We in Cymru like to tell ourselves that we’re different from England. That our political culture is more progressive, less conservative. Less … populist right. Is this true?
A Deltapoll opinion survey of general election voting intentions published on 19 March might suggest otherwise. It put Reform UK at 24% in Cymru – higher than any other nation or region of the UK. And it found the Labour share of the vote in Wales, at 39%, to be the lowest.
Ominous signs
Granted, it’s one poll. It’s part of a UK-wide survey, so the sample is small. It may be an outlier. Having a Labour government in power here of course makes a difference.
But there are other ominous signs too. The way in which the opaquely-funded populist right sought to involve itself with the recent farmers’ protests is one. The way in which the issue of default 20mph urban speed limits has been toxified is another.
I recently attended the Welsh Liberal Democrat conference in Cardiff. A motion calling for repeal of the 20mph legislation was killed off by amendments, but I was disturbed by the debate. The motion’s supporters repeated verbatim the dishonesties with which the populist right has sought to frame the discourse – the language of blanket limits and exaggerated claims about the economic cost.
The Liberal Democrat tactic of ‘community politics’ has always meant that its Liberal ideal of rational politics has been forced to sit uneasily beside a truculent populism. But the point remains: this was not a conference where one expected to hear the framing and language of Welsh Conservative social media being repeated. And it shows how the language of the populist right embeds itself if it is not challenged.
Alongside this, Welsh Labour faces serious reputational challenges. Reports that the incoming First Minister received enormous campaign donations from a convicted environmental criminal, combined with Welsh ministers apparently ducking and weaving under cross-examination at the UK Covid Inquiry, have damaged the Welsh Labour Brand while playing straight into the narratives of the populist right.
Dealing with risks from the populist right
It’s worth remembering that, until relatively recently, we had seven elected UKIP members in our Senedd. Although the various manifestations of the populist right took a serious beating in the 2021 Senedd elections, the current combination of events carries the risk of becoming a perfect storm.
An exhausted Welsh Labour that is perceived to have made little difference. A First Minister who cannot command the confidence of his Senedd colleagues, and can be portrayed as part of an out-of-touch Cardiff Bay bubble. A future Labour government in Westminster presiding over further economic decline, self-inflicted through austerian fiscal rules – possibly as part of a wider swing to the right across the UK in response to too little change too slowly. All this could lead to a populist right electoral surge in our 2026 Senedd election.
This means, above all, being honest with ourselves about the state of Welsh politics. It was, after all, Westminster’s inability to spot straws in the wind that was one of the reasons for the Brexit catastrophe.
In his emotional farewell speech, outgoing First Minister Mark Drakeford spoke of “the Labour Family”. Whenever she heard that phrase my late wife, a social work manager and Labour stalwart of many years, would roll her eyes and wonder aloud whether they’d fixed the date for the case conference yet. The point is that a political movement in which allegiance rests on sentiment rather than serious political analysis has a problem. And everyone knows families whose outward happy appearance masks dysfunction.
Countering mythologies
Welsh Labour needs to wake up and start asking itself uncomfortable questions. Perhaps those I asked myself as I walked past the shuttered units, vaping shops, and charity outlets lining the curiously empty streets of a large West Wales town the other day. (One building being the still-empty office of a UKIP former Senedd member). I wondered what a century of voting Labour had actually done for that town and the people who lived there. Or, indeed, voting UKIP.
Unfortunately for Welsh Labour – which, under its new leadership, looks more like a branch office than for many years – there appears to be little taste for reflection among its London leadership. Plaid Cymru is inhibited by its agreement with Welsh Labour. Welsh Liberal Democrats appear firmly confined to the fringe. It is difficult to see where a radical reappraisal of who we are politically, and what sort of Cymru we want to create, will come from.
Welsh politics, for all the reassuring stories it tells itself about a progressive Cymru, is leaving a space wide open for the populist right to occupy. We need a radical, progressive, and above all inspiring and optimistic vision for Cymru – a Cymru freed of the dead hand of Westminster – to counter the mythologies of the populist right. A vision that transcends party, that enthuses and unites rather than depresses and divides.
Those on the progressive side of Welsh politics cannot rely on the mythology of a progressive Cymru. Unless we are prepared to do the political heavy lifting, we will be letting the populist right write our story for us.
