Labour faces a crisis in the wake of this week’s historic defeat in its heartland seat of Caerphilly.
The party must wake up to the reality it has unpopular leaders and unpopular policies – and this means it is on course to suffer further disasters at the polls. This loss is much more important for Labour than the upcoming result of the deputy leadership election.
Caerphilly had voted Labour in every Westminster election since 1918 and in each election to the Welsh Parliament, the Senedd, since its founding in 1999. But now the seat, which was once held by former Welsh Secretary Ron Davies, will be represented by pro-independence Plaid Cymru.
This reveals the depth of anger at Sir Keir Starmer’s administration in London and the frustration with the Labour-run Welsh Government in Cardiff. People did not just sit at home and refuse to vote Labour; they made the trip to the polling station and dealt the governing party a humiliation which will be remembered for generations.
Labour won just 11% of the vote with Reform UK in second place with 36% and Plaid romping to victory with 47.4%. If this is repeated across Wales in May’s Senedd elections then, for the first time in the history of devolved Government, there will not be a Labour First Minister.
If this happens there will be terror on the Labour benches in Westminster. The party lacks the Conservatives’ zeal for ousting unpopular leaders but hundreds of MPs will fear Sir Keir and Rachel Reeves cannot turn around the polls and are leading the party towards electoral annihilation.
The tragedy for Sir Keir and Ms Reeves is you do not get a second chance to make a first impression. They arrived in office and were hit with the scandal over freebies and they proceeded to scrap universal winter fuel payments for pensioners and slap employers with a shock increase in National Insurance payments – a move which looked to many like the breaking of a manifesto pledge.
Such moves might have been forgiven if these efforts to secure financial stability unlocked prosperity but the country has been stuck with flat-lining growth and high inflation. Ms Reeves is now expected to come back for a further round of tax hikes next month to fill a “black hole” in the public finances.
Plaid Cymru will be cockahoop at the result. The dream of winning the First Minister’s position in Wales now looks within its grasp.
There was deep nervousness they would be pipped to the post by Reform UK, which a recent poll had put in the top spot. But winning candidate Lindsay Whittle – who has stood for election in Westminster and Senedd elections 14 times – won the trust of voters.
For decades, Plaid has positioned itself as a Left-wing alternative to Labour so it could win votes in seats like Caerphilly. That strategy may be paying off.
The big dream for the party is to repeat the success of the SNP when Alex Salmond became Scotland’s first non-Labour First Minister in 2007. It has held onto the position since then.
A ferocious blame game will now start within Labour. The group in the Senedd had already tried to carve out a distinct identity from Westminster Labour, talking about the “red Welsh way”.
The Welsh Government will be blamed for rolling out unpopular 20mph zones and presiding over years of dismal performance in education rankings. The party’s biggest challenge is that after being in power for more than a quarter of a century it is hard to argue it is not time for a change.
Reform UK will seek to learn lessons from the result. In normal times, winning 8,400 more votes than Labour in a seat like Caerphilly would be seen as a phenomenal result for a start-up party.
Reform is burdened with high expectations. It knows its success hinges on getting people who like the party to take the time and effort to cast a vote.
Between now and May, when voters will also go to the polls in English elections and the Scottish Parliament contest, it will fine-tune its already formidable campaigning machine.
If it can demonstrate in May it can win in every part of Great Britain then Labour (and the Conservatives, who won a paltry 690 votes in Caerphilly) will go into emergency mode. Sir Keir will fear that after less than two years in power his own footsoldiers will decide it is time for a change of leadership.