On October 23, 2025, the political landscape in Wales witnessed a seismic shift as voters in Caerphilly headed to the polls for a by-election that may well mark the end of an era. Labour, the party that has held the seat since 1910, found itself teetering on the brink of a historic defeat, with polls showing Reform UK leading at 42 percent, Plaid Cymru close behind at 38 percent, and Labour trailing at a distant 12 percent—down from a robust 46 percent in the 2021 Senedd elections. The by-election, triggered by the death of Labour MS Hefin David, became a focal point for debates about identity, migration, and the failures of the political establishment.
According to Socialist Worker, the rise of Reform UK—a party led by Nigel Farage and often described as far right—has been nothing short of meteoric. Their campaign in Caerphilly zeroed in on what they branded as Welsh Labour’s and Plaid Cymru’s “mass immigration agenda.” Llŷr Powell, the Reform UK candidate, was relentless: “A vote for Plaid is a vote for even more immigration into Wales. Vote Reform to end the Nation of Sanctuary,” he declared, urging supporters to sign a petition at the party’s Stop Sanctuary website.
This rhetoric struck a chord with a significant portion of the electorate. The numbers tell a story of realignment: seven in ten people in Caerphilly who voted Conservative in 2021 have now switched to Reform UK. Yet, this was not simply a transfer of right-wing votes. For Reform UK to be polling so strongly, they had to be drawing support from disillusioned Labour voters as well. The party’s anti-migrant messaging, normalized by years of mainstream political discourse, became the adhesive holding together their narrative of national decline and offering themselves as the anti-establishment alternative.
The collapse of Labour’s support in Caerphilly is rooted in more than just recent scandals, though those certainly played a role. The resignation of First Minister Vaughan Gething in the summer of 2024—after less than four months in office and amid corruption allegations—left the party reeling. Eluned Morgan, who succeeded him in an uncontested election, paused her life peerage in the House of Lords but failed to inspire a divided base. Morgan’s leadership was immediately tested by widespread dissatisfaction: farmers’ protests against new subsidies, public anger over the 20mph speed limit in built-up areas, and controversy over Labour’s stance on the Gaza conflict, where two Labour MSs, including the late Hefin David, sponsored a Tory amendment that replaced calls for a ceasefire with more ambiguous language supporting Israel’s right to self-defense.
But the malaise goes deeper. As detailed by Socialist Worker, Labour has governed Wales since the establishment of the Welsh Assembly in 1999, often touting its “clear red water” from Westminster’s policies. While it avoided the full-scale privatization seen under Tony Blair’s government, its social democratic program was always dependent on Westminster funding—a model that began to unravel after the 2008 financial crisis and the Conservative victory in 2010. Since then, Wales has faced deliberate funding cuts from London, and Labour, rather than resisting, largely managed the decline.
The consequences have been stark. The Welsh NHS, though spared from privatization, is in crisis, with nearly 600,000 people on waiting lists and almost 100 GP surgeries closed. Child poverty rates remain stubbornly high at 29 percent, exacerbated by Labour’s two-child benefit cap. The selection of Richard Tunnicliffe, a centrist business owner, as Labour’s candidate—while blocking the more left-leaning Jamie Pritchard for his support of Jeremy Corbyn—was seen by many as a sign of the party’s drift from its roots. Tunnicliffe’s defense of austerity was blunt: “If you don’t balance the budgets, you go bankrupt or you end up getting the auditors in, who will just hack and burn everything.”
Meanwhile, Plaid Cymru, traditionally the left-leaning Welsh nationalist party, has also shifted toward the center, often supporting Labour administrations at the national level while implementing austerity at the local level. Lindsey Whittle, Plaid’s candidate in Caerphilly, recounted hearing anti-immigrant slogans on the campaign trail, despite the fact that, as he put it, “97 percent of people in this constituency were born in Britain.” During a BBC debate, a woman challenged Reform UK’s Powell, saying, “I have never felt so unwelcome in my own home town as I do since your party came into Caerphilly. I blame you for that.”
The Conservative Party, once a major player, is now largely irrelevant in Caerphilly and much of Wales. As The Spectator observed, “The Conservatives, in this race, are an irrelevance. Bluntly, they’re an irrelevance in much of the rest of the country too.” The deeper story is one of two legacy parties—Labour and the Conservatives—struggling to adapt to a political environment where economic coalitions have fractured and identity politics now dominate. Both parties, according to The Spectator, are “legacy of answers to economic questions raised decades ago,” but today, “the most important dividing lines are matters of identity.”
Labour’s attempt to be “the party of everyone else”—embracing feminism, gay rights, minority migrants, and the white working class—has left it vulnerable on multiple fronts. The Conservatives, for their part, are torn between a socially conservative base and liberal MPs, especially on migration. The result is a fracturing of traditional coalitions, with Reform UK, the Liberal Democrats, the Greens, and local nationalist parties like Plaid Cymru peeling away voters who no longer feel represented by the old order.
Some see the Caerphilly by-election as a harbinger of things to come. The era when Labour and the Conservatives could rely on broad, stable bases of support appears to be over. The rise of Reform UK is not just about migration; it’s about a broader sense of disillusionment with a political system that seems unable to deliver on health, economic security, or a sense of belonging.
Anti-racist campaigners and left-wing activists argue that the answer lies in building mass movements that can challenge both the far right and the politics of managed decline. As Socialist Worker put it, “Anti-racism and class struggle have to go hand in hand—fighting oppression is not a distraction or an optional extra.” There is growing talk of the need for a new left alternative that can galvanize working-class struggles and the anti-racist movement ahead of the next Senedd elections in 2026.
Whatever the outcome in Caerphilly, the by-election has exposed the fractures at the heart of Welsh—and British—politics. Voters are searching for answers, and the old certainties no longer hold.
