Plaid Cymru wins council by-elections in Caerphilly
Martin Shipton
Plaid Cymru has won two council by-elections in Caerphilly – and one of its new councillors is the mother who called out Reform UK’s racism in a TV debate.
Plaid took a seat from Labour on the county borough council with a comfortable lead over Reform UK, whose candidate came second.
Plaid’s Jeff Grenfell topped the poll in the Van ward with 374 votes (43.3%), ahead of Reform’s Russell Larke with 246 votes (28.5%), Labour’s Matthew Ferris with 231 votes (26.8%) and Tony Potts with 12 votes (1.4%). The Conservatives and the Greens did not field candidates, and the turnout was 25.9%, a decrease of 4.4 percentage points on the last election in 2022.
The seat was previously held by the late Labour councillor Christine Forehead.
Plaid’s win comes four months after it won the Caerphilly Senedd seat from Labour, with long-serving councillor Lindsay Whittle beating Reform into second place.
Another election was also held in Van on February 19, for a community councillor. Plaid Cymru’s Alison Vyas was victorious, defeating Reform’s John Kennedy in a straight fight.
Ms Vyas came to the fore during the Caerphilly by-election campaign when she challenged Reform candidate Llyr Powell during a BBC TV hustings debate over his party’s stance on immigration.
She told Powell she “had never felt so unwelcome” in her hometown until his party’s campaigning began.
The exchange involved both Ms Vyas and her mixed-race son Cole, who pointed to census data showing that only 2.9% of Caerphilly residents were born outside the UK.
Video clips of the interaction circulated widely on social media and were shared throughout the remainder of the campaign.
Following the TV exchange, Ms Vyas says she was subjected to online harassment from commenters identifying themselves as Reform supporters or far-right activists.
When Ms Vyas was announced as Plaid’s candidate in the Van Community Council election, Reform made a formal complaint to the BBC, claiming she had been a politically motivated “plant” in the TV audience.
However, a Plaid Cymru source told Nation.Cymru at the time that Ms Vyas attended the debate as a resident and parent, and later joined the party after receiving racist and misogynistic abuse online following the broadcast. The source said her decision to stand for council stemmed partly from this experience.
“Alison was expressing her own experience as a mother living in Caerphilly with a mixed-race son,” the source said. “She had no formal links to Plaid Cymru before the debate.”
Community councillor roles are voluntary and unpaid. Van Ward is the area where Ms Vyas was raised.
Impartial
A BBC spokesperson rejected Reform’s allegation of bias, stating: “As with all BBC election debates, the audience was selected through an established and impartial vetting process designed to ensure a fair representation of political views. All participants were selected in line with our standard editorial guidelines.”
Plaid Cymru Senedd Members welcomed the party’s latest election victories in Caerphilly, arguing they proved that Plaid is the only party that can defeat Reform in Wales.
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Well done.
BBC also thought it was going to get a gotcha when they went to her from her son and Powell still got tutored.
Quite good results for Plaid though they don’t appear to be adding votes just consolidating. The good thing about the Council vote is that Reform only just pipped Labour to second. Still amazes me that voters who would never think of voting Tory are happily voting for a party of far-right, Thatcher loving x Tories.
Last time, voters only had one option (Plaid) if they wanted to defeat Labour. This time, there were three different options voters could choose from to beat Labour, making it much harder to increase their share of the vote. Had it been a straight two way fight with Labour like last time, I’ve no doubt that Plaid would still have won, which would have meant that their share of the vote would have automatically gone up.
Llyn. I have a theory that there are Conservative … and then we have Tory. The Conservative, to me, has a social conscience while believing that business and the economy is paramount, whereas the Tory believes that power and entitlement over middle to lower social classes is a “given” making them privilege ro always be right. Just a thought for debate, giving the current “Tory/Reform” characters about.
Many congratulations to Jeff Grenfell and Alison Vyas. Always good to see Deform being beaten in any election.
Though terrible for them on the face of it. I think Labour may have some sigh of relief at that result. It’s the sort of percentages which if replicated in the new 6 seat lists would probably be a 2-2-2 split between the top three. And actually is their best by election percentage in some time (it’s been a low bar). It’s the sort of result that, in comparison to some of the national polls, could mean the difference between simply losing and being annihilated. Though on these sort of results the chances of a reform gov drops essentially to… Read more »
Actually, under the D’Hondt system Plaid would have won 3, Deform 2 and Labour would have taken one seat. This is because a party’s share of the vote is divided by the number of seats they’ve won up to that point (plus 1). In this case Plaid would have taken the fifth seat with 124.66 votes (374/3) ahead of Deform’s 123 votes (246/2) and Labour’s 115.5 votes (231/2). Deform would have then taken the sixth seat. Now I need to lie down in a darkened room!!
Excellent news seeing reform losing. There is no place for racism in Cymru.
So the Cons stood aside for Reform. A heads-up for May perhaps.
The good people of Caerphilly won’t be taken for fools by the malignant grifters and liars of Defraud UK
Another defeat for the English Nationalist Party in the Valleys. That’s the Caerphilly by Election for the Senedd where they were smashed also smashed in the Penyrheol council by election and well beaten in Van and Pontypridd town. I knew the good people of the Valleys wouldn’t fall for Farage’s hate. Cymru am Byth
Business as usual in Caerphilly . Low turnout Bad night for Reform generally. On the backfoot Managed just 2.7% in Leicester giving Monster Raving Loony Party a run for their money Even lost in Redcar in industrial North East. All eyes on Gorton for next week. It will be a mortal blow for Reform if Greens can pull that one off. Meanwhile the Chuckle Brothers in Torfaen Thomas & O’Connell mocking Rhun for his net zero U turn Forgetting of course they have just produced videos knocking Torfaen Council for outsourcing services Yet welcomed into Wales Dan Thomas (probably through… Read more »
Again, congratulations to Plaid Cymru. 👏🏴
No mention of this on the Valley Times Facebook page or Walesonline. Oh, I forgot the English Nationalist Party didn’t win so they are pretending it didn’t happen.