Cymru in 2026 

The effects of the Caerffili by-election continue beyond Christmas and the new year into the opening exchanges of the campaign for the coming Senedd election of May 7th. Two opinion polls must be examined as we look ahead. The two polls, one for the Senedd and the other for Westminster, reveal different figures but indicate that the Welsh electorate is clearly able to distinguish the brutal choice that the left faces.

The Senedd poll shows Plaid polling thirty three per-cent with Reform at thirty per- cent with both Labour and Conservatives at ten per-cent and the Greens, significantly, at nine per-cent. We really are seeing the strange death of Welsh Labour. This result suggests that Plaid would gain perhaps just short of forty seats with Labour gaining ten, the Conservatives seven and Reform UK thirty two. The Greens could well find themselves with as many as four or five with the remainder perhaps going to the Lib-Dems and perhaps Beth Winter running as an independent.

The Westminster poll shows clearly that the Welsh left is clearly understanding that there is now a clear choice as there was in Caerffili. Some forty per-cent of Labour’s vote has shifted to Plaid with ten per-cent moving to the Greens and another ten per-cent to Reform UK.

The Westminster poll gives Reform UK thirty per-cent to Plaid’s nineteen per-cent , with Labour at fifteen per-cent and the Greens at fourteen per-cent, the Conservatives at thirteen per-cent and the Lib-Dems at eight per-cent. It’s quite clear that Wales is turning rapidly to the emergence of Plaid as the most preferred method to stop Reform UK. We are facing a 1922 moment where a new party will soon dominate Wales. Of course, if the Greens did gain four or five seats there would be a significant bloc for Welsh independence however implied or obscured in the day-to-day campaign .

Reliable sources suggest that the Reform company and Farage personally will ‘select’  the sixteen number-one candidates in the twinned constituencies. It’s likely that this will be announced as close to the election as possible before a Byzantine, narcissistic struggle so typical of Reform UK breaks out. It has been announced that only candidates for the Senedd can take part in the televised debate, but we await decisions from S4C and BBC Cymru as of early January.

A worrying poll of the Welsh Party leaders reveals grim news for the Labour Party. An opinion poll from December shows Eluned Morgan three percentage points short of victory for the sixth seat in Ceredigion Penfro. In Bangor, Conway and Mon, Rhun Ap Iorwerth has forty two per-cent, suggesting a runaway victory.

There are still some twenty weeks to go to polling day, but it looks grim. Eluned Morgan does not deserve this fate and yet she inherits the toxic legacy of Welsh Labour’s recent crises.

It looks as if the UK will soon have the non-English countries ruled  by parties seeking to dismantle and dissolve it. The crisis is building and it promises to be as destructive as were the historical events facing the Liberal government of 1906. Those whom the gods of the Celtic twilight wish to destroy they first make mad with egotism. 

Martyn Shrewsbury