The Senedd election was an unmitigated and entirely predictable disaster for Welsh Labour, leaving the party with just 11% of the popular vote and nine MSs, down from 29 in the smaller 60-seat chamber. Professor Laura McAllister, an academic in the Welsh Governance Centre, argues that the party's response has been one of denial and blame, with little serious analysis of what went wrong.
Labour's Historic Defeat
Professor McAllister notes that the election result was a once-in-a-century event, with Welsh voters turning away from Labour for the first time in living memory. Plaid Cymru polled over three times as many votes as Labour, leaving the party 25 percentage points down from the 2021 election and 26 points down from Labour's UK General Election landslide less than two years previously. The party's leader and First Minister, Eluned Morgan, lost her seat, the first time that has happened to any head of government in Britain.
The combined Labour and Conservative vote share was under a quarter of all votes cast, another record low. The Liberal Democrats returned Jane Dodds as their sole representative, while the Greens gained two MSs and Reform UK's success on the right eclipsed every Conservative result in modern electoral history.
A Response of Denial and Blame
Nearly six months after the election, Professor McAllister says there has been little serious analysis of what went wrong, except from former Labour MSs who stood down or lost their seats. She criticises the party's response as blaming Plaid for winning, criticising Plaid's success in attracting Labour voters, blaming the media, and failing to recognise that the public are more devolution literate. She also notes the panic rush to elect a new Welsh leader ahead of Andy Burnham's appointment as Prime Minister, without a contest or proper post-mortem.
Professor McAllister argues that the party's title, Welsh Labour, has never reflected operational or strategic reality, with the heft resting in London. She cites her colleague Professor Richard Wyn Jones, who has pointed out that the fault line in Welsh politics is within the hegemonic political force, not between parties.
Path to Recovery
Professor McAllister suggests that Labour needs to rediscover its identity as the party that defends Wales and become more, not less Welsh. She notes that 40% of 2021 Labour voters left for Plaid, while only 10% went to Reform, making Plaid the biggest electoral threat. She argues that Plaid should be seen as a progressive partner in a multi-party PR system.
She also highlights the internal problems within Welsh Labour, including the Vaughan Gething debacle, the imposition of the D'Hondt Closed List electoral system, and the refusal to grant Wales constitutional powers. She says there has never been a bigger chasm between UK and Welsh Labour, with the former buoyant and the latter demoralised and directionless.
Burnham's Role and the Road Ahead
Professor McAllister suggests that Andy Burnham's place-based approach could be reinterpreted as a way of strengthening devolution, rather than a threat. She argues that Burnham should not give air time to Welsh MPs who dismiss calls for more powers with lines like "I just don't want it!", and that the strongest argument for more powers will always be around those held by Scotland.
She concludes that the real roadblock is the largely devo-detesting Welsh Labour MPs and a party that often gives the impression that it created a parliament for Wales by mistake. The challenge for Ken Skates is whether he is prepared to do the hard miles and process the reasons why Labour lost so disastrously, and to think beyond Burnham vibes and embrace the evidence if he is to lead Welsh Labour's revival.
