Only two parties have been in power throughout his life. Or the Conservative Party, or Labour. “Both of them have not delivered what we were promised.” Jay Mayhew is 22 years old and has little confidence in those established names. “They have had their time.”
Mayhew works at JD Sports in the center of Newport, Wales’ third largest city. During his break he sits on the bench in front of the store with a colleague, Amber Rose (19). He wears white pants, white sweater and white Nikes. She is wearing all black. About half of the stores in the JD Sports list are empty. “We see more theft here than in the branch further away, in the shopping center just outside the city,” says Amber Rose. Here in the center, anyone can come by and steal, she says, and you have to go there by car.
They both grew up in Newport. They both still live at home, both think that politics does little for young people and both see that Newport is being skipped with investments. Rose: “If I had the chance, I would leave here.” She is not going to vote, she does not feel well informed enough to do so. Jay Mayhew is considering it and then it will be Reform UK, Nigel Farage’s radical right-wing party. “A new party may be able to bring change and help the country move forward.”
Labor is the largest party in Newport. Now, because after the elections next Thursday that will probably change and for the first time in more than a hundred years Labor will no longer be the largest in Wales. And for the first time since the administrative tasks of the four countries of the United Kingdom were reorganized in 1999 – Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland then had their own government and parliament – Labor no longer provides the prime minister in the Welsh parliament.
On May 7, the United Kingdom will hold the most important elections since the 2024 House of Commons elections. Residents of Wales and Scotland will elect a new parliament, in England there will be elections for local and regional levels of government and in the capital London there will be district elections. There is one common denominator: the fragmentation of the British electorate. The traditional system in which Labor and the Conservative Party alternated power appears to be a thing of the past.
‘Labor is ruining our country’
In Wales, the battle is between Reform UK and Plaid Cymru, a left-wing nationalist party, with Labor likely to come third. Most opinion polls from Scotland have the Scottish National Party (SNP) at the top, with Labour, Reform UK and the Greens among the candidates for second place. In England, Reform UK appears to be coming first, with the biggest losses coming to Labor and the Conservatives.
Newport is located in the south of Casnewydd Islwyn, a hilly constituency with a history of coal mines and steel mills. Memories of the years when Labor was the obvious choice for most residents are easy to find. In the town of Blackwood, the gray Miners’ Institute, built in 1925, has been renovated and converted into a theater. In Newbridge, the red-brick Celynen Coal Mines Institute from 1908 is now a library.
Christopher Phillips is standing outside the pub in Blackwood’s shopping street, smoking a thin cigar. He used to work in a coal mine just outside the village until it closed in 1989. “Welsh coal was the best in the world. We supplied the Royal Navy. I would go back tomorrow if I had the chance.” Now Phillips is retired and his friends are waiting for him to come back inside and finish his pint of beer. It’s half past twelve in the morning.
Phillips would never vote for the Conservatives, thanks to their former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who closed the mines. He always voted Labour, but that is no longer an option. “They are ruining our country. I can’t imagine Labor still being in power after the elections, I really can’t.” He cites the long waiting times at the NHS health service as the main problem. In Wales it is even more difficult to get an appointment with a doctor than in England. Targets set by Labor to improve waiting times have not been achieved.
Relatively few migrants live in Blackwood. According to the most recent 2021 census, 96.4 percent of residents were born in the UK. Yet Phillips sees migration as a problem, especially the migrants who cross the Channel from France on boats. “Where is our navy, where is our coast guard? It sounds dull, but someone like Donald Trump should get power here. If he says he is closing the borders at sea, then they will also be closed.” It will probably be Reform UK for him.
Labor will face a double blow in Wales, predicts Laura McAllister, professor of public policy and administration at Cardiff University. The Welsh Labor party leader promised at the national House of Commons elections in 2024 that two Labor governments could strengthen each other and that there would be more investment. “That commitment has failed spectacularly and residents are now dissatisfied with Labor in London and in Cardiff.”
The electoral system in Wales has also changed to the detriment of Labour. New constituencies have been drawn and each district will have six seats in the Senedd, as the Welsh parliament is called. These seats are distributed proportionally and are therefore more representative than the previous electoral system, in which the majority of Welsh parliamentarians vote through first past the post were chosen, the system also used for the House of Commons. The candidate with the most votes gets the only seat in the district and the votes for other parties are lost.
Welsh Labor itself agreed to this change in 2021. “Back then, Labor could not imagine that they would not be one of the largest parties,” says Professor McAllister. “Now they may be punished even more by the new rules.” Because six seats can be allocated in each district, there is in practice an electoral threshold of approximately 15 percent of the votes. In north-west Wales, for example, Plaid Cymru is in such good shape – and Labor so poor – that the party may not even reach the electoral threshold there. The misery surrounding Labor means that many Plaid Cymru politicians have a real chance of getting into the Senedd this time. Lyn Ackerman (62) is number two on the list in Casnewydd Islwyn and has been active locally for Plaid for many years, just as her father was. “As a child, my father would load us into the trunk of the car and we would help deliver brochures.” She has previously stood for the Welsh Parliament, and once for the House of Commons. “I knew this was a Labor stronghold and I wouldn’t get far.” Now she will probably be chosen.
Is this fragmentation or polarization?
Lyn Ackerman lives in Newbridge, a village where laundry blows dry on the washing line and the small center even has a few independent entrepreneurs. An optician, a pharmacy and a haberdashery shop. Yet this is not a rich environment, says Ackerman. She sees unemployment, mental health issues, financial worries, poorly maintained homes. “I understand the difficulties. Where will the next meal come from, who will pay the energy bill this time?” Ackerman disputes the criticism she often hears, that all politicians are the same. “That is simply not true. We try to mean something to our residents.” She is surprised that Reform UK is doing so well in the polls in Wales. “They talk in slogans that get stuck in your head. I also see it happening with friends and family. It doesn’t suit Wales as I know it. We are friendly, curious, and we would like to spend our last penny give it to someone else if he needed it.”
In the long term, Plaid Cymru wants Wales to become independent from the United Kingdom, and Ackerman would like that too. “I don’t think it will happen if I live, but I hope my children experience it.” In their election manifesto, Plaid does not promise a referendum, but does promise that there will be a committee to investigate the feasibility of independence. Reform UK sees nothing in the own governments of Wales and Scotland and would like to return power to London.
Plaid Cymru is considered a left-wing, progressive alternative to Labour, just like the Greens and the Scottish SNP. Reform UK is overtaking the Conservative Party on the right with promises of tax cuts and far-reaching asylum measures. Is there fragmentation here, or is this mainly polarization, a movement of voters from the center to the flanks?
They are two aspects of the same development, says Hannah White, director of the Institute for Government think tank. “The emerging parties are trying to exploit the feeling among voters that the established parties are not delivering. They offer the alternatives, and they are at opposite ends of the spectrum.” Especially voters who are not much involved with politics in their daily lives are easily tempted to vote for another party, says White.
Probably a Welsh coalition
Confidence in these alternative parties is not necessarily greater. “Politicians can promise you the world, but can they also deliver?” Rachel Kay is a mental health nurse shopping in Blackwood’s small market with her almost two-year-old daughter in the stroller. She is unsure between Labor and Plaid Cymru and believes investments in healthcare and childcare subsidies are particularly important. Exactly two issues where Plaid promises more than Labour.
Kay feels that politicians are sometimes more concerned with winning than with the residents they represent. “You just have to hope that the person you vote for turns out to be the right choice. It feels tough to make such a decision and have to rely on people.” She doesn’t really distinguish between politicians in the House of Commons in London or the Senedd in Cardiff. She did not yet know that the way of voting in Wales has changed; just as two-thirds of Welsh had no idea about it last week.
The new electoral system, reinforced by the fragmentation of the electorate, will probably mean that no party will obtain an absolute majority in Wales and that a coalition will therefore have to be formed. The general expectation is that Plaid will try to work with the Greens and the Liberal Democrats. This is an ideal scenario for Reform UK, because then they can continue to campaign as the largest opposition party. Without the reputational risk that governance entails.
Wales could easily become an example of what can happen across the UK, although elections for the House of Commons are not scheduled until 2029. Coalition governments in the House of Commons can be counted on one hand over the past century. “Our parliamentary system is binary and not prepared for fragmentation. That entails risks,” warns Hannah White of the Institute for Government.
For example, there is one official opposition party in the House of Commons, which is given longer speaking times and has more say about the political agenda than the other opposition parties. But if five parties all receive between 15 and 25 percent of the votes, such rules are no longer fair. White: “Then voters will hardly see the party they voted for again and that poses a problem for the legitimacy of politics.” Something like this is already happening in a lighter form. The constituency system allowed Labor to win 63 percent of the seats in the House of Commons in 2024 with just 33.7 percent of the vote.
Political parties in Westminster should certainly look at new rules and perhaps even a new electoral system, says White, although she also acknowledges that is unlikely to happen. “Labor and the Conservatives hope that everything will return to normal and that they will end up as the largest parties again. I doubt that will be the case.”
