Eluned Morgan joins Welsh Labour leadership race

Eluned Morgan has become the third AM to join the Welsh Labour leadership race, despite none of her colleagues in the assembly coming out to support her.

The Welsh language minister said she would "represent change" in the election to succeed Carwyn Jones.

Unlike rivals Mark Drakeford and Vaughan Gething, other Labour AMs have not backed her.

Candidates need nominations from five other AMs to get on the ballot paper.

So far only Mr Drakeford, the finance secretary, has enough pledges of support.

Ms Morgan, a member of the House of Lords and former MEP, said she had not yet asked any other AMs to support her leadership bid.

She said the election was a chance to renew Labour after nearly 20 years in office in Cardiff.

Asked what wing of the party she came from, she said: "I think I would probably position myself in the same place as Mark Drakeford, the centre-left, but also somebody who's extremely practical, exactly like Mark Drakeford."

She said Labour needed to tackle poverty by growing the economy.

"That is absolutely, centrally, what I will be making as a pitch," she said.

Feedback from Labour members to her call for ideas would help form a "people's manifesto" she said, adding: "It will be on this basis that I will seek formal support from my assembly colleagues before the end of the summer."

Ms Morgan also called for changes to the way the leader is elected.

Under Welsh Labour's current electoral college, the winner could be elected without a majority of votes from party members.

Opponents of the college - including Mr Drakeford - want Welsh Labour to use one-member-one-vote elections, as has happened in UK-wide Labour leadership elections since 2015.

A review is under way with a special party conference due to decide the rules on 15 September.

Ms Morgan said Welsh Labour should make the switch, "although we must find a way of ensuring that the politically affiliated union voice is heard within that system".