Reform is gunning for Labour’s Welsh heartlands

The Caerphilly by-election could be about to deliver a once-in-a-century upset.

John Winterson Richards

Topics Politics UK

Thursday’s Senedd by-election in Caerphilly could be the most important in Wales since the Newport by-election over a hundred years ago, where a shock result signalled a complete realignment in British politics.

Indeed, it was the news of the unexpected Conservative victory in Newport in 1922 that gave the party’s MPs the courage to leave the coalition government led by David Lloyd George’s Liberals. It also marked the end of the Liberal Party’s long-standing dominance in Wales.

A century later, it is difficult to appreciate what a force Lloyd George was, or how powerful the Liberals had been both in Wales and the rest of the UK. The 1906 General Election, when the Liberals defeated the Conservatives, was one of the biggest landslides in British political history.

Yet it is no exaggeration to suggest that the vote in Caerphilly on Thursday, despite not being a Westminster by-election, could have as great an impact on both Keir Starmer and Labour. While it is unlikely to bring down the UK government, it could well spell the beginning of the end of Labour’s hegemony in Wales, which stretches back to that fateful by-election in 1922.

Growing up in south Wales, I often heard the refrain that voters ‘would elect a donkey in the Valleys if it was painted red’. That will not be the case on Thursday. Labour is on track to come third in a seat it has held in the Senedd since devolution in 1999. In national elections, Caerphilly has only elected Labour MPs since it was created in 1918.

The only real questions on Thursday are exactly how far the Labour vote will be below Plaid Cymru and Reform UK, and which of those two parties will come first. If it is Plaid, it will be big news. If it is Reform, it will be huge.

Make no mistake. Even if the mainstream media in London are paying little attention to a Senedd by-election, every Labour MP will be watching the result carefully. They know what it means: if Reform can be competitive in Caerphilly, then no Labour seat in the country is safe. Starmer will be extremely nervous.

Labour’s near-certain defeat in Caerphilly cannot be written off as an aberration, a ‘one-off protest vote’. It is the culmination of trends that have been apparent for some time. The Labour share of the vote in Caerphilly has been falling in recent years. It was still safe for Labour at the last election, but it is no longer the sort of place where it was said that it was easier to weigh the Labour vote than to count it.

That is itself a reflection of what is happening in Welsh politics. Labour’s share of the Welsh vote is not what it was before devolution. Now, only about a third of the electorate are committed Labour voters. Welsh Labour governments have, more often than not, been minority administrations, relying on open or implicit support from Plaid Cymru to prop them up. The polls are suggesting that those positions could be reversed after next year’s Welsh Assembly elections.

Caerphilly encompasses a string of post-industrial communities that is increasingly serving as a commuter town for Cardiff. Plaid Cymru has been strong on the ground throughout the campaign. Its candidate, Lindsay Whittle, has been a local councillor since 1976 and twice leader of Caerphilly County Borough Council. Reform, at pains to counter taunts that it is an ‘English’ party, is standing Llŷr Powell, a Welsh speaker with a distinctively Welsh name.

I happen to live only a few minutes away from the constituency boundary. A few weeks ago, when people in England were putting the Cross of St George on lampposts, I saw the Red Dragon on a number of lampposts as I approached Caerphilly Castle from Cardiff. It would be interesting to find out whether it was Reform or Plaid supporters who put them there. On Thursday, we might find out.

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

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