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Next May’s Welsh Parliament (Senedd) election is a three horse race – with Wales facing dramatically different options to determine its future.
In May, left-wing nationalist party Plaid Cymru hit 30% in a YouGov poll, followed not by Labour, but Reform UK. Labour’s 26-year domination of Welsh politics appears to be crumbling before voters’ eyes.
Reform UK support was at 25% – quite a feat for a party that does not even have a leader in Wales, and no clear frontrunner for First Minister should the far-right party succeed. It does not have a single representative in the Senedd yet. But things change fast these days.
Anti-establishment sentiment against both UK Labour under Starmer and Welsh Labour is on the rise. And the opposition comes from highly contrasting camps.
Labour First Minister Eluned Morgan, who took over from her scandal-hit predecessor Vaughan Gething in 2024, has tried to set what former leader Rhodri Morgan called ‘clear red water’ between Labour in Westminster and in Wales. Her version – the ‘red Welsh way’ does not appear to be cutting through.
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Why? In an interview with Byline Times, Plaid Cymru leader Rhun ap Iorwerth claims the First Minister and baroness only distances herself from PM Starmer when politically necessary, unlike the late Labour premier and left-winger Rhodri Morgan who “genuinely meant it”.
Morgan has been clear she wants to abolish the two-child limit on benefits – and appeared to reject Keir Starmer’s “island of strangers” speech on immigration in May, saying she opposed “divisive rhetoric”.
But when Rhun ap Iorwerth pushed Morgan to make it clear if she was rejecting Keir Starmer’s rhetoric directly, a Labour spokesperson jumped in to say she was criticising other people, not her PM.
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It is one of many reasons, he argues, that Labour are today viewed as “the establishment” in Wales, stemming from both their decades-long domination of politics there, but now by unpopular decisions made by a Labour PM in Westminster too.
“We know what’s happening globally, with the growth of the right in politics as a backlash against the establishment. Well, Labour is the establishment in Wales…
“The Labour vote in particular is collapsing and tending to come to us. The Conservative vote has collapsed and gone to Reform. Our appeal is: let’s corral that progressive pro-Wales voice around Plaid Cymru. We are the only realistic, genuine pro-Wales alternative Government that we have on offer for next year.”
“Her instinct was to back Keir Starmer. Her instinct was to not criticise the cut to the Winter Fuel Payment, was to not criticise the two-child benefit cap…She mocked us for calling for scrapping the two-child limit, and she in fact voted against a Plaid Cymru motion calling for scrapping of the two-child limit.
“Now that she has seen the perilous position that Labour in Wales is in…she knows that somehow she has to put some distance between herself and Keir Starmer.”
In contrast to Labour, Plaid Cymru has been vocal in calling for wealth taxes, rather than funding the huge hike in UK defence spending through cuts to foreign aid and disability benefits.
There’s a real chance that next year it might be necessary for Plaid Cymru and Labour to work together in the Assembly, to hold out a Reform Government in Wales.
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Is that something that ap Iorwerth would consider?
Yes, it seems: “It’s fairly simple to me. There will be no single party majority – that’s not the system that we have. Nobody is expecting a single party to get an overall majority from next year…
“What we want, clearly, is to be the largest party so that we can lead the Welsh Government.” That could take “many forms” he says.
The last poll’s seat projection gave Plaid Cymru the same share of the seats as the SNP got in Scotland in 2007. The SNP governed as a minority Government from 2007. “That took Scotland in a new political direction – that’s really positive, and that’s what we hope we can trigger.”
Just how far would Plaid Cymru go to unseat Labour from its position of dominance? Would the party work with Reform?
On this, ap Iorwerth is firmer – “There can be no relationship.”
“This is a party that is very clearly interested in using the election in Wales next year as a stepping stone to launch their assault on the UK General Election in 2029. It’s pretty clear that’s what’s happening. They don’t even have a leader in Wales. They’re not even saying who their First Minister would be. There’s no sense of what that Government would do.
“It’s a party that is totally ambivalent to what’s right for Wales. They’ve decided currently that they are not opposed to devolution, but only because that’s politically expedient to them, and they can see that that’s where the people of Wales are.”
The fear for independence backers like Plaid Cymru is that Reform “could change their minds in an instant – and get rid of all our national institutions and undo our journey as a nation.”
“Reform is not a party that believes in Wales the nation. It’s a party that is built around one individual with one job in mind – to get him to be Prime Minister of the UK. We’re not going to help them on that journey.”
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But the Welsh independence supporter is not prepared to tear up Welsh institutions – even the Labour party. “I’m fearful of what the end results of people blindly being willing to stick two fingers up to conventional politics, seemingly unaware of where that can lead and where history tells us it can lead. That really worries me,” he says.
His response to Reform backers? “I know that Wales has been forgotten. Wales has been forgotten every day and every week by Westminster Governments. It’s happening now again with the ridiculousness of multi-billion pound railway projects being announced in England with nothing coming to Wales, and HS2.” The latter was dubbed a ‘England and Wales project’ for funding purposes, despite it not running through the country. “It’s a massive injustice” that Wales was denied millions in matched funding for actual Welsh transport projects as a result, he argues.
“I’m angry about the way Wales is treated and forgotten by Westminster every day. But people can make a positive choice and come to Plaid Cymru, because we have a track record of fighting for these things, rather than opt for a Johnny-come-lately Reform Party that is just a copycat of all these other right-wing parties that are causing damage around the world.”
Although Reform would deny it, there is a prospect that if the party wins in Wales, the Senedd could be abolished at some point in the next decade. Equally, the road to Wales becoming independent is also open should Plaid Cymru win. The choice feels stark. That puts great pressure on ap Iorwerth’s leadership.
“I think it’s daunting, the prospect of a party being given control in Wales that could undo our fledgling democracy. We’re still a very young democracy here…Next year, it is a Reform-led Government, or it’s a Plaid Cymru-led Government. They’re very different prospects,” he tells me from the party’s Senedd office.
An anti-establishment tide is surging through Wales. Will 2026 be the year Welsh Labour’s run as the sole party of Government ends? If it is, the alternatives could not be more opposed.
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Josiah Mortimer also writes the On the Ground column, exclusive to the print edition of Byline Times.
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