Corbyn and the Senedd election

Martin Shipton

Just as we were getting used to the idea that next year’s Senedd election will have a new dynamic predicated on Reform UK performing well, a further unexpected element has entered the fray to upset our calculations.

The as yet unnamed party of the left announced by Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana seems likely to be a participant. A statement issued by its two named supporters in Wales – former Cynon Valley Labour MP Beth Winter and Mark Serwotka, the ex-general secretary of the PCS union – suggests strongly that the party will be on the Senedd ballot papers in May 2026.

There are a number of things to say about the potential impact the Corbyn party could have on the election, but I’ll start with a message I received from a non-tribal Labour friend in the wake of the original announcement: “They’re polling 10% in the UK. Will be less in Wales because of Plaid, but if they poll 5% next year that would almost guarantee Labour third place, and Reform top, because they will take votes off Plaid too and stop Labour voters going to Plaid. Great news for Reform.”

‘Splitting the vote’

“Splitting the vote” is a common term used to describe a situation where opponents of a dominant party don’t coalesce behind a single challenger, but spread their support between multiple parties, enabling the dominant party to come out on top. That’s how the Conservatives have won so many UK general elections over the years, and why Labour has remained pre-eminent in Wales. It’s usually associated with “first-past-the-post” elections, where people are often advised to vote tactically to counteract the negativity of a split vote. But it could easily be in play at the Senedd election because of the decision to adopt a “closed list” voting system, rather than the Single Transferable Vote (STV), the much more common form of proportional representation.

If we had STV, Corbyn supporters could vote for his candidates and then transfer to Plaid Cymru, for example, without unwittingly helping Reform. As it is, we are potentially faced with another unintended negative consequence of Labour’s insistence on the adoption of closed list.

It will be interesting to examine any detailed polling evidence that emerges in coming months, but, as my friend suggests, there will undoubtedly be some who vote for Corbyn’s party who in its absence would have voted for Plaid Cymru.

There’s no doubt that Plaid is concerned at the potential for this. It’s the reason why its campaign team has been talking up the fact that Zarah Sultana, Corbyn’s prospective co-leader, voted against the devolution of the Crown Estates’ revenues to Wales earlier this year. It’s certainly embarrassing, and I was interested to find out what Beth Winter made of her ex-colleague’s arguably anti-Welsh stance. Unfortunately she didn’t respond to my message.

‘Deviationist nationalism’

It has to be remembered that there are people on the hard left who have no time for what they see as examples of “deviationist nationalism”. The cause of pure socialism is everything and anything that is a distraction from it cannot be supported. In the context of Britain this translates into a rigid form of unionism that perversely holds feelings of nationhood in Wales and Scotland in contempt.

I remember some years ago being told by a longstanding member of the Communist Party of Britain that the party’s general secretary Rob Griffiths, who at one time was a Plaid Cymru parliamentary researcher, was a good man, “although he does go on too much about this Welsh nationalist nonsense”. People on the left with such attitudes are never going to vote for Plaid, but they will vote for Corbyn. They’re likely to be a small proportion of the electorate, however.

The party with most to lose if the Corbyn party fields candidates in the Senedd election is, of course, Labour. In recent years Labour has been on a see-saw trajectory. It was disillusionment with the perceived rightward drift of the party that swept Corbyn into the leadership in 2015, following a disappointing general election defeat under Ed Miliband. Always a rebel and on the margins of the parliamentary party, he attracted support from millions of voters who were enthused by his passion for social justice.

I remember covering a rally at Whitchurch Common in Cardiff during the 2017 general election campaign where he was mobbed by supporters of all ages. Idealistic young people flocked to join Labour while some longer standing party members saw him as an unlikely leader who was reviving its traditional values. In the election Labour was only 2.3% behind the Tories under Theresa May, who lost her overall majority.

Brexit

But things then went downhill for Corbyn. He handled the parliamentary Brexit chaos badly and was demonised relentlessly by enemies who saw him as a threat. This was pushed by those whose shameless conflation of criticism of Israel with antisemitism was able to gain traction. After Boris Johnson convincingly won the “Get Brexit Done” election in 2019, Corbyn resigned as leader and was drummed out of the party on the pretext of antisemitism. Large numbers of party members left with him and full control of Labour reverted to its right wing. The party won the 2024 general election not on the basis of its own merits but because of huge disillusionment with the Conservatives. Corbyn retained his seat as an Independent and many rapidly became disillusioned with Labour.

Corbyn’s strident denunciations of Israel’s genocidal behaviour in Gaza, coupled with his criticisms of punitive welfare cuts, have revived his status as political hero for many and as things stand he could pick up a lot of votes from disillusioned Labour supporters. The extent of this is as yet unclear, but he will certainly peel off votes from his old party, in Wales as well as in England.

So we now have two big name politicians from outside Wales who will have an impact on next year’s Senedd election. Is this a good thing for devolution or the Welsh national project? Probably not. Farage and Corbyn may be at opposite ends of the political spectrum, but in their own ways they both have cachets that many find alluring.

Financial backing

Farage, of course, has the advantage of significant financial backing from fossil fuel business interests that stand to benefit from his political agenda based on climate change denial. His party’s appeal is based on the exploitation of multiple grievances spiced up with barely disguised racism while offering no credible solutions.

Corbyn won’t have big business donations to rely on, although it’s possible that some unions may switch their support to his party from Labour. He’ll also have significant backing on social media, if not from the mainstream press.

It’s little more than nine months to the Senedd election. Eluned Morgan and Rhun ap Iorwerth have seen the Reform UK founder as their most significant rival in their battle to remain or become leader of the largest party in Wales.

Who would have thought that another political figure from beyond our borders that many assumed was out for the count will be part of the mix too?