Conservative AMs face reselection battle

Two Conservative Assembly members face a battle to be chosen to fight next year's Welsh election after local activists decided not to reselect them automatically.

William Graham and Mohammad Asghar are regional list AMs for South East Wales. As incumbents they could expect to be placed at the top of the Tory list for 2016 without challenge.

But last night the party's board for South East Wales decided not to give them incumbency rights and opened up the selection process to other candidates.

It means William Graham and Mohammad Asghar could still win those top two spots, but so could any other would-be candidates.

The party's Welsh Board could overturn the decision but one source says that if that were to happen 'there would be a lot of unhappy people' amongst the region's Conservative activists.

A Welsh Conservative spokesperson insisted that the decision was NOT a deselection:

William Graham isn't commenting this morning. I've approached Mohammad Asghar for a comment.

I understand that party members have wanted to see new faces in the choice of candidates for some time but have been frustrated by sitting the refusal of sitting AMs to consider standing aside.

Party leaders in Wales have also been frustrated in their attempts to persuade older members to make way for new blood.

In contrast, 9 Labour and 3 Plaid Cymru AMs have said that they'll stand down in May's election.