What if Plaid Cymru or Reform win?
Plus why immigration shouldn't matter in Caerphilly
Hello,
As this newsletter drops into your inbox, I am on my way to Liverpool for three days for the UK Labour conference. I am really keen to try and get a feel for the mood between Welsh and UK Labour. Will the polling last week have really registered with the UK leadership? We shall see and I will report back in next weekend’s newsletter.
This week we have a mix. We have a Welsh Labour candidate speaking on the record about just how divided the party is at present as well as a look at the ongoing situation in Caerphilly ahead of the by-election. We will then explore the one issue that is, in my view, guaranteed to become the centre of Welsh politics if Plaid or Reform are the largest party…
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Caerphilly watch
With all the candidates announced for Caerphilly, we are now into full on campaigning in the area. Labour candidate Richard Tunnicliffe has been delivering some interesting campaign literature. Rather than the traditional election leaflets he has instead been sending a survey out to people in the area:
I am not criticising this as a tactic. Clearly he wants to demonstrate that he is listening to the people and wants to understand their issues.
I would also suggest that questions four and five where they ask who they will be voting for and who they “definitely” won’t be voting for is to enable Labour to target those houses where they have a chance of getting support. They don’t want to waste resources targeting what they see as lost causes.
Why immigration should not be an issue for Caerphilly
Reform have unsurprisingly gone all out on immigration as an issue in their campaign with some leaflets directly targeting Plaid’s perceived pro-immigration stance.
Given this I thought it was worth looking at the level of immigration in Caerphilly. Based on the last census, I have broken down what percentage of people in each Welsh local authority were born outside of the UK:
Cardiff 16.5%
Newport 12.2%
Swansea 9.4%
Wrexham 7.9%
Ceredigion 7.1%
Flintshire 6.5%
Vale of Glamorgan 5.8%
Merthyr Tydfil 5.6%
Monmouthshire 5.5%
Gwynedd 5.4%
Conwy 5.2%
Carmarthenshire 5.1%
Powys 4.8%
Pembrokeshire 4.8%
Denbighshire 4.7%
Bridgend 4.3%
Rhondda Cynon Taf 3.7%
Neath Port Talbot 3.6%
Torfaen 3.6%
Isle of Anglesey 3.3%
Blaenau Gwent 3.2%
Caerphilly 2.9%
As you can see, Caerphilly is the lowest in the whole of Wales. Over 97% of people there were born in the UK.
Now in part this should be unsurprising that immigration is still a topic of discussion in the areas despite having almost no immigrants living there. It is often noted that areas with lower levels of immigration tend to be more anti-immigrant. But it shows how effectively Reform and social media algorithms are managing to conflate legitimate grievances around health, housing and policy with immigration despite it being demonstrably not an issue in Caerphilly.
More and more in Welsh politics we accept the narrative of immigration from an extreme right perspective. Many people who should know better willfully accept the premise that it is out of control in Wales. Without wanting to over do the point, the green areas of this map show the parts of Wales where over 90% of the people there were born in the UK:
The deep divisions in Welsh Labour
I recently had a conversation with Labour’s Owain Williams. He is the former vice chair Cardiff North constituency Labour Party and secretary of Cymdeithas Cledwyn (Labour’s Welsh language society).
Back in August he was seeking selection for the Labour list in the Caerdydd Ffynnon Taf seat which is generally focussed around the north of Cardiff. He wasn’t allowed on the shortlist for selecting candidates despite, as I understand it, the First Minister herself interceding to try and get him on.
I had several sources suggest to me that the reason he was left off the list was because of his closeness to Jeremy Miles (he wrote Miles’ manifesto). There are still many within Welsh Labour who feel that Mr Miles undermined Vaughan Gething and was ultimately the architect of his demise.
Full disclosure, I generally couldn’t give two hoots about internal party squabbles. It leaves me cold. I get a lot of people discussing with me internal politicking within parties and I don’t report it. What matters is how the decisions made by politicians impact on the people who elect them. However, I want to publish the quotes I have from Mr Williams because I believe they are indicative of why Welsh Labour are seemingly unable to drive the change that Wales needs.
Now bear in mind there could be an element of sour grapes here, a frustration that he didn’t get the selection he wanted. However, several people from other Welsh parties contacted me to express their surprise (and pleasure) that Mr Williams wasn’t even on the shortlist for the seat. The first thing Mr Williams told me was around the poll last week that put Labour a distance third:
“A result anything like this poll would probably be an extinction-level event for Welsh Labour. I hope people realise that – but I worry that they don’t. And don’t think that you can just sit it out for a term and bounce back.
“I really worry that people will try to explain it away: ‘by-elections are always hard’, ‘the only poll that matters is May 7’. I’ve even heard people suggest that the polling is done by closet Plaid supporters and so is biased – an utterly laughable position.
“I also hear lots of Labour people say that the problem is comms, essentially ‘if only people knew everything Welsh Labour had done over the years, they’d be more grateful’. I can hardly believe that it needs saying that any of those responses would be disastrous.
“If you want to lead Wales into the 2030s, nobody wants to hear now about what previous Tory governments did, or that there isn’t enough money, or any other sort of excuse. They want crazy high energy, a vision for the future which shows that you’re impatient, that you think we can do better than managed decline, and a sense that you’re willing to smash up some shibboleths if that is what it will take to turn Wales around.”
This idea that many within Welsh Labour are dismissive that recent polling is reflective of the current mood in Cymru is something I have experienced.
When I posted my interview with Eluned Morgan last week, where I suggested Labour were in real trouble, one of their MSs Mike Hedges posted below it:
When I asked him where he thought Labour were in relation to Plaid and Reform he replied:
The first thing to say is, fair play to Mr Hedges for fronting up and publicly expressing his views.
While there have been some council byelections where Labour have done ok this year, Baglan in Neath Port Talbot for example, some of the recent results have been atrocious.
Just last week Reform got their first Cardiff Councillor (who is also a security guard in the Senedd). A few weeks back Labour came fourth in the Illtyd byelection in Barry (a seat they had previously held).
Mr Hedges is right that some polls haven’t looked as bad for Labour. A ‘More in Common’ poll for Sky News back in July put them just three points behind Plaid on 23% of the vote.
But in this case, in order to account for those not voting and make the data reflective of the Welsh population, the pollsters heavily weighted certain groups and by the end we were looking at a sample size getting down to around 300.
YouGov polling, such as the one we saw last week, has proven to be one of the more accurate in the past. The fact some in Welsh Labour are dismissing it screams “head in sand” rather than “head in the game”.
What does division mean?
We talk about the Welsh Labour Party being “divided”, but what does that mean? Sure, there are real personal enemities in there but the crux of it is around two issues:
Left vs right
Pro devolution vs sceptical about devolution
You tend to find that those on the left are more prodevolution and those on the right of the party tend to be more sceptical.
Mr Williams agrees saying:
“The left or old Labour-leaning wing of the party tend to be fierce devolution enthusiasts. The more right-wing or New Labour group (including most Welsh Labour MPs, both now and historically) tend to be sceptical of devolution, to put it politely.”
Mr Williams, who is unusual in that he is both to the right of the party but very pro-devolution said:
“We have to find a way of moving beyond these old divisions. Very few people outside the Labour party think that things in Wales are just pretty good and what we need is steady-as-she-goes, continuity from the past 26 years.
“The Labour party is always at its best when it looks and sounds like the future is arriving. It’s very, very difficult to do that after 26 years in power. But playing it safe is a sure-fire way to fail.
“It just seems obvious to me that the ability to put distance between Welsh Labour and UK Labour would actually benefit both sides.
“I say this, by the way, not from the perspective of someone who wants the differentiation because I think Welsh Labour should just be more left wing in a sort of old Labour way – I actually think some of that has been disastrous. It’s just common sense to create that flexibility, particularly when the perception of being London’s poodle is – quite rightly - so toxic.”
I do believe there is something in this. If the current polls are anything close to correct come May then there has to be some real soul searching for the party about who they are going to be in the future.
If Reform or Plaid win big next year, there is one thing they will both be talking about…
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