Politics Home Article | Plaid Cymru On Course To Form Next Welsh Government

(Alamy)

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The centre-left, pro-independence party, led by Rhun ap Iowerth, has won over 35 per cent of the vote, making it the largest party in the Senedd.

Reform UK came second on just below 30 per cent of the vote, while Labour and the Conservatives both suffered dramatic falls in support.

The result on Friday means that Labour will not rule in Wales for the first time since its devolved institutions were set up at the turn of the century. One of the Labour Senedd members to lose their seat was Eluned Morgan, the current first minister.

The results are as follows:

Plaid Cymru: 43 seats (35.4 per cent)

Reform UK: 34 seats (29.3 per cent)

Labour: 9 seats (11.1 per cent)

Conservative: 7 seats (10.7 per cent)

Green: 2 seats (6.7 per cent)

Lib Dems: 1 (4.5 per cent)

Plaid is six seats off forming a majority in the Senedd and is expected to agree on a coalition government with Welsh Labour. Leader ap Iowerth told reporters today he was willing to “reach out” to other parties to form a government in Cardiff.

At a press conference, the Plaid leader said Wales needed a government that represented the “change” which the country voted for.

“We could all see it. We could all sense it. Wales demanded a new beginning.

“And now a new dawn beckons. But we have not yet reached the destination. Far from it. We’re just setting out on our journey, and we set off with new leadership, with new energy and new ideas.”

In an interview with The House magazine at the end of last year, the Plaid leader compared his party’s rise to that of New York’s left-wing mayor, Zohran Mamdani.

Morgan took responsibility for the result and did not lay the blame on Prime Minister Keir Starmer, whose position is coming under renewed pressure amid major Labour losses across the UK.

But the result in Wales is particularly tricky for Starmer, with the country having historically been a deeply-rooted heartland for Labour.

Morgan and all of her predecessors have been Labour. Even as Labour collapsed in Scotland in 2015, and then saw its historic dominance in post-industrial parts of northern England fall away nearly a decade later, its vote managed to hold up in Wales.

The party’s founder, Keir Hardie, represented the Welsh mining town of Merthyr Tydfil, and some of its most high-profile figures, like former prime minister Jim Callaghan, have strong links with Wales.

The result represented another major electoral breakthrough for Nigel Farage’s Reform UK, which has cemented its status as the main challenger on the centre right of Welsh politics.