Sir Keir Starmer is braced for more questions about his leadership as Labour looks set to lose grip on a part of Wales that has backed the party for a century.
A Senedd by-election in Caerphilly could be the first solid evidence of how May’s all-outs for the Cardiff parliament are likely to punish both the Prime Minister and Welsh Labour, which has been in power for 26 years.
In Wales, Labour is defending a questionable record on the NHS and education and how it has prioritised the 20mph road law and an expanded Senedd.
Richard Tunnicliffe, the Labour candidate and a children’s publisher, is trapped in a pincer movement between Reform UK and Welsh nationalists Plaid Cymru, which is picking up votes from disgruntled Labour voters who in England might vote Green or Liberal Democrat.
“We are getting shellacked,” one Labour Senedd member told The i Paper. “We will come a poor third on Thursday as the left-wing protest vote goes to Plaid.
“It’s a tale as old as time. Plaid historically does well when Labour is unpopular; it happened under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. This time we have got Reform picking up some Tory votes and some of ours as well.”
Labour has held the Westminster seat of Caerphilly since 1918 and the Senedd seat since devolution in 1999.
A Labour defeat could lead to the party’s loss of its working majority in Cardiff, which it presently maintains with the support of the assembly’s only Liberal Democrat member.
The by-election was triggered by the death of Labour’s Hefin David in August.
Labour has already opened preliminary talks with the Tories ahead of a Budget vote next January. Securing a fiscal agreement is essential because the law that governs the Senedd mandates automatic cuts if the parliament cannot agree.
Last week, the Welsh government warned of disastrous cuts, including “mass redundancies”, if it cannot pass the budget for the next financial year.
“Broadly it is the political realignment we are seeing everywhere: the complete collapse of the Tories and the rise of Reform,” Jac Larner, a politics lecturer at Cardiff University and author of Welsh Election Studies, told The i Paper.
“At the same time, progressive voters are moving away from Labour, but the difference in Wales is that they are moving towards Plaid Cymru.”
A Survation poll put Labour in a distant third place behind Nigel Farage’s Reform, with 42 per cent, and Plaid Cymru, with 38 per cent. The Conservatives lagged with just four per cent. The survey suggested a clear electoral split by age, with younger voters more drawn to Plaid and Reform mopping up older voters.
Labour Party candidate Richard Tunnicliffe (Photo: Matthew Horwood/Getty)Not even the conviction of Reform’s former leader in Wales, Nathan Gill, for taking pro-Russian bribes, has dented the party’s poll lead.
“National identity has long been a powerful predictor of vote choice in Wales. Those who feel exclusively Welsh tend to vote Plaid, while those who feel exclusively British vote Conservative or Reform UK,” Larner added.
“Labour’s century-long dominance was built on winning voters from both camps, plus the majority who once felt a mixture of both identities. But the population is changing. More people, especially young voters, now identify as exclusively Welsh, while fewer embrace both identities.
“The remaining British and Welsh identifiers are drifting more and more to Reform.”
On a campaign visit to Caerphilly, Farage posed for photographs in front of a 9ft tall bronze statue of the late Tommy Cooper, the fez-wearing comedian who was born in the town.
Meanwhile, an unpopular Starmer has not campaigned in the by-election at all.
The fight has gone increasingly badly for Labour activists in Caerphilly. Last month the council’s Labour leader, Sean Morgan, defected to Plaid Cymru midway through the campaign.
Labour First Minister Eluned Morgan has been critical of Starmer’s policy choices as Welsh Labour sought to distance itself from the national party. The feeling is mutual, with Labour’s Welsh MPs in Westminster seats blaming decisions by the Cardiff authority for its falling popularity.
Nonetheless, if Labour loses as expected on Thursday, the Prime Minister is likely to face even more criticism of his national leadership.
“It doesn’t look good, however you spin it or whoever you blame on Friday,” one Welsh Labour MP told The i Paper. “It’s another nail in Keir’s coffin.”
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