How will Wales react to the second party forming the next government
Jonathan Edwards
The latest opinion poll seems to confirm that Wales is polarising between Reform and Plaid Cymru.
These are seismic developments, with Labour hegemony over our country which has lasted over a century looking precarious to say the least. To compound the significance of the poll, the current official Opposition in the Senedd is projected to fall to fourth place with a vote share of only 11%.
If somebody had told you after the last general election that a national poll in 12 months would put the combined Labour and Tory vote on only 29%, you would have asked them for the address of their herbalist!
One thing I learnt as a politician was to never tell a member of the public ‘I told you so’, however, as a proud member of the werin these days I did write an article last summer musing that the Welsh political map could change along these lines. Nevertheless, even in my wildest dreams I wouldn’t have forecasted Reform and Plaid Cymru pulling completely clear on 29% and 27% respectively.
Reform is on course to win the next Welsh national election. A party that currently doesn’t have any Senedd Members will, if the poll results are replicated, return the largest group in the next Senedd with 34 Members based on the Cavendish Cymru analysis. Let that fact sink in.
No-confidence vote
We are not in a business-as-usual situation – the Senedd establishment parties are about to be given a resounding vote of no confidence by the people of our country.
Furthermore, the party that would come first in the election based on most votes and most returned members would not in all probability form the next government.
Looking at the seat projection, the only stable administration on paper would be some sort of arrangement between Plaid Cymru and Labour with 30 and 21 seats respectively to take them beyond the magic 49-seat number that will give them a majority..
I don’t imagine for one minute that Nigel Farage is motivated by the thought of leading his troops up to the fifth floor on Ty Hywel to occupy the Ministerial offices. Winning the election and being relieved from the burdens of office by some sort of an agreement between the second and third parties would be the ideal scenario for Reform – who are very much prioritising the next general election.
His party will be gifted the mother of all grievance narratives. I am sure we will hear a lot of talk along the lines of an ‘establishment stitch up’ and a ‘losers’ coalition’ and the big question would then be how a perplexed Welsh public would react.
Illegitimate
The new government would most certainly be viewed as illegitimate by a large section of the Welsh voting public which Reform would undoubtedly then aim to use to target incumbent Labour and Plaid MPs in the second half of the current UK Parliament.
Plaid Cymru leader Rhun ap Iorwerth has based his whole political programme on a change offer from the current Labour administration. The Welsh voting public would be similarly confused to see a Plaid-led government either containing Labour Ministers or reliant upon Labour votes in the Senedd to sustain it.
Some of my former comrades brush this off as semantical in the grand scheme of things, but there is a plausible fear that for many ordinary voters such positioning undermines trust in politics.
As a junior partner in whatever form, Labour would surely know the playbook inside out and use their influence to paralyse the government from dismantling what they see as their legacy.
Furthermore, the Labour UK government is highly unlikely to concede to any Plaid Cymru demands on powers and funding and would engage in a strategy of neutering the new administration in Cardiff Bay.
Reliant on Labour votes, Mr ap Iorwerth will not be able to do an SNP in Scotland and declare war on Westminster.
Enraged
The big driving forces in Welsh politics following the Senedd election could well be an enraged populist right who believe the election was stolen and those that voted for Plaid Cymru aggrieved that they were sold a pup. And all this is before we even consider the problems that the Plaid Cymru leadership are going to face from the strong contingent of the extreme left of the party that look as if they will be elected next May.
What seems like the only likely route to stability based on the current polls could in fact be a mirage. If these polls are correct there is a strong possibility that the next Senedd election will not last the full four-year term. Rhun ap Iorwerth could resemble the first Labour UK Prime Minister, Ramsay MacDonald.
Let’s not forget that the first Labour-led UK government in 1924 lasted only nine months.
Jonathan Edwards was the MP for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr 2010-24
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It sounds like the next senedd will be a mix of hodgepodge. Sounds great but most likely nothing will get done in a hung parliament.
The answer is surely a minority Plaid administration (after the Senedd has rejected the Reform nominee) with perhaps a few Lib Dems and Greens as well. The extreme left will have to get real and Plaid dare Welsh Labour not to support their budget and key legislation as a second Senedd election would see them obliterated? Plaid would be mad to form a coalition with the Labour particularly as they will get nothing out of Westminster as stated.
It’s hard to see past a labour-plaid or plaid-labour government for eternity. Either coalition or minority supported government
Maybe Drakeford and Price were political geniuses after all?!
When the alternatives are the Dems and their low ambition policies of managed decline, the Greens who can only find an expat to run the Welsh party, the Cons who are hell-bent on finishing Edward’s work or Reform determined to finally conclude the Germanic invasion, what do you expect?
The big fear is people look at the polls, read the comments above and then decide not to vote or spoil their ballots.
And that’s in part because the new voting system fails to fix the problem of voter engagement caused by a lack of a preference vote – why vote if your choice has no chance or the result is a given. Preference voting empowers voters to support their first choice however unlikely without helping those they don’t want into power.
Agreed. Run a paper exercise for seat allocation under de Honte with Reform on 25%, 30%, and 35%. You can substitute Plaid instead of Reform if you wish. But the results are the same.
Only coalition governments can be formed. Backroom deals with preferred, centrally approved candidates elected are inevitable. Voters are basically there for decoration only.
Insert name(s) of eminence grise here
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Coalitions are good for governance as they reward the constructive and punish the adversarial. The problem is the voting system reformers that obsessed over proportionality and forgot about democracy. Choosing the same system that MEPs were once elected by should’ve been a red flag.
I am not sure I would have either in that category! For me, it is fundamental to Welsh democracy that Labour are evicted from office next year or we begin to look like Belarus, North Korea or any number of African states. There has to be a shared interest there regardless of left/right, nationalist/unionist etc. 26 years is enough.
Jonathan Edwards offers one possible speculative future for Welsh politics. Here is another…. Yes, Reform may top the poll. But let’s be clear: winning the largest share of the vote does not necessarily mean you speak for the majority, especially with just 29%. By that logic, 71% of the Welsh electorate actively rejected them. Only those clinging to the outdated first-past-the-post mythology will pretend otherwise. Nigel Farage and his party have spent almost a decade arguing for proportional representation, and with good reason have complained about being disadvantaged by FPTP. If Plaid Cymru and Labour form a government based on… Read more »
Related to your well made point Will Hayward put the current position in Wales and the legitimacy of a party on 29% of the vote taking all power in the face of a progressive/centre left majority like this yesterday in the Guardian, while also criticizing first past the post, “Imagine you and 12 mates are going out. Three of you want to go have a cappuccino, three want lattes and three want flat whites. You all want coffee but can’t quite agree on which specific one, but broadly you are in agreement on what you want to do. But imagine… Read more »
Most people will understand that a majority is needed for government, and Welsh Labour will probably be grateful for a break and not having to defend the indefensible from the London government.
It’s a long way to go, but I suspect this will be a good election to lose.
If we were to have a rational debate ahead of the next election, it would focus on which departments should bear the brunt of annual real term cuts of 2–4% over the next few years.
Governing in the UK post and exposes politicians to unavoidable trade-offs around fiscal constraints, whilst dealing with inflation, public sector pay increases, NHS waiting lists etc. hence every party leader since May, devolved or national, loses 20 + opinion poll points within months of being elected!
I am not quite so gloomy with regards to a Plaid led gov. However, I totally agree that a “Labour UK government is highly unlikely to concede to any Plaid Cymru demands on powers and funding”. That’s why Plaid should tone down the constant attacks on underfunding and focus more on their offer to the Welsh public within the financial settlement they will have. At the moment it appears Plaid are saying vote for us and we’ll get the money Wales deserves and everything will get better. That is a recipe for disenchanted voters a few years down the line.
We have just under 11 months to convince our people of Wales that our only future for a free Wales is to proceed to electing a majority Plaid Cymru government at the Senedd next May. The UK is a failed country with a failed economy and political system. Wales will never be really free until it becomes an independent nation as defined at the UN. Nigel Farage’s Reform group is not a political party in the sense it has no democracy. Reform is a limited company with Nigel Farage the majority owner with executive power. Members of the faction are… Read more »
Well, I’m not voting for one. The d’hont system is totally undemocratic.
So you don’t vote in Westminster elections then? It uses first past the post which is even more undemocratic