Vote the same, hope for different: how Wales became the definition of lunacy

It is a country which – according to a vast number of metrics – fares considerably worse than England. Yet Wales, ruled in part by the Labour-run Senedd for the past 25 years, voted for more of the same this week by ejecting every single Conservative MP across its land.

Gone was David Davies, the Welsh Secretary and MP for Monmouthshire since 2005, who had helped deliver the Chepstow bypass in anti-motorist Wales. Simon Hart, Conservative Chief Whip, was ousted in Caerfyrddin by the nationalist Plaid Cymru, who also defeated Virginia Crosbie in Ynys Mon (Anglesey).

Ex-ministers Alun Cairns, Stephen Crabb and Fay Jones also lost their seats, along with Rishi Sunak’s former parliamentary aide, who had become embroiled in a betting scandal after he admitted having a “flutter” on the general election date before it was called. 

In total, all 14 of the nation’s Tory MPs were voted out, leaving Labour holding all but five of the 32 seats, with Plaid Cymru gaining four in the west and north, and the Liberal Democrats winning one in Brecon, Radnor & Cwm Tawe.

The Tory wipe-out returns the party to the bleak days of the late 90s and early 2000s, when the party had no representation in Wales. But these swathes of red across its map are – even for a nation as partisan as Wales – puzzling, not least because its love of a one-party state does little to help its fortunes.

Just a brief look at statistics shows how badly the country performs under Labour. 

In health, for instance, devolved to the Labour-run Welsh government since 1999, official figures from March show it has nine times as many NHS hospital waits of more than a year compared to England. Roughly 21 per cent of its population are on a waiting list, compared to only 13 per cent in England.

Meanwhile, two decades of Labour rule appear to have done little to boost Wales’s economic performance. At the turn of the millennium, GDP per capita in the country – total economic output divided among the population, the most common indicator of living standards – was just £13,121. In 2022, that figure was £24,443 compared to England’s £34,241.

And in education, its recent results in the worldwide Pisa rankings were abysmal – with children aged 15 woefully lagging 26 performance points behind their English counterparts. 

It all then begs the question, as perhaps in any toxic relationship: why vote for more of the same? Why stick with a party that does not seemingly improve your fortunes? 

According to Laura McAllister (CORR), professor of public policy at the Wales Governance Centre at Cardiff University, the Tory wipeout was not a result of a blinding love affair with Labour, but more – as in England – a comprehensive rejection of the Conservatives. 

“Of course, Labour has traditionally done very well in Wales, but this isn’t that story,” she says. “Actually, [Labour’s] share of the vote went down by four percentage points, and in some seats by 15, and the recent vote of no confidence in Wales’s First Minister Vaughan Gething won’t have helped.”

She continued “This election result wasn’t about specific issues introduced by Labour, such as tax on second homes or the 20mph speed limit. Nor its performance, even though Wales does not do badly on all metrics compared to England.This is a tale of people voting against the Conservatives for whichever party was best placed to win the seat.”

There is also another factor in play in this nation of three million: Welsh identity. Since 2007, the number of Welsh speakers in the country has steadily grown; up to 862,700. The YesCymru movement for an independent Wales has thousands of members, while research shows roughly half identify as “Welsh only”, not British. Welsh celebrities such as Michael Sheen, Charlotte Church and It’s A Sin creator Russell T Davies have also spoken out in support of Welsh independence. 

The importance of this to voters was seen on Thursday in seats like Ynys Mon, typically a competitive three-way marginal between Plaid, Tories and Labour, which, this time, was won by Plaid’s Llinos Medi with 10,590 votes to the Tories 9,953. Similarly, in Caerfyrddin (Carmarthen), Plaid’s Ann Davies easily took the seat, with 15,520 votes from former Chief Whip and Secretary of State for Wales Simon Hart, who finished third.

Plaid also held Ceredigion Preseli with a large majority as voters returned Ben Lake to Parliament, while Liz Saville Roberts also retained Dwyfor Meirionnydd in the north west.  

“On Ynys Mon (Anglesey) and in Caerfyrddin (Carmarthen), and other areas, you have a strong number of chiefly Welsh identifiers,” says McAllister. “And these people are currently being swallowed up by Plaid and Welsh Labour, which is successful at presenting itself as a soft nationalist voice on the Left.”

“Some traditional Tories even voted for Plaid this time because of their identity, even though Plaid is economically to the left of Labour.”

This strong sense of Welshness, she warns, does not bode well for the Tories in the future. “There’s a debate going on in the Welsh Conservatives about how Welsh they should be. Historically, when they’ve done well in Wales it’s because they’ve represented a particular identity and culture on the centre-Right. 

But under [the former leader of the Welsh Conservatives in the Senedd] Andrew RT Davies, that [was] probably not a priority. So some would say they need to go back to being a Welsh-identifying centre-Right party and that will help them rebuild. There is space for centre-Right to do well in that space.”

Perhaps RT Davies is brooding on this himself, as, unusually for him, since the wipe-out he has not been in the mood for talking. He merely posted on X, formerly Twitter: “We are a party that exists to govern and improve people’s opportunities. Let’s be frank: we’ve let a lot of people down. We’re going to take the lead in rebuilding our party in the run-up to 2026. Step one: stop taking lifelong Conservative voters for granted.”

His embattled colleague David Davies of Monmouthshire has also kept a low profile, writing on X that he had been proud to serve and wished the new MP – Labour’s Catherine Fookes, who beat him by 3,338 votes – all the best.

Given that Davies had held this seat since 2005, this was a significant loss for the Tory party, but in what is small comfort no doubt, the downfall was helped by a boundary change which saw the seat take in the traditional Labour town of Caldicot.

And – in a boost for the Right, though not the Tories – Nigel Farage’s party was not entirely ignored in Wales. Even though it failed to secure any seats, in 12 of Labour’s victories, it came second, beating Plaid and Tories. No doubt, this will be a cause for concern for Labour in Wales ahead of the next Senedd elections in 2026.

There is a view, however, that the heavy losses were to be expected. Dr Marion Loeffler, Reader of Welsh History at Cardiff University, says: “Wales has been Labour for more than 100 years, whatever government gets into Westminster. The founder of the Labour Party, James Keir Hardie [Keir Starmer is named after him], set it up for the working classes.

“He was Scottish but elected to parliament for Merthyr Tydfil in 1900, in this industrial coal and iron town. He rang in an era of Labour dominance in Wales and by the 1940s, Aneurin Bevan was the national voice for Wales. How Wales operates within the political landscape of Britain is always different to England.”

Indeed, total wipe-out for the Tories is not unheard of. In 1997, John Major’s Tories lost six seats in Wales. The party failed again to win a single seat at the 2001 election before beginning a revival in 2005, when it picked up three seats.

And while the Tories did mop up 14 seats at the last election in 2019, including Wrexham and Bridgend, some have put this down to a “Boris bounce” and Brexit.  

McAllister adds: “Our research showed these seats went Conservative simply because of Brexit supporters, voting for the slogan “Get Brexit Done.” But this has not been an issue in 2024, so those voters have moved back to Labour or voted Plaid or Reform. So 2019 was not a good control group.” 

And there is a third and final factor in this week’s election results, according to Plaid Cymru MP Liz Saville-Roberts: a neglect of Wales by central government over the past 14 years. “Disappointment with the Tories magnified into a roar of anger,” she says. “It started with the austerity agenda, then carried on with Brexit and empty promises. We were promised new hospitals, new roads, new trains and nothing came about.

Then the political became the personal, where their abstract libertarian policies brought us higher mortgages and energy costs.”

The Tory belief in a small state also does not sit well in Wales, says Saville-Roberts. “We have the lowest salaries, and an older population who are more dependent on public services. And while we do know that Welsh Labour is technically in charge, we also know it is dependent on money from Westminster.The Tories hold the idea of the individual and small state sacrosanct, but in Wales we get that to have a civilised and less unequal society people need communities and effective public services. And I think England is beginning to understand this too.

She continued “Of course, this disgust has gone two ways. Reform has picked up voters, but they are making hay out of fear and hatred and don’t offer any solutions. 

So yes, this is just a roar of anger. And Wales has been heard”