Labour’s “ship has sailed” as the party best able to stop Reform UK from winning next year’s Welsh elections, the leader of Plaid Cymru has claimed.
Rhun ap Iorwerth – whose party has led in some polling ahead of next May’s Senedd election – told The i Paper that Plaid was now the main anti-Reform force in Wales.
He also said that if Plaid won the election and showed it was a “good government” then it would give the people of Wales the “confidence” to consider holding a referendum on independence.
The Senedd election on 7 May is expected to prove hugely significant for politics across the UK.
Labour has been Wales’ biggest party in every Westminster election since November 1922 and in all six Senedd elections since the dawn of devolution in 1999.
However, that dominance could come to an end in May. While Labour has led in some polls since the start of the year, two have shown Nigel Farage’s Reform in the lead while one put Plaid in front.
If Labour were to lose in its historic heartland two years into Sir Keir Starmer’s Government it would likely plunge the Prime Minister into crisis.
Wales’ First Minister, Eluned Morgan, has said Labour is the only party able to withstand the “wrecking ball” of Reform.
However, ap Iorwerth said the “depths” Labour had reached in some polls showed it was no longer the most effective bulwark against Farage’s party.
“The evidence suggests that that ship has sailed for Labour,” he said. “The people of Wales have cottoned on to the fact that they don’t need to keep on electing Labour just in order to keep out the right, they have seen that they can do that through Plaid Cymru.”
Ap Iorwerth accused Farage of wanting to use Wales as an “experiment” for policies he hoped to roll-out across the rest of the UK.
“What we have is Reform eager to use Wales as a test bed and a springboard for [a general election in] 2029, that’s what they’re targeting,” he said. “I won’t let our Welsh parliament be used as a play thing and an experiment.”
Reform do not yet have a leader in Wales, with Farage expected to be the face of the Senedd campaign.
Asked whether it was appropriate for Farage as an Englishman to lead the campaign, ap Iorwerth said: “Whether somebody’s English is neither here nor there.
“What is unacceptable to me is to have somebody who has no role, has no vote, has no stake in the politics of Wales, to be leading and playing the part, effectively, of the leader of a party in Wales. I don’t think that’s acceptable, or that will be acceptable to the people of Wales.”
While Labour has been in government in Cardiff since 1999, it has never held an outright majority and changes to the electoral system this time around will make it even more difficult for one party to win a majority.
Ap Iorwerth ruled out working with Reform or the Conservatives in government, but suggested Plaid could do a deal with Labour. “We decide how to govern after the cards have been dealt in an election,” he said. “But what we’re offering in this election is a new leadership for Wales after 26 years of stagnation and the successive Labour first ministers.
“People should not underestimate the significance of who is in that hot seat, who is running Welsh Government, who’s setting the tone for Welsh Government, who leads in negotiations with UK government.”
Asked whether Plaid would be willing to go into a coalition with Labour and other centre-left parties in Westminster after the next general election if doing so would keep Farage out of Downing Street, he said: “I think it is incumbent on people who are progressive to seek ways of working together”.
However, he claimed that Starmer’s government had been “deeply unprogressive”, pointing to policies such as cuts to winter fuel payments and the retention of the two-child benefit cap.
While Plaid Cymru supports Welsh independence, ap Iorwerth has pledged that he would not hold an independence referendum in the first term of a Plaid-led government.
But he said that Plaid winning next year’s election could still be a stepping-stone towards independence. He said: “We want to show that we will be a good government for Wales. And in doing that, I want to give the people of Wales the confidence in asking, ‘okay, where next?’
“I’d be happy for Wales to be independent tomorrow. But it’s not what I feel, it’s when Wales can feel confident enough to take that step.”
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