5 min read
Labour faces seismic losses in Wales on 7 May, with some insiders fearing that First Minister Eluned Morgan could lose her Senedd seat. Despite the scale of the potential defeat, the party’s Welsh cohort in Westminster is not on the brink of mutiny — at least not yet.
Earlier this month, Welsh Labour MPs were briefed by Joe Lock, General Secretary of Welsh Labour, on the party’s position in Wales with the May elections on the horizon.
Attendees reported leaving in despair, warned that the Labour vote was being eaten from both sides: Plaid Cymru and the Greens on the left, and Reform UK on the right. Some Labour figures in Wales have already accepted their electoral fate, and are preparing attack lines to use against a Plaid-led administration.
The collapse in Labour’s support in Wales was set out in a recent YouGov survey. The Senedd voting intention poll published two weeks ago put the party joint fourth with the Conservatives on 10 per cent. Plaid, whose leader Rhun ap Iowerth is currently on course to lead a government in Cardiff, was far ahead on 37 per cent. Labour was also behind Reform (23 per cent) and the Greens (13 per cent).
Until now, Labour has dominated politics in Wales, controlling the Senedd since the devolved parliament was set up at the turn of the century, and winning most votes and seats in Wales in every UK-wide general election.
Yet, unlike the party’s restless Scottish MPs, who are largely in agreement that Labour’s best route to recovery is putting Health Secretary Wes Streeting in Downing Street, the Welsh cohort has not reached this sort of conclusion.
“The problem with the Welsh PLP [Parliamentary Labour Party] is they’re very loyal to him [Starmer],” said one long-serving Welsh Labour MP. “They have good agents in the party. Plus, we have no alternative JFK character.”
They added that there is no obvious candidate to replace Starmer in the minds of Welsh Labour MPs, likening the role to “the Manchester United job”.
One of the factors working in the Prime Minister’s favour when it comes to his troubles in Wales is that, as things stand, a significant number of Welsh Labour MPs are loyal to him.
Carolyn Harris, for example, the deputy leader of Welsh Labour, is a Starmer ally who regularly meets the PM. Alex Barros-Curtis, the chair of the Welsh PLP, worked on Starmer’s 2020 leadership campaign and is also friends with his chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney.
Of the 32 parliamentary seats in Wales, Labour currently controls 27, and 12 of those MPs are on the government payroll. They include Welsh secretary Jo Stevens, care minister Stephen Kinnock (son of former Labour leader, Neil), Paymaster General Nick Thomas-Symonds, Treasury minister Torsten Bell, and culture minister Chris Bryant. Catherine Fookes, Labour MP for Monmouthshire, is one of the Prime Minister’s private parliamentary secretaries.
That’s not to say Wales sends no rebel Labour MPs to Westminster. Henry Tufnell and Steve Witherden, the Labour MPs for Mid & South Pembrokeshire and Montgomeryshire & Glyndŵr, respectively, were both part of the backbench rebellion that forced the government to abandon welfare reforms last year.
Morgan has sought to distance herself from Starmer and her Westminster colleagues as she tries to shore up her party’s position.
In an interview with the Today programme on Wednesday morning, the Welsh First Minister refused to describe Starmer as a good prime minister when repeatedly invited to do so, instead stressing that it is she, not him, who will be on the ballot paper for Labour in Wales.
“I’m absolutely clear that who is on the ballot paper in May is not Keir Starmer…
“This is not an opportunity for a free hit against the UK government. This is not a time for protest votes,” she said.
Speaking at an event hosted by the Institute for Government earlier this month, she said she will “stand firm” on her Labour values regardless of what the UK government does.
“I was firm when it came to talking about the threat to the winter fuel allowance. I knew that would have a disproportionate effect in Wales; we have an older population, a sicker population, our housing is older.
“My job is to stand up and say, ‘that’s not where we’re at in Wales’,” she told the think tank.
“The Welsh PLP is just totally disenfranchised,” a senior Labour MP told PoliticsHome.
“We’ve been told to butt out [by Welsh Labour], that we know better than you, and to stay away. They are angry. There has been a big split.”
Starmer, who is facing bruising results across the country when voters go to the polls in May, is not expected to feature prominently in the Labour campaign in Wales.
There is a belief that this might benefit the Prime Minister in the long run, as it could put him in a stronger position to criticise a Plaid-led government, which could end up being propped up by the Greens.
Some Welsh Labour figures complain that the party’s strategy is focussed to much on the threat of Nigel Farage and not enough on combating Plaid. At the Caerphilly Senedd by-election in October, the left-wing nationalist party cruised to victory on a message that they, not Labour, were best placed to stop Reform. In a recent interview with The House, ap Iorwerth likened Plaid to New York’s left-wing mayor Zohran Mamdani.
“It’s too late for Labour to be panicking now after taking Wales for granted for decades,” a Plaid source told PoliticsHome. “We will not make the same mistake – we will fight for every vote and ensure people feel the benefits of new leadership.”
One senior Labour Welsh MP told PoliticsHome that if the wider PLP decides to replace Starmer, they hope his successor is chosen behind closed doors, swiftly, without the involvement of rank-and-file members, in what they called an “Australian-style” approach.
For now, though, despite what potentially awaits Labour in Wales in May, there is no real appetite for a change in leadership among the party’s representatives in Westminster. Whether that remains the case as the dust settles on 8 May remains to be seen.
