Labour doesn't know what Wales wants. Credit: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images
Keir Starmer’s big speech yesterday didn’t mention Wales — a fact that anyone familiar with the state of the Labour Party there might find surprising. If the story of the 2015 general election was Labour’s collapse in Scotland — and the story of the 2017 and 2019 general elections was the crumbling of the Red Wall — then the story of our next general election could well be Labour’s routing across most of Wales. The party is in trouble, in a nation where it has long dominated politics.
There has been no general election in which Labour won fewer than 50% of Wales’s seats. The party’s post-war average is an impressive 71%, compared to the Conservatives’ 17%. And the picture is the same in the Senedd, the Welsh Assembly: since devolution, Labour has won the most votes and seats. Four years ago, in the 2017 general election, the party won nearly half the vote, taking 70% of the seats. And yet, just two years later, in 2019, it won 40.9% of the vote and just 55% of the seats — its second-worst performance since the “National Government” election in 1931 (1983 was Labour’s nadir in Wales, as in the rest of the country).
And recent signs suggest Labour has made no headway in regaining its grip on Wales. A poll by YouGov for ITV Cymru Wales/Cardiff University has put the party on 36%. That approval rating is roughly the same as in 2015 and 2010, but this time the Conservatives are breathing down Labour’s neck: they are just 3 percentage points behind. The Tories are still riding high on their 2019 success, which left Labour with a solitary single seat north of the coalfields.
Things are no rosier in the Welsh Assembly, where Labour is down 1.5% on their 2016 performance; Plaid Cymru is up 3% and the Conservatives up 6%. And with elections just three months away, the Tories are gearing up to convert their 2019 wins into Senedd seats.
Labour, understandably, is desperate to work out what’s going wrong. And given the recent intensification of Scottish nationalism, it’s easy to assume Wales is feeling the same way. While support for Plaid Cymru, the only party committed to Welsh independence, has not really shifted, support for independence has — in 2014 only 12% of respondents said they were in favour, compared to 74% against. Now the figure is 23% in favour, 52% against.
This rise coincides with the arrival of a new pressure group for independence — YesCymru. Launched in 2016, it really hit its stride in Spring 2020 when membership doubled from 2,500 to 5,000. When the Westminster government refused to furlough Welsh businesses during Wales’ 17-day firebreak lockdown, membership of YesCymru increased by a further 3,000. Now, it claims to have 17,000 members. YesCymru’s own polling with YouGov suggested 33% of Welsh people with a view would support independence.
Eyeing the threat of Plaid Cymru riding the waves of Welsh independence, Welsh Labour have become much more Union-sceptic. Alun Davies MS claimed: “This union fails Wales every day. And until there is an acceptance of that, then the campaign for independence will only continue to grow.” Mick Antoniw MS called the Union “an increasingly Anglocentric, London-based institution with which [the Welsh] struggle to identify.”
But would a panicky pivot to a more Union-sceptic position actually help Labour win back its old voters?
To find out, I used various waves of the British Election Study to compare two camps of 2017 Labour voters: those who are still intending to vote for the party and those who are not.
The latter, Labour defectors, have scattered: 16% to Plaid, 15% to the Liberal Democrats, and 14% to the Conservatives. But the biggest grouping are the ‘don’t knows’, at 34%. Perhaps unsurprisingly, defectors tend to be less Left-wing — on a scale of 0 to 10, Labour voters are placed at 1.9, and Labour defectors at 2.6. Labour voters are also more libertarian, at 5.2, while Labour defectors more authoritarian at 6.1.
So this defection could easily be a part of a broader UK realignment of political values and voting behaviour, with Labour’s electoral coalition coming from Left-wing social libertarians, and the Conservatives doing better among a less Left-wing and more socially authoritarian voter coalition. Defectors are more likely to think that attempts to give equal opportunities to ethnic minorities, women, gay people and lesbians have all gone too far, compared to Labour voters — so probably thought little of Starmer’s pandering to the Black Lives Matter protestors over the summer. Defectors are also less likely to think immigration brings cultural or economic benefits, compared to Labour voters.
What about the pull of nationalism? Are defectors abandoning Labour in search of a party that will explicitly support independence? It doesn’t seem so. When asked how happy or sad they would be if Wales left the United Kingdom (with 0 being extremely sad and 10 being extremely happy) there was no statistically significant difference between the two groups. Both Labour voters and defectors would be sad, with a score of 3.6. And who wants a policy that makes people sad?
Defectors don’t even want more devolution. If we construct a scale of how Wales should be governed — with 1 equalling abolishing the Assembly, 2 giving the body fewer powers, 3 representing the status quo, 4 more powers, and 5 full independence — we find no significant difference between the two groups. And the icing on the cake is that Labour defectors actually trust Westminster more than Labour voters do — on a scale of 1 to 4, Labour voters place at 1.5, and Labour defectors place at 1.9 — and there is no significant difference when it comes to trusting the Welsh government.
So it is fair to conclude that Labour is not losing support to other parties because of their stance (or lack thereof) on the devolution settlement, no matter how angrily YesCymru tweet.
If this isn’t about devolution, is it about identity? No, not really. There’s no significant difference between how Labour voters and Labour defectors see themselves in terms of either Welshness — both place themselves at 5, on a scale of 1 (not at all Welsh) to 7 (very strongly Welsh) — or Britishness (5.2 for Labour defectors versus 5 for Labour voters). In fact, the identity which seems to make a difference is Europeanness — Labour defectors feel less European (3.6) than Labour voters (4.5), again suggesting that Labour’s troubles in Wales are not due to Welsh-specific factors, but rather UK-wide developments.
What about good old-fashioned party politics? Leadership evaluations do seem to matter. Those who remain Labour voters are more likely to rate Starmer highly (8.4, on a scale of 1 to 11) than Labour defectors (6.1). The same is true for Corbyn (7.2 versus 4.6). And those who have defected from Labour rate Johnson higher than those who remain Labour voters (4.2 versus 2.3).
Other party-political factors come into play here too — Labour defectors are more positive about how the UK government has handled Covid; Labour voters, unsurprisingly, think the opposition would have done a better job. Similarly, Labour defectors give the Westminster government more credit, and the Welsh government less, for their handling of lockdown than Labour voters do (although both groups rate the Welsh government’s attempts higher than Westminster’s). Wherever we look, there is little support for the idea that Labour needs to become more anti-Westminster or pro-Welsh independence.
Overall, the data shows Welsh Labour shouldn’t fall into the trap of trying to out-bid nationalists when it comes to devolution, nor should they flirt with independence. They might not like the Conservative government in Westminster, but constant attacks on the Union in a misguided attempt to win votes back. It risks undermining both the nation-state itself and the party’s own voter coalition. As Henry Hill notes, polling shows more Welsh voters back abolishing the Senedd than back independence. By fanning the flames of independence, Labour risks polarising the nation’s electorate. Welsh Labour should take a hard look at their colleagues in Scotland to see the consequences of playing with nationalist fire.
Instead, the party desperately needs to do three things. Firstly, it needs to separate its critique of the Conservative Westminster government from a critique of the Union, and remember that it’s only a ‘Tory Westminster government’ because of Labour’s numerous failings since the great financial crash.
Secondly, Welsh Labour needs to articulate a narrative which can unite those who feel Welsh and those who feel British (equally sized groups), and explain why both groups are better off within the United Kingdom.
Finally, it needs to appeal to the type of voters they are losing: those who are more centrist, who are socially conservative, and who don’t think the economy is working for them. These voters aren’t really bothered about constitutional reform, but if Welsh Labour keep blaming Westminster or England for every problem they face then the party risks radicalising them into the arms of YesCymru.
Welsh Labour is still the dominant force in Welsh politics, and the political dynamics of the Wales are not yet like those of Scotland. But if Welsh Labour really are a unionist party, then they need to defend the Union themselves instead of using it as a scapegoat to distract from their own failings. Their current tack won’t protect their vote come 2024.
Join the discussion
Join like minded readers that support our journalism by becoming a paid subscriber
To join the discussion in the comments, become a paid subscriber.
Join like minded readers that support our journalism, read unlimited articles and enjoy other subscriber-only benefits.
SubscribeThe confusing factor in Wales is the language – the speaking of the language is always mentioned in the same breath as the word independence. Somehow, the middle class teachers and government workers have convinced themselves that if everyone in Wales speaks Welsh then we will all live happily ever after.
Nobody in Welsh politics talks about how money will come into the coffers after separation. Perhaps Plaid Cymru hopes that EU membership after separation will be automatic and then they will just give us even more money for ever.
I really struggle to see the politicians are thinking about. What we need are schemes to create good jobs. Otherwise, we have to go cap-in-hand to whoever will just give us money – at the moment we are heavily subsidised by the English taxpayer. It is interesting to listen to First Minister’s Question Time every week. Nobody on either side of the political line ever mentions jobs.
(Maybe ‘interesting’ was the wrong choice of word there).
I agree Chris. One issue is the lack of credible choice as much as Labour’s strategy or appeals to nationalism.
‘Nobody on either side of the political line ever mentions jobs.’
That is because they have no interest in creating jobs, particularly private sector jobs. They hate the private sector. And the politicians and civil serpents etc all have their jobs, so why would they care about anyone else?
Slightly ‘off piste’ Chris, but does Wales still have its tremendous Male Voice Choirs? Rather like the late Humphrey Lyttelton I alway associated them with the mines or the steel works. Have they survived the industrial Holocaust that has ripped through Valleys over the last forty years?
Off course as you know, there was nothing like them anywhere in the UK or for that matter even in Ireland.
They are absolutely everywhere. When I go shopping to Tesco we have to push through the choir to pick up our trolley.
Perhaps the Welsh are simply waking up to the fact that any country, city or town run by Labour will be an economic and humanitarian disaster.
Maybe the Welsh should demand a referendum on abolishing the Welsh Assembly. While support for independence is growing from very little to a little, the more sensible desire not to mess everything up and cause nasty division remains prevalent.
Isn’t there a party called Abolish the Welsh Assembly? I wish them all success.
Yes there is. They collapsed last year and were reborn.
It must be unlikely that the Welsh Assembly will be abolished. All people want to be a bit different and the Welsh Assembly does it without going the whole way to independence. But what a shower of s***s! Unhealthy as well: grey s***s. Oh, for a character.
Toytown parliament for a pretend government. Much as in Edinburgh and Belfast. All three are expensive job creation schemes for the local political classes.
And all thanks to that reptile Tony Blair Esq.
However, as an Englishman I am very happy that this ludicrous subsidy fiasco has finally been exposed for the scandal it really is.
As Cromwell said “For God’s sake go”.
I think that if we abolished the monarchy and elected a president, Tony Blair would apply for the job.
You are right but we are stuck with it. The next election is due in May. The turnout will be about 50%. There are about three parties who call themselves ‘independence parties’, the Conservatives (who probably could win a p**s-up in a brewery), an Abolish The Welsh Assembly party and…..Labour. Labour will win easily because the other parties will split the vote.
An excellent idea.
What I always find baffling is why these Celtic weirdos think arrogant England should subsidise them.
Conversely why so many idiotic English Quislings agree with them!
Yep, please keep the money coming.
Maybe we ,the English< should push for more devoved powers to Wales , Scotland and NI but at the same time have an English parliament and then a smaller UK parliament which only deals with the overall issues like overall fiscal framework, Defence,Foreign policy, Criminal law etc.Then life would be interesting in the nations outside England.
Just a word on polls. Plaid Cymru are claiming now that a record 33% of people in Wales want independence. This is a poll of 1000 people and removes the ‘don’t knows’. Effectively, the real figure who say, ‘Yes’ is stable at about 21%.
From Jan 2020 to Jan 2021 there were seven polls, each with a survey of 1000 people.
Jan 2020, 21% said ‘Yes’ and the poll included 16 and 17 year-olds.
Jun 2020, 25% said ‘Yes’.
August 2020, 25% said, ‘Yes’
August 2020, 26% said, ‘Yes’ but included 16 and 17 year olds.
October 2020, 23% but included 16 and 17 year olds.
Jan 2021, 22% said ‘Yes’.
Jan 2021, 23% said ‘Yes’.
Plaid Cymru also confuse things by asking sneaky questions. In September 2019, they managed a 33% Yes by asking, “Do you support independence if Wales automatically becomes a member of the EU?”
Quick reminder that the WA have lowered the voting age to 16.
Gosh, I can still recall those happy days when you could be hanged at 18 but not vote till 21. Proper stuff.
What concerns me is that the 16 – 17 year olds that do vote will not hang able to pick up the pieces. As soon as they are able they’ll be heading to England to find a job – there ain’t none in much of the country.
Wales joining the EU is a joke. The EU have enough to worry about without supporting another basket case economy.
There are a number of factors going on that complicate the position for Labour and make it impossible for them to recover any time soon:
I do not believe the Labour Party is finished as a political force but, though it’s own actions and internal politics, it has damaged it’s political prospects for a generation and it will not be able to move forward until it purges it’s “anti British” philosophy in the same was Kinnock purged “The Militant Tendency” from the party in the mid 80’s. The only question is: “Is Starmer strong enough to take on the section of the party that actually supports him?”
Watch the local councils. Where typically 30% of people vote, a committed Labour Party targeting youth can take over locally.
But that only masks the national issue in the devolved assemblies and in Westminster.
Its obvious what has gone wrong in Wales. The traditional Welsh voter doesnt not identify with the Islington type Labour Leadership which describes its voters as sheep who are victims being rescued by Middle Class Pseudo left wingers living in million pound house with their Volvos outside in London drinking Chai Lattes and eating Quinoa.
I have lived in the valleys all my life and up until 5 to 10 years ago if you went into a local pub, then you could go to a pub, all you would hear would be local accents now you hear a lot of English accents. A lot of English people have moved into the area which may have changed the vote. It is interesting to note that in my constituency, Islwyn Neil Kinnocks old seat the Labour majority has dropped from 25000-30000 to 5000. One more heave from the Tories and Labour are out.
It doesn’t take much to figure this out. Labour’s management of health, education, and employment has been a disaster.
The Welsh are completely dependent on money from England. Plaid, like the SNP, have no idea how they will make independence work.
Westminster, and the Tories need to keep hammering these points home instead of dancing around the edges.
Devolution has been a very expensive disaster. The Welsh are no healthier, wealthier or happier as a result. Why should the English keep paying for a Welsh political system that is systemically broke.
Any country,”democracy”, run effectively as a one party state can never be expected to achieve to its full potential or ever be deemed healthy on any social or economic determinant. This is what has been the heart of the problem facing our very small over-governed land on the fringe of Western Europe since 1997.
Many local councils are effectively one party states, often in perpetuity, to the detriment of the qualty of services they provide.
As it was and still is in Scotland. Which’s far more expensive to subsidise than even Wales.
If only because the population is greater. Wales, with a population of 3 million is subsidised by the UK taxpayer to the tune of £6000 per head. The WA claims that it isn’t enough because Scotland and NI get more on a per capita basis. However, England gets the least, which makes those communities in Lancashire and Yorkshire pretty poor.
His “greatest weakness” – really? I think his greatest weakness is his ineffectual, feeble and uninspiring personality – or, at least, his presentation style. I don’t think he could motivate a bunch of thirsty alcoholics, on a hot summer’s day, to follow him to the pub.
Chosen, I think, first of all as “not Corbyn”, and secondly, as someone who could challenge Boris’s unsubstantiated bluster with some (dare I say it?) forensic cross-examination (damn it, I said it!). I was happy that the first category seemed to be well met – not Corbyn and not Corbynite (even though he was when it suited him – optics are everything, eh?). On the second point, I was keen to see some rib-tickling rug-pulling at PMQs. Alas, despite Boris being such an easy target to hit (yes, a size-ist joke – sue me), I have been surprised to see how easy such a great a lawyer as our Keir has been wrong-footed by a defendant who overuses the shield of “no comment”.
Being “not Corbyn and a lawyer” were clearly not useful credentials (by themselves) for choosing a new leader of the Labour Party (in fact, any Party). Comparing Starmer in opposition to Corbyn was a mistake. The Labour Party ought to have been looking for a “LEADER” – someone who can inspire, motivate and fight; their personal politics being less important than their ability to galvanise the Parliamentary Labour Party. Comparisons with Attlee, Mac Donald, Wilson, Kinnock – even Churchill and Boris (why not?) would have provided a better list of criteria (good and bad) for selection. The PLP need to trust their leader and follow him/her over the top, when the time comes. Therein lies another weakness. Sub-contracting leadership selection to the Membership will generally result in selection of anodyne – best of a bad bunch – trying to please everybody all the time – people. That perfectly describes Starmer; and it’s both his greatest weakness, and also the Labour Party’s.
Well that makes a lot of sense…
Follow the money. They would if they had more money. The scary this is that gradually Welsh Gov is getting more money from direct taxation. Then we would see more socialism and more decline in Wales.
Is this true? The latest figure I saw assumed that each person needed £12,000 per year, as an average, to keep the systems of life going. The same figures said that 50% of that (£6000 per person) was coming from the UK taxpayer. Not the Welsh taxpayer.
Well said, but how much longer are ‘we’ expected to dispense this largesse to these ungrateful toads?
If the Welsh insist on a demented and counter productive lockdown why should the English pay for it?
A significant development since the last election is that Plaid Cymru is no longer the only party campaigning openly for independence. Two new pro-independence parties have formed since then, Propel (a populist break-away from Plaid, led by Neil McEvoy) and Gwlad (a centre-right and free-market oriented party led by Gwyn Wigley Evans). This opens up opportunities for people to vote for independence without subscribing to the whole of Plaid’s increasingly left-wing agenda. While these parties will no doubt take more than one electoral cycle to become fully established, they promise to shake up what has been a very moribund situation in Welsh politics since devolution first began.
Yes, I saw Neil McEvoy interviewed on the Anna Brees podcast after the police tried to stop him leafleting. As always, the police were ‘following orders’, those orders having come from the Labour administration.
After growing up in Wales, I have lived my adult life in England. When I return I saddened by how people seem to be living. Bridgend, for example, seems to have been quite a prosperous town in my childhood. Now it seems shabby.
You could blame Thatcher but those changes were forty years ago. You can blame Westminster but the Assembly has had a lot of power. At all levels the Labour Party have dominated Welsh politics for generations and do not to have achieved much.
I lived, too, for many years in Essex. Equally working class but there seemed to be a culture there more entrepreneurial and positive.
I don’t know if the Tories can do any better but, it seems to me, a little fresh air would be something.
Going back some years, Essex was a Tory county, full of East-Enders and Northern Working Class folk trying to better themselves.
I think it’s much the same now. Thriving on achievers …
The main problem with the Labour Party is the Blairites.
They are the ones who stabbed Jeremy Corbyn in the back, and lost him the election by forcing him to accept another referendum.
Corbyn wanted to accept the referendum result, and go for a soft Brexit.
Miliband, another Blairite did not offer a referendum, forcing millions of Labour voters to vote for Cameron, just to get a chance of leaving the EU.
Even now the Blairites are at work, trying to undermine the Labour Party yet again. Talk of bringing the Blairite Lord of the EU back, Peter Mandelson, shows that they stand no chance at the next election.
Do you really think that the only reason for Corbyn losing the election was the promise to re-run the referendum? Really? Good lord….
The Labour Party in the throes of yet another lurch to the right is destroying itself in yet another bout of perceived to be convenient hypocrisy. The specter of Blair looms large. For those who are keen to cleave to the ethos prevalent within the City of London he is a virtual god of convenience. The warmonger of choice and the dedicated worshipper of Mammon along with his then sidekick Brown now has his followers in power. And they are proceeding to hollow out a party that had returned to its solid roots and foundations under Jeremy Corbyn. They encourage selfishness and greed in the same way as Blair did despite the glitz and fakery that was supposed to hide them. They represent the inner rotten core behind the facade of pin-stripe superiority of purpose, the charade of good intent and emptiness of promise. Ultimately however they will not subdue the desire of most Brits for greater socialism in their lives and in the life of their nation. They can only sit as political parasites doing dirty deals as usual… for the meantime as they destroy The Labour Party from the top down.
“Ultimately however they will not subdue the desire of most Brits for greater socialism in their lives and in the life of their nation”
Lol.
It occurs to me that the Mars One project is available for disaffected Socialists. And look here. Mars is already nothing but dirt and rock and poisonous air so it’s already 80% along the way to becoming a Socialist Paradise.
They don’t call it the Red Planet for nothing.
Oh Dear AET you should get out more ( oh its lockdown so you can
t). Why do you write with such a vicious and resentful snarl?s 2016 victory. Even though he lost in 2020 his vote was the highest ever by a President standing for a second time. Hopefully, the Democrats will look at that and accept that they should now take due account of it. However, I fear the Democrats will fail to learn from their victory in the same way I see many “old Labour” class warriors unwilling to learn from defeat.Thing is Labour can never win anything again in UK elections if it sticks to a misty eyed memory of / or returns to the old class wars or the old mantra of the downtrodden- honest worker v the evil men in "pinstripes". The world has moved on, we live in different times.
The Left in the USA forgot about blue collar workers, the self employed one man businesses,the small family business, the self made working man building a life and living... and it resulted in Trump
We have endured decades of Labour in Wales and generally speaking we are bottom of most piles, education, health, and economic… you name it. I have always had the suspicion that Left wing parties and governments don`t really want prosperity or to encourage ambition and aspiration, rather they wish to maintain their pool of downtrodden so they have a pool of ready voters… bit like a catch 22 ? Wales needs a Conservative Government to lift us out of this one Party race to the bottom. God, if nothing else we just deserve a change !
But just look at the Conservatives. Do they stand for anything?
Chris, sort of agree as I said in my closing-
“God, if nothing else we just deserve a change !
Good reply. Thanks.
Chris, sort of agree as I said in my closing-
“God, if nothing else we just deserve a change !
An odd view from the spokesman for the Embassy of the PRC given that the economic system in China is nowadays a very long way from socialism. Perhaps you yearn for the happy days of Mao and the cultural revolution?
Even better, the ‘Great Leap Forward’ an epic of cannibalism by any standards
Pipe down! You are such an obvious CCP stooge, or perhaps just an attention seeker’?