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”
Closedshop
That is all that Lab. really campaigned on “The Tories are Nasty but we are not”. There was no plan outlined. I think the arrogance in the party presumed that the electorate would turn on the nasties and they didn’t bother laying out a detailed plan.
Closedshop
The Scottish Lab. party was booted out because it stopped doing the work decades ago, corruption at local level, a sense of entitlement and angry public attacks by its reps against the electorate, which is insane.
Closedshop
Looks like a lot of the working class in England did vote UKIP. There is a real risk that that will increase significantly in the future.
UKIP established itself as the alternative to Labour in the North of England.
The results showed that.
Leon Wolfeson
The results show nothing of the sort.
You’re making up lies for your party. What’s happened is Tories, the far right and some older voters have gone for UKIP, while much of the former LibDem vote went to Labour.
Rather than left-wing voters suddenly becoming hard right-wing, your contention.
Closedshop
I’m not UKIP.
UKIP are in a strong position to convert a lot of seats in the north of England in the future.