Welsh Green Party leader describes intense cancer treatment during election

Wales Green Party leader Anthony Slaughter says he underwent intense cancer treatment while campaigning for May's Senedd election.

Slaughter, who will be stepping away from the role of leader at the end of the year, described having "some intense bouts of treatment in the first half of 2025" after being diagnosed in January.

The Member of the Senedd (MS) for Caerdydd Penarth publicly revealed he had been diagnosed with cancer in September, telling a Senedd debate of a "scheduled and serious operation" he had over the summer recess.

Slaughter also told the BBC's Walescast that he would not have voted for the "Zionism is racism" motion passed at his party's conference last month.

In the Senedd elections in May, Slaughter and Paul Rock made history for the party by becoming its first-ever MSs.

Reflecting on the election campaign, Slaughter said: "I was really lucky to have a really good, competent campaign team around me who were able to fill in the gaps, and that [cancer] treatment went well.

"So, I was able to throw myself back into the campaign, the leaders' debates, election day."

Slaughter said that his treatment had "gone as well as it could", adding: "I mean, it's always a month-by-month process, but yeah, I'm very well at the moment."

In October, the party's deputy leader in Wales, Phil Davies, resigned after the motion to declare "Zionism is racism" was passed and became Green Party policy.

The motion called for a "single democratic Palestinian state in all of historic Palestine", which includes modern-day Israel.

When asked how much damage the motion caused to the Green Party, Slaughter said: "I'm on record as having said I wouldn't have voted for it had I been at conference... it would be foolish of me on air to say that the motion hasn't caused us problems.

"Whatever my position is, and I've been meeting various stakeholders within the party, as the rest of the leadership have, and talking about not where we stand as individuals, because it's also worth bearing in mind there's very little in that motion that didn't reflect already existing Green Party policy.

"But we cannot ignore the fact that the way it's been perceived, the way it's been presented, sometimes understandably so, has had an impact, and we owe it to firstly the public and our supporters to be clear on where we stand."

Slaughter was elected Wales Green Party Leader in 2018, having previously served as deputy in 2014 and 2015, with party rules requiring each leader to stand down after completing three terms.

With Rock, the only other MS from the Green Party ruling himself out of the leader's job to replace Slaughter, the next leader will be from outside the Welsh Parliament.

Slaughter told Walescast that the timing of his tenure coming to an end was "quite fortuitous", following his party's historic results in the Senedd election, but still short of the five MSs needed to create a party group.

"I was already doing a lot of thinking, even putting my health aside… because this is such a moment of opportunity for the Greens, and we really have to make something of the fact that we made that breakthrough," he said.

"We're not a group in the Senedd. That's the target for next time.

"It's quite a good moment to hand over for a new, fresher leadership who can do the work of combining, building on the excitement of what we're doing in the Senedd, but not taking the eye off building up local parties... making sure we get more council election victories in six months' time.

"It's time for me to focus on being the absolute best Senedd member I can and delivering for the people of Wales, but also time for a change... nine years is a long time to be in office."

A ballot is expected to take place later this month and in early December.