Wales First Minister’s radar station objections show she is out of her depth
Wales’s First Minister Eluned Morgan has urged Keir Starmer to halt work on an AUKUS radar station in Pembrokeshire. He would do best to ignore her, writes Eliot Wilson
Politicians at any level, from Westminster to the parish council, can have a fit of the vapours and imagine themselves the Metternich, Bismarck or Kissinger of their age. The latest company commander to picture herself in charge of an army corps is the First Minister of Wales, Baroness Morgan of Ely.
A short history of devolution in Wales
The National Assembly for Wales, now called the Senedd, was established after a 1997 referendum very narrowly endorsed devolution, the winning margin only 6,721 votes across Wales. It was originally given powers over issues that matter to voters but sometimes lack glamour: housing, education, healthcare, transport. Many big subjects that are remembered in history books remained reserved to Westminster: economic and fiscal policy, law and order, immigration, defence and foreign affairs, business and commerce.
This effectively forced aspirant young Blairs or Thatchers into making a choice between nuts and bolts and the big picture. Those of us who had opposed devolution – I was an undergraduate in Scotland and voted against a Scottish parliament – feared politics in Cardiff and Edinburgh becoming markedly more parochial and inward-looking.
Wales has had six First Ministers since devolution. How many could people in the rest of the UK name? This was an inevitable bifurcation, and all politicians had to make their own choices. It was noticeable that when the first Welsh Assembly was elected in 1999, only six of the 40 MPs from Welsh constituencies chose to move from Westminster to Cardiff. No great national figures have risen from the Assembly, though it has provided an electoral life raft for “moment of madness” former Welsh secretary Ron Davies and disgraced former Conservative Neil Hamilton.
Eluned Morgan plays at being a stateswoman
This does not prevent the politician’s imagination from spreading its wings. First Minister Eluned Morgan was a Labour MEP before being nominated for a peerage by Ed Miliband and spending a blameless if invisible four years as a shadow minister in the House of Lords. She was then elected to the Senedd and within 18 months was a minister in the Welsh Government. In 2024, she was the only candidate to succeed Vaughan Gething as leader of Welsh Labour and therefore First Minister.
Wales seems to be too cramped a canvas for her thoughts on world affairs. Last week, she urged Sir Keir Starmer to halt work on a deep space radar station in Pembrokeshire. Cawdor Barracks near St Davids, in Morgan’s constituency, is one of three Deep Space Advanced Radar Capability sites around the world which will be able to track satellites and space debris up to 22,000 miles away; it will also support 100 long-term jobs.
Why is Morgan opposed to employment in her own fiefdom? Because the radar system is part of the AUKUS security partnership and is therefore being developed with Australia and – this is why the pearls are being clutched so tightly – Donald Trump’s administration in Washington.
The First Minister condemned Trump’s “hostility towards the UK” over participation in the conflict with Iran. She labelled the United States “not the partner it once was” because of its “targeting civilians, undermining our allies and diminishing the sacrifice of our armed forces”. Morgan then demanded that no more work be done until “we can be confident those partnerships reflect our values, and our security interests”.
Foreign affairs, defence and outer space are matters reserved to Westminster under the Wales Act 2017, so Morgan has no locus as First Minister. She has the right to voice a political opinion, but, while she has no legal competence, her words as First Minister carry a certain weight.
Let us do something she, presumably, has not done and think through the consequences of halting work on the radar installation. Trump already regards Britain as an ally which has unexpectedly let him down: he said he was “very disappointed in Keir” who “has not been helpful… I never thought I’d see that from the UK”. He also noted that Starmer is “no Winston Churchill”.
Devolution needs to grow up
If Baroness Morgan thinks that the UK suspending cooperation on a radar station will make Trump alter his policy towards Iran, she is delusional. There is a strong chance, by contrast, that it will put the UK-US relationship under more strain. Trump has already warned if the US-UK Economic Prosperity Deal concluded last year that “auwe gave them a good trade deal, better than I had to, which can always be changed”.
There is also a degree of irony in Morgan accusing America of no longer being “a reliable ally”, and calling in response for Britain to suspend work on a project which has already been agreed.
In any event, halting work at Cawdor Barracks would be an act of self-harm. The UK fought hard to maintain the AUKUS partnership when the Pentagon reviewed its participation in 2025; it is a valuable alliance with the US and Australia which enhances our strategic influence and capabilities. Diminishing it is not in Britain’s interests.
What the First Minister of Wales wants is the adrenaline rush of virtue. She wants to chastise Trump and oppose his policies visibly, and she either cannot or will not see that the practical consequences will be negative. It is the performatively pious behaviour of student politics where matters are black and white, and no compromises need ever be made.
Additionally, this display of virtue puts distance between Morgan and the unpopular Starmer, and appeals to left-wing voters a few weeks before Senedd elections in which polls suggest Welsh Labour may be beaten into third place behind Plaid Cymru and Reform UK.
Baroness Morgan’s comments are irresponsible in the truest sense. They demonstrate why devolved administrations have no control over foreign and security policy, and should be a salutary reminder that international relations are a complex and challenging field which rarely offers simple answers. She is out of her depth, and the Prime Minister, with his own struggles in dealing with President Trump, is well advised to ignore her.
Eliot Wilson is a writer and historian; senior fellow for National Security at the Coalition for Global Prosperity; and a contributing editor at Defence on the Brink