<
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/oct/24/reform-caerphilly-byelection-britain-labour>
"Several historic things have just happened at once in Wales. Plaid Cymru won
in the Caerphilly byelection for our Senedd, with almost 50% of the vote.
Reform lost. Labour collapsed. Each of those things means something significant
for Wales, but it also carries valuable lessons for the rest of Britain. The
message for Labour ought to be clear: standing up to the hard right can win
elections.
Labour has been the largest party in Wales for over 100 years, leading the
Welsh government since the start of devolution in 1999. It won the Caerphilly
seat in 2021 with 46% of the vote. Four years later, it has ended up with just
11%. The drop is startling, but to make matters worse, under the new Senedd
election system that will be introduced in May 2026, 11% is roughly the level
where parties can be totally wiped out.
The system is proportional, but it brutally punishes smaller parties that slip
beneath the 11% threshold. It seems Labour never imagined it would be this
small.
Given the huge challenges this system has created for Labour, one might hope
its UK leader would provide, well, leadership. Yet at no point in the entire
byelection campaign did Keir Starmer visit the constituency. Labour has enjoyed
more than 100 years of electoral success in Wales, and Welsh Labour has been
hailed as the democratic world’s “most successful election-winning machine.” At
a time when Starmer risks being the first Labour leader to lose Wales, the
prime minister either felt he would be an electoral liability or he wasn’t
bothered to show up. Either way, this helped to seal the party’s fate.
UK Labour have long taken Wales, the most stable brick in its red wall, for
granted. Yet the party’s support has been crumbling for years, without it even
realising. In the aftermath of the result I have heard Labour people talk about
the need for a change of messaging, for the party to become more critical of
Plaid’s stance on Welsh independence, for instance, or to differentiate Welsh
Labour from UK Labour. While this is undoubtedly needed it misses the
fundamental issue here – that for a very long time Welsh Labour has ceased to
be visibly improving the lives of people in Wales.
Forget changing messaging. Labour controls the Welsh and UK parliaments. It
will never be better equipped than it is right now to make change. It should be
making meaningful change in the present, by bringing down NHS waiting lists in
Wales so they’re level with those in England, or giving Wales the funds it has
lost as a result of HS2."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
