Labour must take the fight to Reform ahead of Senedd polls, Carwyn Jones warns

Labour needs to talk plainly on the doorstep and reclaim its title as the party of working people to counter the looming threat of Reform in Wales, Carwyn Jones has said.

The former Labour first minister of Wales also told the PA news agency he wants to use his new position in the House of Lords – he was sworn in as Lord Jones of Penybont in January – to be a “voice for Wales” and a proponent for devolution in Parliament’s upper chamber.

As Reform UK has risen in the opinion polls, Wales-specific polling has suggested the party could win a large number of seats in the Senedd, the nation’s devolved parliament.

New voting system

In one of his first media appearances since returning to frontline politics, Lord Jones told PA that no party will likely win a majority under the new proportional voting system set to be implemented in the Senedd.

“I think anybody who pretends that that can happen is not really being straight with themselves,” he added.

“I think it’s a question of who comes first, which party has the most seats. They will be the party in the driving seat in terms of determining who will be first minister.

“It is then a question of who will work with whom? I cannot see Labour and Plaid working with Reform.”

While he said it would be difficult to predict how polling might shift by next year, the Labour peer said the party should now be asking why it is losing a “slice of our vote” to Reform, and how it takes on the rival party.

“We have got to answer that question and get it back,” he added.

“Ultimately they’re funded by millionaires, they have very well-off people leading them, and yet they’re pretending to be the party of working people. That’s our fault. We should never have lost that mantle and we have got to get it back,” Lord Jones said.

Trust

Maintaining Welsh voters’ trust will require a boots-on-the-ground campaign from Labour, the peer suggested.

He told PA: “One of the things I was always aware of when I was first minister is that you’ve got to sound normal, avoid jargon, talk like somebody who is an ordinary person, and chat to people on the doorstep.

“There is nothing better than chatting to people on the doorstep. Communication is everything.”

Among the regions Reform UK could gain ground are the Labour-voting heartlands of the South Wales Valleys, and parts of rural Mid Wales, which have in the past typically swung between the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats.

Lord Jones said the insurgent party had so far offered people living in Wales an “anti-politics vote” but not “anything beyond that”.

Reform is yet to set out its policy platform for how it might play a part in leading Wales following the Senedd elections in May 2026.

“Come and see me on May 11,” party leader Nigel Farage told reporters at a recent press conference in central London when asked about a Welsh manifesto, signalling he would hold a Senedd campaign launch on that date.

A barrister by profession, Lord Jones served as Wales’ first minister between 2009 and 2018.

His predecessor Rhodri Morgan was said to have turned down a peerage on two occasions, and his successor Mark Drakeford has ruled out accepting an appointment to an unelected upper chamber.

House of Lords reform

While he remains a supporter of former Labour prime minister Gordon Brown’s recommendations for the Lords to be reformed into an elected upper chamber, Lord Jones said he accepted a peerage as it is “important to have a voice from Welsh Labour who sat in the devolved parliament”.

“I want to be a voice for Wales, clearly, and a voice for devolved Wales,” he added.

Existing Labour peers were among those who Lord Jones said had encouraged him to accept the nomination for a peerage, which was made by the Prime Minister in December.

Lord Jones told PA: “Several people already up here said, ‘Look, you need to come here’. One person said to me, ‘We need young people like yourself’.

“I said, ‘I’m 57’ and they said, ‘Exactly’.”