Reform or Plaid Cymru? Labour could lose Wales for the first time in over 100 years, voters say

At the bottom of Cardiff’s Queen Street, Aneurin ‘Nye’ Bevan stands.

The Labour politician is rendered in bronze, his far-seeing gaze unbroken by shoppers and seagulls. The statue is tribute to a man whom many credit with founding the NHS, and to the political party that made it a reality.

But just a few hundred metres up the mall, attitudes towards Labour – the party Bevan once helped to lead – have curdled.

“I don’t believe in Labour anymore,” said James Mapstone, a Cardiff local and a carer for his brother.

“Anyone who has anything to do with Labour needs their heads checked. They need to get some medical attention.”

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Welsh Labour have led every Welsh parliament (Senedd) since devolution, and have held the majority of Wales’ Westminster seats since 1922. But that unbroken run could end at the 2026 elections. Support for the party has collapsed, polls suggest, languishing on an unenviable 18%.

Plaid Cymru (30%) and Reform (25%) are both polling better than the long-time incumbent. Both stand to benefit from a new, more proportional voting system, that will see the number of seats a party gets reflect its share of votes.

A week after the release of that polling, Big Issue took to the streets of Labour stronghold Cardiff to ask locals who they planned on voting for. It was a mixed picture – but one pervaded by a general sense of disillusionment and political fatigue.

“The Senedd has failed,” Mapstone told us. “They failed the people. And it’s the most vulnerable people in society. There’s some very serious issues going on in this country – and the young people, the elderly, in particular, and the disabled are being targeted like they’ve never been before.”

For the upcoming Sennedd election, the Welsh capital been split into two new multi-member electorates: Caerdydd Ffynnon Taf (encompassing the Westminster electorates of Cardiff North and Cardiff East) and Caerdydd Penarth (encompassing the Westminster constituencies of Cardiff West and South).

Jade Burrell, a student, told Big Issue that she will support Labour: “It’s just who I’ve always voted for,” she said. “I’ve only been living in Wales for two years, so I’m originally from the Midlands. They’re very Labour centric. It’s just what I’m used to.”

But Keith, 76, “would love to see a change” in the Senedd.

“Because of the history, the dramatic history of Wales, particularly, going back to the Churchill miner’s thing… Labour is always in in Wales,” the Radyr local said.

“As a friend of mine said, if you put a sheep in a red jersey, we’ll vote for it here.”

Churchill has historically been unpopular in Wales; as home secretary, he sanctioned the use of armed troops to put down the 1910 Tonypandy coal strike. More broadly, Welsh industrial heritage has shored up Labour’s vice grip on constituencies here.   

Keith – who has typically voted Conservative – predicts that Reform UK will pick up votes from disaffected because Nigel Farage is exploiting “the cracks”.

“Everybody’s very disappointed with what happened with the Conservatives, and they don’t want Labour. Liberal is almost a non-entity now, which is terrible, because that was a place to go at one time. It is people disenchanted with other politics.”

Which Welsh voters are turning to Reform UK?

So where will Reform’s surging vote-share come from?

Disaffected Tories, recent analysis suggests. Some 27% of people who voted Conservative in 2024 plan to vote for Reform UK in 2026, compared to just 4% of Labour voters.

Meanwhile, Labour is bleeding support to the left – a staggering 33% of 2024 Labour voters intend to cast a ballot for Plaid Cymru.

James Mapstone declined to say who he voted for previously, and to say whether he was voting for Reform – but he won’t be voting for Plaid or Labour.

“The new 36 assembly members, that’s about holding onto power. We’re not helping farmers. We’re not helping pensioners. We’re not helping the disabled. Everyone who can get some sort of benefit is scared.”

“We need a change in direction, no matter which MP or we need some fresh, someone fresh with fresh ideas to come along. I will support anyone who stands up for the NHS.”

Welsh Labour are keenly aware of challenges to the right and the left. Last week, Labour first minister Eluned Morgan warned that “a vote for Plaid Cymru is a vote for Reform”.

The FM has also sought to differentiate Welsh Labour from Keir Starmer; in a speech last week, she promised to pursue a left-wing “red Welsh way”.

“I will not hesitate to challenge from within, even when it means shaking things up and disrupting the comfortable,” she pledged.

The challenge will be delivering this opposition in a substantive, rather than merely rhetorical way. What will Welsh Labour do about Labour’s brutal disability benefit cuts, for example, which are being implemented nationwide?

The cuts will entrench deprivation in Wales, twice as many affected residents as London and the south-east. Four of the 10 must affected authorities are in Wales, analysis suggests.

Terry – a disabled pensioner from Cardiff – told Big Issue that Labour have been “pretty good” to him, compared to “when a certain iron lady was in”.

But politicians “speak with forked tongue”, he added.

“That’s when people say what you want to hear to try and get in, but when they get in. Sometimes they don’t keep to their word,” he said. “Food prices go up everything goes up. I’m disabled, I’m a pensioner. And the money I get is never enough.”

The party won’t be able to count on Terry’s vote. He relies on the use of a large mobility chair, and finds getting to the voting booth too difficult.   

“We may be in the 21st century, but not for the disabled people. It’s back to the 18th century. Transport, busses, trains, buildings to get in, are not suitable,” he said.

“I’m a human being like everybody else. See, I can twiddle my fingers, right? I can’t walk like you. Everybody in government, they forget about being disabled, and they treat them as the lower, lower parts. It shouldn’t be. All humans are alike.”

The sentiment is similar to one expressed by Nye Bevan himself.  

“Illness is neither an indulgence for which people have to pay,” the leftist titan said, “nor an offence for which they should be penalised, but a misfortune the cost of which should be shared by the community.”

When Bevan was first elected to the Westminster parliament in 1929, Welsh Labour was six years in to its 103-year winning streak. Whether or not this unbroken run continues is very much an open question.

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