Welsh Labour: Challenges for the road ahead…

Labour’s story in Wales has been a tale of two halves in 2024. On the one side, unprecedented success at the general election. On the other, a party in the Senedd, divided and bruised – still reeling from the departure of the former First Minister, Vaughan Gething. 

“Unity” is the new mantra.  It is emblazoned on the standard around which support has rallied for the new First Minister, Eluned Morgan, and her deputy, Huw Irranca-Davies to sweep them, unopposed, to the top with a mission to heal wounds in public and in cabinet.  

In Labour’s Senedd team photo, they stand shoulder to shoulder behind their new First Minister, the first woman in the job. The message deliberately framed. We are one. There were smiles and doubtless hope too that a new era lies ahead. But enmity isn’t easily forgiven, forgotten or dispelled. Baroness Morgan has her hands full and much to think about.  

Right now, she will be considering and consulting about what shape a Welsh government cabinet should take when the pack is shuffled in September. Will it, as with the last cabinet under Mr Gething, attempt to balance opposing factions? Or will her solution be to pull teeth and claw to relegate the key combatants to the back benches and replace them with new faces instead? 

Making these sums add up will take long division, with an old-fashioned political slide rule. No simple computer calculation or AI answer for this one. It will require deft diplomacy and much depends on getting the formula right.  

Outside the Senedd bubble, the psephologists will tell you that Labour has formidable challenges ahead. While on paper, the general election results in Wales were in landslide territory – winning 27 out of 32 seats – an electoral disaster for the Tories - closer examination shows that underneath the thin crust of success, there are ingredients in the souffle that could give Labour in Wales indigestion in the future. And that future is only two years away. 

Under First Minister Mark Drakeford, who only stood down earlier this year, Senedd reform was agreed that will almost certainly mean that when the next election comes around in 2026, coalition government is likely.  

The Senedd Reform Act, which became law when it received royal assent in June, will expand the number of Members of the Senedd in 2026 to 96, although the number of constituencies will fall to 16. Six members will be elected to represent each constituency through a PR system called the ‘D’hondt’ method. Voters will be asked to vote for a party rather than an individual candidate, who will then be chosen depending on the share each party receives. Greater democracy at work? In principle. But, on current standings, it has the potential to be Labour’s undoing. Or put another way, if voting trends at this year’s general election are repeated in 2026, one analyst suggests the result could be 32 seats to Labour, 28 to Plaid Cymru, and 13 to Reform with the Tories and others behind in single figures. Labour would be far short of a majority, and it would almost certainly have to find an accommodation with other parties to rule.  

And note – that Reform prediction. As things stand, Reform might well be the main challenger to Labour – not in former Conservative constituencies – but in Labour’s valleys heartlands which Reform has identified as potentially fertile ground. Hence, Nigel Farage’s decision to launch his 2024 election ‘Contract’ (Manifesto) in Merthyr Tydfil. 

The Labour incumbent in the Merthyr parliamentary constituency, Gerald Jones, was a comfortable winner with 15,791 votes representing a share of 44.8%. But, and this is the issue that worries some Labour thinkers, the party’s share was down 6.9% while Reform came from nowhere into second place with 8,344 votes and a share increase of 23.7%. It’s a foundation from which Reform will be hoping to build in the next two years – attracted by the prospect of proportional representation and a louder voice in the Welsh Senedd than Westminster.  

Of course, much will inevitably change in the next two years, and it would take a brave commentator to say with any certainty what the world of Welsh politics will look like on the other side of the hill.  

But here’s something else to consider.  

Whereas voters have tended to vote the same in Westminster and devolved government elections, there are signs that voters who turn out for Senedd elections – never more than 47% of all those eligible to vote to date – could discriminate more in future between UK and Welsh politics. And this is Welsh Labour’s challenge. Recent policies such as the 20mph speed limit have been generally unpopular and the turmoil surrounding the former First Minister, Vaughan Gething, has unsettled the ship. 

The challenge for Eluned Morgan will not only be to plot a route into calmer waters, but also to find a course that will offer Welsh voters hope with fresh ideas, a brighter horizon and renewed confidence in the party.