Next year, the people of Wales will elect their seventh national parliament. For the first time in a quarter of a century of devolved governance, its implications will be felt way beyond Offa’s Dyke. Westminster should be taking notice of the potentially seismic political developments at play, which look set to smash the established political order and could be a harbinger for the future of politics at a UK level.
To give context for those unfamiliar with Welsh politics, the Senedd (Welsh parliament) resembles the Westminster orthodoxy in many ways, in that the main two parties are Labour and the Conservatives. Plaid Cymru, the Welsh nationalist party, has on occasion shaken matters up, but the best it has ever managed to accomplish is to partner Labour in government. Labour hasn’t lost an election in Wales in over a century (barring the 2019 European election), and since 1999 and the birth of devolution it has always been the dominant party.
The new political system plays into the hands of a one-man operation like Reform
The current 60-member Senedd, for instance, has Labour on 30; the Conservatives form the official opposition with 16 seats; Plaid Cymru holds 12 and the Liberal Democrats and Independents have 1 each. However,
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