Over the weekend, women’s rights campaigners performed a silent protest during Mark Drakeford’s speech at the Festival of Ideas in St David’s Cathedral, holding banners attacking the Welsh government over its planned self-ID laws and demanding it “save[s] single sex spaces”. The group stood next to Drakeford throughout the entirety of his speech, while he ploughed on as if they weren’t even there…

A spokesperson for the group later said:

“…For the last four years Mark Drakeford and his ministers have refused to speak to representatives of women’s groups in Wales regarding the safeguarding concerns we have about maintaining single sex spaces and women’s sports.

“Last autumn he promised at a public event that Julie James MS would organise a meeting with the concerned groups, but despite polite requests, this meeting is yet to be scheduled. We felt that this protest was our only option to be seen and heard. We were politely asked to leave as our presence was unexpected, but we presented cards explaining that it was a peaceful and silent protest and Mr Drakeford said he was happy for us to stay.

While the protesters stayed quiet, one furious audience member broke the silence by storming up to the group and ripping the banners from their hands. The group themselves added “the important thing for us was that there was dialogue.” Which, given the manner of their protest, is an odd choice of words…