FIRST MINISTER Mark Drakeford launched a savage attack in the Senedd today, accusing the Conservative Party of fostering a culture war over gender recognition and mirroring attacks on voting rights by US Republicans.

Tory Laura Anne Jones had asked why the First Minister’s government is focusing on gender recognition reform — plans she said would adversely affect women — and whether Welsh Labour’s plan to introduce self-identification would be dropped.

Mr Drakeford said: “I am not going to get drawn into the shrill and deliberately divisive debate that the member continuously attempts to raise on the floor of this Senedd. 

“The member and people like her spent the whole of April trying to raise these dog-whistle concerns and found that people out there have a much greater sense of decency than the Conservative Party ever attributes to them.

“They are not interested in attacks on trans people; they are not interested in attacks on black people; they are not interested in attacks on asylum-seekers,” the First Minister said. 

Welsh Labour’s Sarah Murphy pointed out that last week’s English council elections had been described by campaigners as a dark day for British democracy. The First Minister said the chair of the Electoral Commission witnessed people being turned away from polling stations.

“I have no doubt at all that is part of a deliberate voter suppression agenda pursued by the Conservative government,” he said.

“The way they think they can win elections is to learn the lessons from the far right in the United States, and that is to make it more difficult for people who might not support them to turn up and cast their votes.”