11 February 2024 , 17:00
462
0
A Labour minister on the verge of becoming the UK’s most senior openly gay politician in history has told how he struggled with his sexuality when he was younger.
Jeremy Miles is running to be leader of the Welsh Labour Party and will be appointed First Minister if elected. In an interview with the Mirror, the 52-year-old shared how he found it difficult growing up as a child in the 1980s.
“I felt very much on the outside, very much that I couldn't see my place in the world. No part of my life told me it was okay and normal to feel the way I did,” he said. “It was a time when we had a Tory government that was finding new ways of being homophobic and oppressing people from LGBT communities. So as a young person at the time trying to find your place in the world, that's a hostile environment.”
Mr Miles first came out as gay while studying at Oxford, but admitted: “Life is a process where you're constantly coming out as gay in my experience”. “Obviously, as you get older, that becomes more familiar and you're more relaxed and comfortable about it. But it was difficult when I first came out,” he added.
“I came out at university to friends and that was challenging but essentially fine. Coming out to my parents was a lot more difficult and I think they found it quite difficult and for a long time. That's not the case now.”
Teachers, civil servants and train drivers walk out in biggest strike in decade
Asked how it would feel if he does become the first openly gay person to hold such a senior position in the UK, he said: “If you'd been talking to the teenage me, I would never have imagined that to be remotely possible So in my own life, that would feel like a very significant moment. I think it's also important that politics - Welsh politics, but UK politics and beyond - are representative and more representative than they currently are, because young people need to look at their public leaders and have a sense that they could be doing those roles in life.
“And so I think, I hope that if I do have the honour of leading the party, that will set that ambition for young people today who are gay as well, so I think that is important.”
Mr Miles has previously told how Hillary Clinton offered to set him up on a date with a world leader when they sat next to each other at a dinner at Swansea University, although he declined.
Ballot papers go out later this week as Welsh Labour members pick who they want to lead the party with Vaughan Gething running as the other candidate. The winner, who will replace Mark Drakeford as First Minister, will be announced on March 16.