Next year, the people of Wales will elect their seventh national parliament. For the first time in a quarter of a century of devolved governance, its implications will be felt way beyond Offa’s Dyke. Westminster should be taking notice of the potentially seismic political developments at play, which look set to smash the established political order and could be a harbinger for the future of politics at a UK level.
To give context for those unfamiliar with Welsh politics, the Senedd (Welsh parliament) resembles the Westminster orthodoxy in many ways, in that the main two parties are Labour and the Conservatives. Plaid Cymru, the Welsh nationalist party, has on occasion shaken matters up, but the best it has ever managed to accomplish is to partner Labour in government. Labour hasn’t lost an election in Wales in over a century (barring the 2019 European election), and since 1999 and the birth of devolution it has always been the dominant party.
The new political system plays into the hands of a one-man operation like Reform
The current 60-member Senedd, for instance, has Labour on 30; the Conservatives form the official opposition with 16 seats; Plaid Cymru holds 12 and the Liberal Democrats and Independents have 1 each. However, successive opinion polls since the general election indicate that there will be what can only be described as a Nigel Farage-induced revolutionary event come the next election in May 2026. Potential developments are likely to be aided by the introduction of what some see as an anti-democratic closed list, multi-member constituency system to elect an enlarged 96-seat Senedd.
With the Labour honeymoon in Westminster long evaporated, the party is heading for its worst ever result in a Welsh national context. Opinion polls indicate that three parties are vying for the top spot in Wales, with each party within the margin of error. The latest opinion poll published earlier this month by Survation puts Labour on 27 per cent, Reform and Plaid Cymru on 24 per cent. The Tories find themselves worryingly trailing on only 15 per cent. The Greens and Liberal Democrats are on 5 per cent. Other opinion polls support the trend, with some indicating that Labour has lost its position as the dominant political party in Wales.
If the polls are replicated, Wales is heading for political stalemate, far removed from the stitch-up Labour and Plaid Cymru envisaged when they devised the new electoral system during their recently-struck partnership agreement.
Strategic challenges are faced by all involved. For Labour, the loss of Wales would be an incendiary device through the wider Labour movement in the run-up to the next general election. A contagion of panic could easily ignite within Labour ranks as they focus on the next general election. If I were the Prime Minister, I would be agreeing to every single request from the Welsh First Minister, Eluned Morgan. Saving blast furnaces in Scunthorpe whilst Port Talbot is allowed to close probably isn’t the cleverest optics from a Labour perspective in Wales, where both Plaid Cymru and Reform will seek to take advantage.
Plaid Cymru will never have a better chance of winning a Welsh national election. As the party celebrates its centenary, if it fails to capitalise on a deeply unpopular Labour UK government, it may as well give up and allow the emergence of a pro-Welsh independence political party that can succeed where it has miserably failed over the years.
Rhun ap Iorwerth, the party’s leader, has skilfully ended the partnership agreement with Labour, allowing him to lead full-frontal attacks on the Welsh government. The problem he faces is that the change option narrative he is desperate to claim for Plaid Cymru in the lead-up to the election will be difficult to convert unless he confirms he would be willing to work with Reform and/or the Tories. The reality, however, is that he won’t be able to carry his party. This is an enormous chink in Plaid’s armour that surely their opponents will seek to expose over the next twelve months.
The biggest strategic headache, however, falls on the Conservative party. If Labour faces potential internal strife because of losing Wales, by comparison the leadership of Kemi Badenoch could hit stormy waters capable of capsizing her leadership. As things stand, the Tories will fall to fourth place, way behind Reform. Nigel Farage understands Trumpian rust belt politics better than anyone in British politics, and many of the post-industrial communities of the South Wales valleys face the same sort of economic challenges as those encoutered by the US Midwest. There is a reason the party’s general election campaign last year was launched in Merthyr Tydfil.
Furthermore, the new political system plays into the hands of a one-man operation like Reform. Voters will place their cross in a box next to a political party, not a candidate. Expect Farage to be the only face of the campaign for the party even though he won’t be standing. If the polls are replicated next May, Reform will portray the result as a changing of the guard for the political right, with the focus very much on the next general election.
The Tories’ strategy of trying to out-Reform Reform by the previous Welsh leader, Andrew RT Davies, was going nowhere and new leader Darren Millar seems incapable of pivoting the party to a sensible pro-Wales, right wing offering. Unless the Conservatives manage to turn things around, there is a risk that those of a right-wing persuasion coalesce around Reform. We are at tipping point territory for the Conservatives.
One group of the electorate which the Conservative party could try to attract to get itself back in the game are those Welsh-identifying, right-of-centre voters who are desperate to see a change of government in Cardiff Bay, especially if they can make the case that Plaid Cymru’s ambition is limited to propping up the Labour party. Reform has cornered the anti-establishment vote; the Conservatives must put forward a programme of economic hope based on enhanced fiscal powers to incentivise growth and increase Welsh government accountability – all good Conservative values.
If the result itself poses major problems for Badenoch, the Senedd aftermath could be equally troublesome. From where they currently stand, on a very good day, the Tories could find themselves holding the balance of power. What would they do then? Prop up some sort of arrangement with Labour and Plaid Cymru, or serve as a junior partner to Reform? The Tory leadership should be thinking about how they get ahead of events in Wales before they are consumed by them.
Comments