Labour support plunges in Wales while Plaid Cymru climbs

Support for the Labour Party in Wales has fallen 8% at Westminster and the Assembly since December, according to an opinion poll by ITV Wales and Cardiff University.

The poll projects that Labour would lose five seats in a General Election and five Assembly Members in the Senedd.

Plaid Cymru would gain Blaenau Gwent, Cardiff West and Llanelli in an Assembly Election, while the Conservatives would win Gower, Vale of Clwyd, Vale of Glamorgan and Wrexham.

The poll projects that Labour would end up on 23 seats, the Conservatives would have 17 and Plaid Cymru 16, with two seats each for UKIP and the Liberal Democrats.

	Constituancy	Regional
Labour	32% (-8)	29% (-7)
Conservatives	26% (+3)	24% (-)
Plaid Cymru	23% (+3)	23% (+3)
Liberal Democrats	8% (+1)	6% (+2)
UKIP	7% (+2)	6% (+2)
Greens	–	4% (-)
Abolish the Assembly		4% (-1)
Others	5% (+2)	4% (+2)

“It now appears that the remarkable stability that has characterised the polls since June 2017 has broken,” Professor Roger Awan-Scully of Cardiff University said.

“Labour have suffered most: their very public splits last week may well have contributed to what is a considerable drop in their support.

“As ever in Welsh politics, though, Labour’s saving grace is the lack of a single strong challenger – their decline has been distributed across several other parties.”

Westminster

In a General Election, Plaid Cymru’s support had risen to 14%, their best poll result since July 2016, giving them five seats including Ynys Môn.

The Conservatives’ support has dropped 2% but they would win Cardiff North, Gower, Vale of Clwyd and Wrexham from Labour, the poll projects.

The full results for Westminster were:

Labour – 35%

Conservatives – 29%

Plaid Cymru – 14%

Liberal Democarts – 8%

UKIP – 6%

Green – 3%

Other – 4%

Brexit

The poll also showed the highest Remain lead in Wales since the referendum, and on any YouGov poll since May 2015.

In Wales, 55% would now vote to Remain in the EU compared to 45% who would vote to Leave, the poll projects.

Only 22% supporter UK Prime Minister Theresa May’s draft Brexit deal, compared to 43% who opposed and 34% who didn’t know.

However, given a straight choice between Theresa May’s draft Brexit deal and a ‘No Deal’ scenario, 62% would choose the former over the latter.

YouGov interviewed a nationally representative sample of 1,025 adults in Wales online between 19-22 February 2019.

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