Labour has typically been the dominant political force in Wales. But right now the party is polling in the mid to low-twenties, around 10 points lower than where it usually polls. Meanwhile, the Senedd is expanding to 96 members and shifting to a full system of proportional representation. With these two things, a dramatic change to the makeup of the Welsh parliament could be on the horizon.
In any PR-adjacent system, or full PR system, individual parties don’t tend to get majorities. Until now Wales has been operating on a kind of halfway house version, but this change to full PR will have dramatic consequences. In a broader campaign to change the voting system countrywide, this will serve as a guinea pig experiment. Opponents argue that PR leads to deadlocked parliaments, where radical parties get disproportionate sway. Reform will see their opportunity here.
Good news for Reform will be catastrophic news for the Conservatives. Reform were a few thousand votes shy from coming second across Wales in July. If Tory fortunes under Kemi Badenoch fail to improve, then the Welsh right in a few short years will be led by Reform – a position that will only serve to boost its profile elsewhere.
My analysis finds that Labour should expect to come first in the next Senedd election, but with only three in ten to four in ten of the seats. Plaid Cymru could win between a fifth and a quarter of the seats. (One poll even puts them ahead of Labour.) Reform, meanwhile, could win as little as 15 per cent of the seats, or as much as 25 per cent. That's 10-20 seats. There are more polls now putting Reform ahead of the Conservatives than behind. And with the expectation that Labour and Plaid would be forced to hammer out a deal of sorts to govern the country, Reform characterising itself as the “official” opposition feels probable. Though we should remember that voters will primarily be voting for Nigel Farage in the abstract, rather than their local Reform candidate.
The Conservatives are expected to win at most one-fifth of the seats. But get this: according to the latest YouGov poll, this could put the party in contention to govern Wales – for the first time – in a deal with Reform. All it would take is a small reduction in the already low levels of enthusiasm for Labour to push the Tory-Reform majority over the line.
The change in the system in Wales will likely give Labour its smallest share of the Senedd since inception. The right across the country is still disjointed, but in a year and a bit we might have a very different situation on our hands.
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