Labour smashed in Caerphilly

By Geraint Thomas (Caerphilly Socialist Party)

It was a crushing result for the capitalist establishment parties at the Caerphilly Senedd by-election on 23 October. Labour and the Tories together got a combined 13% of the vote. Together, they won the support of barely over 6.5% of the total electorate. Labour’s vote plummeted by 35.4 percentage points.

The turnout, at 50.4%, was the highest in the Senedd constituency since the Welsh parliament was created in 1999, and the highest ever for a Senedd by-election. People were motivated to vote as a way of registering their discontent. Labour has led the Welsh government since its inception.

Plaid Cymru’s Lindsay Whittle won with 47%. Reform, which had led in opinion polls, came second with 36%. The Green Party got 516 votes (1.5%), around half the 1,074 it got for the regional list in the last election in 2021.

Labour has held the Senedd constituency since its creation, and the parliamentary constituency for over 100 years. The experience of over a year of a Starmer’s Labour government has evaporated the idea of Labour being a ‘lesser evil’. “Worse than the Tories”, is how they have been described by many approaching our Socialist Party campaign stalls. Socialist Party members have led a campaign against library closures by the cutting Labour council.

Many people, understandably, will have breathed a sigh of relief that Reform didn’t win. But blocking Reform will not address what is driving many people to look at the right-populist party as a solution. Poverty, deindustrialisation, decades of being ignored by the political establishment, have been topped up with 15 years of austerity.

How to stop Reform

To cut across Reform’s growing support across South Wales requires a party with a programme and action to improve people’s living conditions.

Plaid controlled Caerphilly Borough Council for a period until 2011, with Whittle as council leader. Fundamentally, its approach to leading the council differed more in style than substance to Labour. In fact, Plaid carrying out of £17 million cuts, in the same way that Labour has done since, was part of the reason for it losing control of the council. Plaid currently leads Gwynedd Council and is the largest party in Carmarthenshire – both authorities are implementing austerity rather than building a working-class campaign to win more money from government.

This Senedd by-election was the last to use the first past the post system. May’s elections will use a form of proportional representation. Reform are highly likely to win seats. Rather than standing aside for Plaid or the Greens, a Your Party stand against austerity and for socialist policies could start to undermine support for Reform and win seats.