Welsh Labour faces ‘existential’ change as party braces for May election defeat

Welsh Labour is the democratic world’s most successful election-winning machine, coming first in Wales in every general election since 1922 and every devolved election since 1999. Come next month’s Senedd election, however, this history-making run is expected to end. Labour’s collapse has left a vacuum, and former Labour voters are going to opposite ends of the political spectrum. Plaid Cymru and Nigel Farage’s Reform UK are neck and neck in the latest poll, although coalition maths make it highly unlikely Reform would be able to form a government. The possibility of Labour losing power after 27 years and the pro-independence Plaid entering government as a senior partner for the first time means “this election is huge”, said Laura McAllister, a professor of public policy at Cardiff University. Welsh Labour – and Wales itself – is at a crossroads, she added. “I’m not sure people have computed yet how existential both those things simultaneously are going to be.” Losing Wales after a century would be yet another blow to the beleaguered prime minister, Keir Starmer , and the wider Labour party, and would be likely to amplify already loud calls for him to resign. Separatists in office in all three devolved nations for the first time – Plaid Cymru in the Senedd, the Scottish National party (SNP) in Holyrood and Sinn Féin in Stormont – would mean that whoever occupies No 10 Downing Street in the near future will have a constitutional fight on their hands. …