What happens in the Welsh election could be key to Scotland too
Speymouth
The well known traditional curse, “May you live in interesting times” is often ascribed to an ancient Chinese text, although there is no evidence for this. Be that as it may, it cannot be denied that we are cursed with living through interesting times. Keir Starmer was elected to head a Labour government with a landslide majority, albeit on a mere one third of the popular vote. That happened not two years ago but we are currently facing the alarming prospect that the change Starmer promised will be to usher in a far right English nationalist government in Westminster in 2029. In the shorter term, Labour looks as though it will be facing the hitherto unthinkable loss of Wales in May’s Senedd election.
Labour has reigned dominant in Wales since the 1920s, far more than what happens in May’s elections in Scotland, the English local authorities where elections have not been postponed, or even the upcoming Gorton and Denton by election which is due to be held on 26 February, the result in Wales will be pivotal, not merely because it could deliver a devastating psychological blow to Starmer’s increasingly shaky grasp on the Labour leadership, but far more importantly because it could represent the first domino to fall, setting in train a chain of events leading to the end of the so-called United Kingdom as it is currently constituted.
In Wales, Plaid Cymru has successfully positioned itself as the left of centre party best placed to defeat Reform UK. Reform UK has been successful in attracting disillusioned voters who feel left out and let down by the political system. It’s a con trick of course, Reform is a vehicle for the same wealthy and right wing interests which passed the blame for 2008’s financial crash onto working class people, the poor and the marginalised. However for every individual who is seduced by Reform’s toxic brand of migrant hating snake oil, two are repulsed by it.
Unlike in Scotland where the SNP are weighted down by the baggage of over a decade and a half in government, Plaid have never been a party of government, although they have propped up Labour administrations. This means that they can present themselves as fresh, new, and representing change in a way that is very difficult for the SNP. By positioning itself as the only party which could defeat Farage’s goons, Plaid was able to snatch victory from Reform in the recent Caerffili by election, much to the chagrin of the British media, which had been gearing itself up for a Reform UK breakthrough story, only to discover that the real story was the much more disappointing – at least for the right wing British media – story of the breakthrough of a Welsh independence party.
Although the polls do not suggest that Plaid is on track to form a majority government, according to one recent poll, Plaid and the English and Welsh Greens could possibly do well enough to form a majority coalition government. Like Plaid, the Greens in Wales support Welsh independence and the right of the people of Wales to a referendum on the issue.
It’s difficult to overstate just how seismic such a result would be. Labour has already priced in their loss in Scotland in May. No one, not even Anas Sarwar himself, really expects that Scotland will have a Labour first minister after May. It’s also important to remember that Scotland’s reputation as a Labour bastion is historically a relatively recent phenomenon. In the 1950s it was the Tories who dominated in Scottish Westminster elections. In the 1959 Westminster general election in Scotland the Tories took 50.1% of the popular vote and won 36 seats, Labour won 38 seats on 46.7% of the vote. It was only in the 1960s and 70s that Labour took a decisive lead over the Conservatives,
In contrast Wales has been Labour territory since the 1920s. In the 1922 Westminster election, Labour won half of the 36 Welsh constituencies. Labour has continued to win most Westminster seats in Wales ever since and has formed the Welsh Government ever since the Welsh Parliament was established.
The loss of Wales would be a dagger in the heart of Labour in a way the humiliation of Anas Sarwar never could be, and Keir Starmer will get the blame for it. Such a result would mean that both Scotland and Wales are administered by governments which have no confidence in the Westminster system, and these could well be joined by Northern Ireland next year after the Stormont elections due in May 2027. That triples the pressure on Westminster on the constitutional issue and makes it harder to ignore.
The pressure on Starmer will become intense. He will have to acknowledge that his strategy of appeasement of Reform UK is not working. It does nothing to placate Reform voters and merely alienates those for whom Reform UK is anathema. Labour’s foolish complacency in the face of the threat from the far right. However, given the recent blocking of Andy Burnham from standing in the Gorton and Denton by election, it seems that the Labour right which has the party in a death grip is more terrified by the centrism which Burnham represents than it is by the rise of the far right so it’s certainly not going to have an appetite for the decisive move to the left and the rapprochement with Europe which is needed to stem the loss of Labour’s traditional voters. In England such voters are ripe for being hoovered up by the English and Welsh Greens, a party with a far more positive view of Scottish and Welsh independence than the other English based parties.
For Scotland all this represents an opportunity, an opportunity which we can only hope to unlock by electing a Scottish Parliament in May with a strong pro-independence majority. All hopes of achieving Scottish independence flow from that. Should Scots fail to elect a Parliament with a pro-independence majority the anti-independence parties and media will crow that independence is dead and Scotland can look forward to a future in which the powers of the Scottish Parliament continue to be whittled away, we continue to have the highest energy bills in the UK despite producing most of the energy, and we play host to Labour’s nuclear power plants and nuclear waste.
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