up by the by the Labour Party.
For 2026, if we’re at a point of that poll being right, are there any parties you consider working with in a coalition?
I’ve made it clear, I’m prepared to work with anybody to get rid of the Labour Party, to knock the Labour Party off its perch, because I don’t believe that our democracy in Wales will have matured until there’s an alternative to a Labour-led government.
I’ll work with anybody to secure that, even political parties that we might have significant differences of opinion on, there will be some areas that we can have in common where a programme for government can be developed that we can agree on to implement and leave our differences to one side.
On that theme, as it stands, it looks like it’s all down to Jane Dodds because Plaid say they won’t back it, Mark Drakeford and Eluned Morgan have both said it is in Wales’s best interest for someone to back the budget, we don’t want to get to March 5 without a budget. If we get to March 3 or 4 and there’s no one back there, this budget, would you?
There’s no chance that you’re part of the Conservative group in the Senedd backing the Labour Party’s budget. As I say, we believe we’ve got the wrong priorities for Wales.
Is it not a lesser evil, though, to back it in the current form than allow there to be no budget?
It’s not in anybody’s interest for the Conservative Party which has been advocating very different sets of priorities, for us to shift from those. I’m not going to compromise on our position that we want to see some more investment into certain things and some disinvestment into others.