Welsh constituency could be latest scalp for Nigel Farage

David Maddox, The Independent

It is 731 years since the Welsh constituency of Caerphilly has seen a siege by insurgents attempting to seize power from the established rulers. Back in 1294, Madog ap Llewellyn attacked the great 13th century castle which stands in the midst of Caerphilly in a bid to end the previously unchallenged authority of Edward I. Where Madog failed, Nigel Farage's Reform now expect to succeed. The siege by insurgents in 2025 though looks set to mark the dramatic collapse of Labour's previously unassailable hold on Wales, with Plaid Cymru also expected to be a serious challenger to the incumbent party.

Caerphilly has been a Labour constituency since 1918 when it was won by Methodist local preacher Alfred Onions. The party has held the seat in every single election ever since, even when much of the red wall fell in 2019. For a brief period in the 1980s the seat was help by a Social Democrat Party (SDP) MP when its Labour representative, Ednyfed Hudson Davies, defected. But he lost the seat to a future Labour Welsh Secretary Ron Davies in the very next election in 1983. Caerphilly's fortress has represented Labour's impregnable hold, not just on the town but Wales itself, which it has run for an unbroken period since devolution in 1999.

But now, following the death of Welsh Labour Senedd member Hefin David, the seat looks like it will fall to the 21st century insurgents from Reform or even Plaid Cymru. The expected result is unthinkable for First Minister Baroness Eluned Morgan and will shatter the confidence of the Welsh Labour leadership, as well as sending shockwaves to Sir Keir Starmer and his inner circle in Downing Street. The by-election this week is a dry run for a much bigger election in May 2026, when the whole Senedd is up for election under a new proportional voting system.

Wales is set to get more attention in an election across the UK than it probably has ever had in its history, notably because the fight for top spot is being fought over not by the party of power in Wales (Labour) but by two sets of nationalists - Reform UK and the Welsh separatists Plaid Cymru.

A Beaufort poll today put Reform ahead by seven points on 30 per cent with Labour a narrow second on 23 per cent and Plaid on 22 per cent.

But a Survation poll in Wales looked dire for Labour, with Reform on 42 per cent, Plaid 38 per cent and Labour a very distant third on 12 per cent.

Labour could end up a distant third and their only serious hope of retaining any power in a land they have ruled unchallenged for more than a quarter of a century is to be a junior partner to Plaid in a coalition keeping out Reform.

The brutal reality is that if Wales falls to Reform then there is a good chance that the discontent among Labour MPs in Westminster will become too much and there will be an actual attempt to oust Sir Keir.

This has been coming for some time though. A majority of people in Wales supported Brexit in the EU referendum in 2016. It was a sign of things to come.

In the 2019 European Parliament elections the Brexit Party led by Farage took two of the four seats in Wales.

Now with Reform riding high in the polls they are eating into Labour's vote in its traditional heartlands. So worried were the Welsh Labour leadership that earlier this year they sent the entire Welsh government down to campaign in a council by-election to prevent Reform winning its first seat in the Principality. They failed. But why is Labour's grip on power in Wales collapsing?

There are a number of reasons, many of which centre on the desperate unpopularity of Starmer, his attempts to cut welfare and pensioner winter fuel payments, and the sense of crisis in his government. But the Welsh Labour government is not blameless. Fury over 20mph speed limits, banning building roads, the tourism tax, dire NHS outcomes, and the worst school standards in the UK have not endeared them to Welsh voters. Locally, the closure of libraries by the Labour run council has not helped.

"When you promise change people kind of expect new money to be spent and are disappointed when it doesn't happen," said one local Labour insider.

But the biggest danger of all for Labour on Thursday and next May is apathy. Voters appear to have given up caring which means that the more motivated smaller group has a much larger sway.

In past years that would have been Labour getting its vote out but now it is people enthused by Farage and his promises on migration control and nods to the left on nationalising steel. Not even the conviction of former Wales Reform leader Nathan Gill for taking bribes from Russia seems to have halted the party's ascendancy. If Llŷr Powell wins he will be the first person elected for Reform to the Senedd, where he will join former Tory Laura Anne Jones who defected earlier this year. In May next year they will certainly have many more colleagues and Caerphilly could be the first brick to go in another collapsing Labour fortress.