(Title Image: New Statesman)
Beginning a short series of more in-depth examinations of the performance of the parties in the 2021 Senedd election, I start with the undoubted winners – Labour.
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Other than turnout (an entire discussion in its own right) there’s very little bad news for Labour.
Yes, you can point to the Vale of Clwyd but that was expected to go Tory far more emphatically than it did. Labour could easily win that seat back in 2026. If they can replicate these sorts of results in the next Westminster election they should be able to win back most of the seats they lost in 2019 too.
The major result of note is, of course, Rhondda (+18.8%). It’s worth a look in the Plaid Cymru post, though the only people qualified to answer why that result happened are those who live there and took part in the campaigns. It’s likely down to a combination of – as I’ll touch on – Labour’s “get out the vote” operation; having a relatively popular Labour-led council; picking a high-profile community activist to run against a Leanne Wood who had lost her national profile and influence as Plaid Cymru leader (and all the extra publicity and hype that comes with it).
Other performances of note include Caerphilly (+10.7%), Cardiff West (+12.8%) – surely both firmly out of reach of Plaid Cymru now – and Merthyr Tydfil & Rhymney (+14.3%).
It seems like a large chunk of the 2016 UKIP vote went as much to Labour as the Conservatives and the smaller right-wing parties. We’re moving into a post-Brexit politics and – pandemic aside – there’s a sense of things returning to the pre-Brexit normal, which means Labour dominance in Wales.
Bridgend is the only local authority where the Labour vote fell across the board. It won’t have mattered because of Ogmore’s Huw Irranca-Davies’ (-2.7%) insurmountable majority and the fact Bridgend’s Sarah Murphy (-3.3%) wasn’t an incumbent and ended up with a good result. It is, however, noticeable and could be down to the better-than-expected performance of the Independent candidate, Steven Bletsoe, in the case of Bridgend and good performances by Plaid Cymru and the Conservatives in Ogmore. It’s a similar story in Islwyn (-4.3%) while Sian Gwenllian has cemented her popularity in Arfon seemingly at Labour’s expense.
