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.