Is Reform ready for a Welsh spring?

Marie Antoinette never actually said, ‘Let them eat cake’. However, the Right Honourable Baroness Morgan of Ely, the first minister of Wales, really did say, ‘If people want [local] businesses to succeed, they need to use them, stop buying online, get out of their homes, and stop watching Netflix. They need to stop buying that bottle of wine and go out to the pub.’

Needless to say, those businesses in question, most notably local pubs, are suffering as a direct result of specific policies of Labour administrations in both Westminster and Cardiff Bay. It is therefore pure gaslighting to blame the people – especially in Wales, where the choice for many people outside the public-sector bubble is not between Netflix, or bottles of wine, or overpriced beer at struggling pubs, but between buying basic groceries or keeping the central heating on during winter.

Eluned Morgan’s statement perfectly captured the outlook of an out-of-touch political class lacking all understanding of those it is ruling and meant to be representing. It is why what was meant to be impossible is likely to happen in May: Labour will almost certainly lose Wales.

The Welsh Assembly, now known officially as the Senedd, was designed specifically so that this could never happen. Even if Labour did not win an absolute majority, the electoral system, combined with the cultural incompatibility of the opposition parties, seemed to ensure that the administration would always be Labour-led. This has been the case ever since the assembly’s first day in 1999, even when the Labour share of the vote fell below 30 per cent. It was on this understanding that New Labour established it in the first place – to ensure Labour would always have a power base in Wales, no matter how badly it was doing in the UK as a whole.

That is almost certain to change after the next election in May. Labour is now running a distant third in the Welsh opinion polls behind Plaid Cymru and Reform UK. The latest YouGov poll actually has Labour in joint-fifth place, behind the Greens, on just 10 per cent, in a statistical tie with the Conservatives. Let that sink in: Labour, which basically owned Wales for the past century, is struggling for fifth place against the Conservatives… in Wales.

To be fair, it is not Morgan’s fault, even if she has done nothing to stop the slide. The Titanic-like final plunge in the polls is to a great extent a reflection of a similar collapse in Labour support all over the UK. Only a quarter of Welsh people who voted Labour at the 2024 General Election currently say they will vote for it in May. Labour may bounce back a little if Sir Keir goes. An actual fifth place in Wales is unlikely – but not as unlikely as it rising above third as things stand.

Even without the Starmer factor, the solid Labour base in Wales has been crumbling for some time now. Welsh Labour has now had more than a quarter of a century to put what it calls ‘clear red water’ between Cardiff Bay and Westminster, and the results have not been good. Those who supported the establishment of the assembly in the 1997 referendum, and have controlled it ever since have failed miserably to deliver on their promises. Wales has fallen further behind England in terms of most of the accepted indicators of economic development, health and education since 60 elected Welsh politicians replaced the single Westminster-appointed secretary of state hitherto in charge of Welsh public services. The imposition of the widely hated 20mph speed limit sums up the image of Wales as a nation stuck in the slow lane.

The fight to replace Labour is between Plaid Cymru and Reform UK. The public mood is not settled but YouGov polling is probably accurate in putting Plaid well ahead. Ill-informed commentators attribute this to a putative surge in support for Welsh independence, based on a survey last year claiming that 41 per cent now support it. However it turns out that this figure was a proportion of ‘decided’ voters only, with only 35 per cent of all Welsh voters in favour, and 50 per cent against. A YouGov poll last month has since reduced the proportion of all voters in favour of independence from 35 per cent to 26 per cent, closer to the norm in recent years. It is significant that Plaid itself is downplaying independence as an issue in its election campaign.

Plaid’s real advantages are organisation and leadership. It was a strong local organisation on the ground that led to Plaid’s victory over Reform in last October’s Caerphilly by-election. In Rhun ap Iorwerth, Plaid has a leader with polished media skills thanks to his years as a supposedly neutral political commentator with BBC Wales – which tells you all you need to know about BBC Wales.

By contrast Reform has little ground game and no real Welsh leadership. Nigel Farage’s belated appointment of Dan Thomas, a former leader of a London borough council, as nominal head of the party in Wales last week was a triple mistake. (This is no disrespect to the individual in question, about whom I, like everyone else in Wales, knows nothing – which itself is a problem.)

The first mistake is the fact he was appointed rather than elected, which plays into the narrative that Reform is essentially one man’s ego trip. The second is that he was until very recently a Conservative, playing into the narrative that Reform is a refuge for the people who misgoverned the UK for 14 years. And the third is that he is essentially an English politician, playing into the narrative that Reform is an English nationalist party – unsurprisingly, this does not go down well in Wales.

One is reminded of the folly of the Conservative governments appointing a chain of English secretaries of state for Wales in the late Eighties and early Nineties. Most were competent, and at least one was very good, but that was not enough to overcome the impression that London viewed Wales as a colony best governed from London because none of the natives was up to the job. The once considerable Conservative local base in Wales shrivelled during this time and never recovered. Reform is making exactly the same unforced error.

One can only imagine what Reform’s existing activists in Wales think about this collective slap in the face. It is worth noting that, contrary to stereotype, many Reform supporters are Welsh speakers and most probably consider themselves patriotically Welsh.

There is still one strong card Reform could play: it should come out unequivocally in favour of abolishing the Senedd altogether, or at least holding a referendum on the possibility. The last proper opinion poll on the question suggested that just under a third of Welsh voters would favour this. The precedent of the EU referendum suggests that this figure would increase dramatically if abolition was turned from a vague possibility not really worth considering properly into a viable proposition. It is fair to say that the assembly, as it is still generally known, is not embedded deeply in the affections of the Welsh people.

Indeed, the single-issue Abolish the Welsh Assembly Party won nearly four per cent of the vote at the last Senedd election in 2021. A singularly ignorant professor of politics at an assembly-funded university proclaimed that this was proof that the people supported the assembly. As anyone who really knows politics could tell him, most votes are almost inevitably cast for the big parties which are the only serious contenders, either for tribal reasons or for pragmatic reasons, because a vote for anyone else is wasted. For a tiny, underfunded single-issue party with no mainstream media support to get almost four per cent is therefore a remarkable achievement, hinting at more widespread dissatisfaction.

Compare that with the just over three per cent won by the Eurosceptic Referendum Party in the 1997 General Election. It took nearly two decades, but there was eventually a referendum on EU membership, and the majority of Brits supported Leave. Great oaks really do grow from little acorns. Reform could do the same in Wales, calling for a referendum on the Senedd’s future, and it would take a lot less time than Brexit did. Abolishing the assembly would be something tangible, something big, not just the usual hackneyed promises to ‘cut waste’.

In the meantime, Reform would benefit from a simple bit of psephological arithmetic. The third of Welsh voters who favour abolition are more numerous than the quarter who are currently likely to vote Reform in Wales according to that latest YouGov poll. A firm commitment to abolition would therefore make Reform look more attractive to an additional chunk of the electorate. It could be a game changer in the May election.

Otherwise, Plaid is likely to emerge as the largest party in May. With the support of the Greens, with whom it has very strong ties in Wales, Plaid is likely to be able to form an administration. If there are insufficient Greens elected, there remains the option of a deal with the remnants of Welsh Labour.

Politically, Plaid and Welsh Labour are in any case not that far apart. Welsh Labour’s ‘clear red water’ strategy aligns neatly with Plaid’s own radical leftward shift. Plaid has collaborated with Labour before. Since Labour has rarely enjoyed an absolute majority, it has usually governed with open or tacit support from Plaid. It might be Labour’s turn to repay the favour. And so Labour might not be as politically dead as it deserves to be after all.

The coming catastrophe for Welsh Labour and a glorious triumph of Plaid Cymru would not really change much for most people in Wales. Unless Plaid or Labour try to spring a populist surprise at the last moment, their policies and attitudes are basically the same. Anyone hoping for genuine change is likely to be disappointed.

Then again, how can we be disappointed when we never really expected anything else? Such is the fatalistic mood across the spectrum in Wales, 27 years into devolution.

John Winterson Richards is a writer on Welsh affairs and author of The Xenophobe’s Guide to the Welsh.