Senedd end of term report

Jonathan Edwards

The summer recess before a May election is normally when politicians begin to really focus on their campaign plans for the fast-approaching contest they will face.

For those in marginal constituencies it is a time of high anxiety, knowing that they could soon find themselves out of a job at the mercy of the electoral gods. Those Plaid Cymru and Labour MSs who have been selected at the top of their respective super constituency lists will be less worried than they may have been as the new Closed List system that will be used next May means they are more or less guaranteed to be returning to Cardiff Bay after the election.

They will not even have to worry about a grueling campaign ahead as voters will be placing their cross next to parties and not individual candidates.

Tory MSs on the other hand will surely be in a state of panic as the party continues to slide in the polls and teeter on the threshold of the new system. When the party brand is trashed, the new system is unforgiving.

Challenges

The political parties all face different types of challenges as we head into the business end of the sixth Senedd.

Labour, the dominant force in Welsh politics since the 1920s, could see their hegemony over our country smashed to smithereens next May.

Put bluntly, the conditions facing the party aren’t particularly favourable and what was once a given in Welsh elections, a Labour victory, now seems optimistic. First Minister Eluned Morgan could go down in history as the Labour politician that lost Wales.

The pressure she must be under, not only in terms of her role as FM, but the weight of history, must be immense. If I was her adviser, I would be telling her to go for broke and to forget the normal balancing act Labour FMs have to play when dealing with the tensions within the wider party.

If Labour do end up third she will be the sacrificial lamb, so she may as well operate on her own terms.

Extinction level event

For the second party the pressure must be even more vivid. The Conservative Party are facing an ELE (extinction level event). The change of leadership hasn’t worked and it is unsurprising that Tory MSs who want to remain MSs after May are jumping ship and joining the challenger right wing party, Reform.

For the Tories to remain relevant they must put forward a serious, sensible right of centre economic prospectus for Wales and force the other parties to fight on this terrain.

Alas, the party has fallen too deep into the culture war rabbit hole. They seem incapable of understanding that a political platform of populism only emboldens a purer version which is currently nearly three times ahead of them in the polls.

For Plaid Cymru the political stars have finally aligned. If the party can’t overtake Labour from here it may as well pack up for good. However, securing more votes than Labour for the first time in a major election in itself could herald the beginning of its problems, especially if they are second to Reform. In that circumstance, and if Rhun ap Iorwerth was elected First Minister on the back of Labour votes in the Senedd, his government would immediately face a legitimacy challenge in the eyes of a sizeable chunk of the electorate.

Vengeful

Governing held hostage to a hurt and vengeful Labour party could also be less than straightforward, especially as Labour will remember how Mr ap Iorwerth undermined the Coperation Agreement in the current Senedd. Mr ap Iorwerth will undoubtedly also have to deal with factional problems within his own party.

His biggest challenge however will be to define a mission for his administration if he is to avoid the travails of the UK Prime Minister, Keir Starmer. I hope for his sake that there is a clear focus on what they will do after the election if they are to find themselves leading the government of Wales. The empty political slogans that dominate the party’s social media feeds will not sustain the party in power.

The Lib Dems need to find a way of making themselves relevant; they are failing miserably at the moment.

Which leaves Reform. A party that didn’t exist at the time of the last election could well win in May. It will undoubtedly benefit from its anti-establishment positioning at a time when Cardiff Bay may as well be located in an alternative universe as far as most of Wales is concerned.

Jumping ship

As expected, senior Conservative members are jumping ship, such as former Secretary of State for Wales David Jones, and an existing Senedd Member in Laura Anne Jones. There will surely be more as the election nears. Mr Farage will be desperate for a defection from Labour and the other parties if he is to replicate the Brexit strategy of providing an offer that unites across the political spectrum.

If he fails and only attracts former Tories, then Reform will be wide open to accusations that his party is not a people’s insurgent force against the establishment, but rather a reincarnation of the old powers that the electorate are clearly fed up of.

Jonathan Edwards was the MP for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr 2010-24