With elections to the Welsh Assembly due next year, the red lights should be flashing for Labour
With all eyes fixed firmly on Labour’s disastrous performance in Scotland and much of England, last night should set alarm bells ringing for the party in Wales.
In 2010, Welsh Labour suffered what was deemed to be a difficult evening. The results at the time said it all. The loss of four seats saw the party take 26 in Wales whilst the Conservatives picked up an additional five to secure eight Welsh seats in the House of Commons.
Labour’s proportion of the vote fell by 6.5 per cent whilst the swing from Labour to Conservatives was 5.6 per cent.
Going into this year’s election, all the talk had been of Labour making albeit modest gains in Wales. As the final Welsh Political Barometer prior to the polls opening indicated, Labour were supposed to be on course to bag an additional two seats in Cardiff Central and Cardiff North.
With all 40 seats declared in Wales however, the results make for sobering reading. In the only bit of the UK that has a Labour Government, led by Carwyn Jones, the party saw itself make a net loss of one seat in Wales, whilst the Conservatives picked up an additional three to return 11 Welsh MPs.
This all comes on the back of results in last May’s European Elections which put UKIP in second place in Wales, less than 1 per cent behind Labour in the popular vote.
With elections to the Welsh Assembly due next year, the red lights should be flashing for Labour in Wales with election results going in the wrong direction.
Ed Jacobs is a contributing editor to Left Foot Forward. Follow him on Twitter
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83 Responses to “The alarm bells should be ringing for Welsh Labour”
Gerschwin
Tory Manifesto would have been their best option by the looks of things.
robertcp
I assume that you are joking. However, people who wanted to vote for the Tory Manifesto were able to do so.
Ringstone
Don’t do irony do you?
Blame it on Maggie – that seems to giveLabour a nice warm feeling in times of stress/
robertcp
I did say that I assumed his comment was a joke, which was not very funny as it happens. The serious point is that Blairites appear to believe that Labour should put forward an alternative Conservative manifesto, which would be amazingly pointless.
Gary Scott
Strange times indeed! In Scotland, although SNP won big it was not purely down to their campaigning. Labour in Scotland was the biggest reason the voters moved to SNP.
I watched interviews with a few unseated Scots Labour MPs. They all had one thing in common – anger. Not anger at themselves, their party or even circumstances out with their control, NO, their anger was directed towards SNP and the voters. Apparently the voters ‘actually thought they were voting for Nicola Sturgeon’ according to one.
To a man they were as graceless in defeat as they were in victory a few short months ago. I have never seen such an awful campaign IN MY LIFE! Until recently there WAS no campaigning, it wasn’t needed. Branches had few members and were easily controlled. The party’s members were inactive and this was reflected in candidates and their attitudes.
Frankly, the Labour Party is well rid of them. It might take years to make a comeback, it might not. The only way to do it is to rediscover how it came to be. Remember its purpose and genuinely be the party of the people again.
Of course I can only speak for Scotland, despite the results Labour in the rest of Britain is still fairing better. Ed Milliband had been fatally wounded some time back and despite having good policies etc the public perception killed the vote.
Time will tell how Labour deals with this, it could be the making or unmaking of the party..