Calum Davies: Welsh Labour can’t govern Wales by opposition to their own party in Westminster

Calum Davies is a Conservative councillor in Cardiff and previously stood for the Senedd in 2021.

What is currently happening to Welsh Labour, the party that has been running the government in Wales since 1999, reminds one of the phrase ‘chickens coming home to roost’.

Ever since the Conservatives came to power in the 2010 general election, the First Minister of Wales – from Carwyn Jones and Mark Drakeford to Vaughan Gething and, now, Baroness Eluned Morgan – have sought to blame them for any ill they encountered, regardless of whether the issue on which they were being held to account was in fact devolved.

From the record-long NHS waits to rock-bottom education standards to sluggish economic development, some form of political contortion would mean any shortcoming from Welsh Labour ministers could be laid at the door of the British Conservative Government.

That excuse obviously still gets deployed, just as Starmer, Reeves, et al use it to navigate their way through their own implementation of bad policy. However, it is wearing thin in Wales after 14 years of declaring that the only thing preventing Welsh Labour success was the lack of the presence of a Labour government in Westminster.

Now that not much has changed with a Starmer government, they have been left exposed.

Aside from the argument that devolution is supposed to bring accountability to Cardiff Bay and empower the Senedd to strike a separate path (which it has done) and a better one at that (which it has not), the Welsh Labour Government is refusing to change its argument – only now, it is Labour itself that is the chosen object of its ire.

Eluned Morgan, First Minister since last summer, has accused Welsh Labour MPs in Parliament of failing to stand up for Wales and doing media rounds stating that she is. She has even been briefing the media ahead of a meeting last week saying she’s going to ask Starmer to “cough up” money. This is in the context of welfare and immigration reforms of the kind that Labour politicians don’t really want from a government bearing its name.

However, making a virtue of accusing one’s own party’s MPs of failing to do the basics and presenting oneself as a de-facto opponent of the national leader of one’s own party is quite the strategy. Even it works in the short-term and stops the bleeding in polling, it is at risk of creating a schism in the Welsh Labour Party.

While the presentation of the contrast between Morgan and Starmer is meant to be on the basis of policy difference – which is normal in a political party – the language being used does not match that. Senedd Labour is trying to take the moral high-ground in contrast to the Parliamentary Labour Party. This will almost certainly have lasting repercussions that will outlast Morgan’s leadership, as the centre seeks to clamp down on the autonomy of the Welsh party.

Despite a terrible record over the years, Labour has retained a near hegemony in Welsh politics, consistently voted in as the largest party, by a decent margin seat-wise, at each devolved election. They did this through “governing from opposition”, taking credit for everything that goes right in the devolved field, but blaming those who aren’t responsible when things go wrong.

This strategy is depressingly still working for the SNP – further highlighting a fault in the devolved system where accountability is not correctly directed and the national government still takes the blame – but it’s not working for Welsh Labour.

After doing a cosy deal with the nationalists, without a referendum, to expand the Senedd’s size from 60 to 96 members – coming into effect at the May 2026 election – they are seeing the polls tighten significantly, being in a three-horse race for the lead with Plaid Cymru and Reform.

The expansion was meant to confirm perpetual Labour-Plaid rule. Mark Drakeford didn’t mind doing this when he was in charge because he was going to stand down at this election anyway; he has evident nationalist leanings; and he wanted to do a spot of nation-building before departing the stage.

Welsh Labour MSs backed it – with little enthusiasm from Welsh Labour MPs who are known to be increasingly disillusioned with devolution itself – because they thought they’d still get to be largest party in this perma-coalition.

Now, they are faced with letting in a substantial Reform contingent – full of people who are hostile to the devocratic elite and their political outlook, even if supportive of devolution itself – and a Plaid Cymru group that may make up closer to half, rather than the imagined third of any potential left-wing coalition. Indeed, Labour may have created a system that lets in a nationalist First Minister belonging to the political cousins of Sinn Fein.

Opponents of devolving powers have consistently highlighted that a lack of accountability in a British nation that is accustomed to a centralised system of government means that devolution yields shameless complacency and strategic rows rather than hard work and positive results. So, does the downturn of Welsh Labour fortunes means the tide is turning in this regard?

I do not think so.

It’s better explained by the Welsh public focussing on parties rather than levels of government. It is why Welsh Conservative fortunes in devolved elections has very closely followed the national trend and Labour have maintained a grip on Wales’ ministries despite its evident underperformance on virtual every conceivable metric that would be important to the public in a general election.

You can see the trend elsewhere with Andy Street losing the West Midlands Mayoralty before the cataclysmic July 2024 election even when he did a good job.

After over a quarter of century of devolution, there hasn’t been much of an evolution in how the public treats governance in this country. Voters still see devolved elections as second-order, akin to local elections or, previously, the polls for the European Parliament – evident in turnout never exceeding 50 per cent in devolved Welsh elections – where votes are cast in accordance with judgment of the national British government. It is not a coincidence that Welsh Labour’s journey in public polling matches the downturn in support for Starmer’s government.

Given all this, it may be best for Morgan – and Anas Sarwar in Scotland – to work with the Prime Minister and defend his policies if they want a better chance next May.

Otherwise, they only serve to prove that they are only good for opposition, even when in government.