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”
Mattwales
Labour supporters really need to have an introspective
moment after what was in no uncertain terms a total catastrophe which has given
Dave a free hand for the next five years.
Milliband should never have ended up where he did, the only
reason he did was Len McClusky. The party didn’t want him and the members didn’t
want him – that was mistake number one. Number two was not acting on the fact that
his approval ratings were through the floor. After two years he should have
gone as by now it was clear Milliband didn’t shove his brother aside because he
had a plan, he did it due to sheer hubris.
In the aftermath one thing should be clear. Laying all this
on the voters doorstep is utter arrogance and stupidity. Milliband’s whole
appeal was crafted towards a very small clique of voters on the left. These
people guffawed and gushed at how they were pushing out the Blairites and the
right wingers when all they were really doing was alienating everyone outside
their small bubble. Theres a term for what happens when you do this, its called
‘wilderness years’ and yes we’re now in them.
So before flipping off the electorate – you know those guys
you want to vote for you, how about considering offering them something worthwhile
voting for next time? Stop this puerile fantasy about some mythical noble ‘working
man’ who is really just your conception of you and your mates and realise the
one thing the Blairites got right was to appeal across the spectrum to real
actual people and not just some subset of the left wing.
Alasdair
As a person living in Scotland, who had been from 1968, a Labour voter in every election – council, Scottish, UK, European, referendum – until, the 2014 Euro elections, when I voted Green, then YES, in the refendum and SNP on Thursday, I have mixed feelings about the GE outcome. A literally incredible success for SNP – ya beauty!!! – five more years of the Tories – what an appalling prospect!!! In England and Wales, the net seat transfer was ONE from Labour to Tory. The Tory gains were mainly from the collapse of the LibDems. Ed Milliband had a passable performance during his leadership period. He got pretty lukewarm support from the Blairites in his party. He was monstered by the media to a greater degree than Neil Kinnock was. He actually had a pretty coherent set of leftish policies, which were a significant departure from the preceding Thatcher rebranded. This is not to say that Labour really needs to consider what it stands for and to get out and meet people and find out what really concerns them, rather than focus groups to give them what Blair/Brown/ Mandelson had already decided. They need to put the defeat and transfer of seats to not perspective. FTFP. which both Labour and the Tories cling to simply because it gives them disproportionate power, has benefited the Tories on this occasion. Labour must be serious about wholesale constitutional reform. So, no seats in the Lords for Darling, Brown, Balls, Alexander, Murphy, Curran and the eminently tempt able and shameless Straw. It needs to fight for working people AND, those in receipt of benefits, the disabled, the young, and getting rid of Rachel Reeves would be a start. It needs to think seriously about significant land reform to gain revenue from land taxes, to kill land hoarding and to enable massive housebuilding, by ordinary people.
The writing was on the wall in Scotland for more than 10 years. They ignored it and the wall has bee n completely destroyed. It is on the wall in Wales and many places in England, but will their hubris prevent them from reading it.
With independence in Scotland, there would be the chance to redevelop a party of the left. There are still remnants in Wales and England, so REFORM!!
robertcp
Okay, what policies should Labour not have put forward in this election and what new policies would you suggest?
robertcp
Labour seems to have done as badly in Wales as it did in England. It was not, however, anything like the catastrophe that occurred in Scotland.
Keith M
The prospect of five more years of Tories is frightening. They will make sure their rich mates are well rewarded and at the same time shaft the poor. More worrying is the racist mentality by a large number of English tiwards the scots.